Tankless water heaters help new laundromat owner enjoy energy savings.
Why would a 20-year plumbing industry veteran with a thriving business that already absorbs nearly all his waking hours suddenly decide to try his hand at running a laundromat?
“I’m just not comfortable having all my eggs in one basket,” explains J.R. Nunez, owner of Imperial Highway Plumbing, Heating & Air in Brea, Calif., and Lambert Laundry in nearby Whittier. “When the economy began to slow a couple of years ago, I began exploring new ventures. I had worked on a few laundromat renovations over the years, so I figured now might be a good time to own one myself.”
Thus, in May 2011 Nunez became the proud owner of what he describes as the “worst-looking laundromat in town.” His first move was to shutter the place for 90 days and commence extensive renovations.
Now, you might expect one of the first projects Nunez would tackle would be to upgrade the facility’s aging, low-performing hot-water system: a decades-old, 480,000 Btu/hr. boiler and a 275-gal. storage tank that fed Lambert Laundry’s 31 commercial-grade clothes washers. Made in the early 1980s by Ace Buehler, the boiler had a thermal efficiency rating of 70%, but it was part of a terribly inefficient domestic hot water system that routinely dumped substantial amounts of heat into the cold-water supply.