Going green for big bucks
Wood pellet boiler expected to save Mackenzie Rest Inn 50 to 60 per cent off propane
Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, December 5, 2013
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
A Fort Simpson inn is going green with the push of a button.
The way Mackenzie Rest Inn is heated was changed on Nov. 28. The button fired, for the first time, a wood pellet boiler that will now provide all of the building's heating and hot water needs.
The inn wanted to convert to a wood pellet system to reduce the cost of heating and to become more environmentally friendly, said Reg Bellefontaine, the business’s manager.
"We want to move towards the green side of things," he said.
Reducing costs
Heating has been one of the biggest expenses for the inn, which has been open for three and a half years.
To heat the 447 square meter (4,811 square feet) building, Bellefontaine was using 11,740 liters of propane annualy at an average cost of $8,336 a year.
The new boiler is expected to reduce heating costs 50 to 60 per cent. Bellefontaine is expecting to save as much as $5,000 a year by moving from propane to wood pellets.
Bellefontaine said he was sold on the idea of converting by Norm Prevost, who explained the benefits of the boiler he had in mind for the inn.
Prevost, the owner of Prevost Electric Ltd., spent seven days installing the boiler made by Maine Energy Systems (MESys).
He is also very enthusiastic about the units that the company made.
"They are very efficient," he said.
Efficient and easy to use
In addition to being efficient, the boiler requires almost no maintenance.
"There's nothing to touch ever, it does everything on its own," Prevost said.
Most wood pellet boilers have to be filled manually every three or four days. The MESys unit sucks pellets directly out of a storage tank. Prevost installed a 3.2 tonne storage tank, along with the boiler in a car garage attached to the inn.
The boiler also self-cleans four times a day. The ashes go into a canister that only has to be emptied every two or three months, he said.
Although this is the first MESys unit he has installed in the village, Prevost expects that there will soon be a demand for them.
"Once people start realizing how much money they can save," he said.
By using different units the boilers can heat anything from a residence, to a business to a recreation centre, said Prevost.
Converting from propane to the wood pellet system cost the inn approximately $42,000, including the installation of a new 80-gallon hot water tank that the boiler heats. The inn received $12,840 to help offset the cost from the Department of Environment and Natural Resource's Alternative Energy Technologies Program's Medium Renewable Energy Fund.
As part of the process of making the switch, the inn had a yardstick audit conducted by the Arctic Energy Alliance. The audit showed the inn's energy costs, how much could be saved by switching and other areas were the inn could make changes to become more energy efficient, Bellefontaine said.
More changes in future
Mackenzie Rest Inn is planning to do more than just use wood pellets in its goal to go green. Bellefontaine is looking at purchasing a solar hot water array that would heat water for the building in the sunnier months. The new hot water tank can run off both the boiler and solar.
Bellefontaine is willing to show the inn's new wood pellet boiler system to anyone who is interested and arranges a time for a tour.
