It isn’t always easy to sell the idea of preventive maintenance to folks who have to answer to budgets and ROI. John Heise, housing special projects manager for the University of Nebraska Lincoln, however, is a firm believer in preventive maintenance. To Heise, it’s all about opportunity. “The motivation is simple,” he explains. “If you don’t let your system get dirty, you don’t have to clean it. Installing Spirotherm (products) is an example of one of the steps being taken to seize the opportunity.”

The Lincoln campus of the University of Nebraska (UNL) was founded in 1869 and has a current enrollment of approximately 22,000 students. The housing buildings range in age from almost 80 years old to new, and all have varying HVAC systems. Renovations are underway to update the aging heating and cooling systems in each of the older buildings on the housing side, and Heise’s preventive maintenance philosophy assures the residents’ comfort with the installation of Spirovent® combination air/dirt separator

The relationship started when Heise purchased a couple of small boilers for one of the University Park Apartment buildings. They had always had air problems in the building, so Dallas Pearson (of B.G. Peterson, Omaha, NE) suggested they install a Spirovent air separator as well. Within two days of installation, the system had begun to quiet down, and by the end of the week they couldn’t locate any air in the system at all. Before the Spirovent was installed, they had always dreaded draining that particular hydronic system for maintenance because of the weeks of bleeding they knew they faced. “When it comes to operation and performance, it’s comforting to know that you can just bolt it up and forget it,” says Heise of the Spirovent.

The Spirovent combination air and dirt separator (made by Spirotherm, Inc., Glendale Heights, IL), employs the patented Spirotube® coalescing/barrier medium to scrub air and dirt from hot and chilled water systems, allowing it to break free of the flow path. The air is released from the top of the unit via a patented air release mechanism, while the dirt falls to the bottom where it can be blown down through a manual or automatic blow down valve.

Nebraska Union VHT Combination air/dirt HV separator.

Heise wasn’t the only one on campus who was impressed with the Spirovent. Jim DeCamp, Lead Plumber for Building Systems Maintenance, saw a demonstration of the Spirovent nearly ten years ago and convinced the Architecture and Engineering people to specify Spirovents on all new projects involving hydronic systems, while he made sure that Spirovents were installed on the facilities retrofit jobs.

DeCamp recalls that the Nebraska Union student center was having a terrible problem with dirt accumulating in the heating hot water system. This particular system switches between heating and cooling with the chilled water being supplied from the university’s central utility plant. Because the system is not a permanently closed loop within the building, the center is supplied with dirty water in the cooling mode. When the system switches, the chilled water is heated and dirt would precipitate out of the water and deposit in the coils, strainers and associated piping. As a result, the facilities maintenance team was constantly flushing coils and cleaning strainers. They even had to replace a large section of pipe because it was too badly plugged to be flushed clean.

The existing air separator was removed and replaced with a Spirovent combination air/dirt separator. Steve Waltman, lead building service tech, was amazed at the large amount of sludge that poured out of the drain the first time the Spirovent unit was blown down. Now, coils and piping are no longer getting plugged. Says Waltman, “The Spirotherm has definitely done the job they said it would do.”

Both Heise and DeCamp agree that increased performance and decreased maintenance calls add up to significant savings for the university, and Spirotherm has been an integral part of those savings. DeCamp says, “We immediately noticed that we had almost no service calls for lack of flow due to air-locked piping where the new devices were installed.” Heise adds, “Without exception, we have realized significant performance improvement in our systems where Spirovent units have been installed.”

Spirovent combination air/dirt separators are available in sizes to 36” to handle up to 30,500 gpm and offer the total solution for eliminating air and separating dirt in all types of applications.

Spirotherm can be contacted at 25 N. Brandon Dr., Glendale Heights, IL 60139-2024, 630-307-2662, fax 630-307-3773, info@spirotherm.com, www.spirotherm.com.