Trillium Brewing Co., Boston
RETROFIT TEAM
PLUMBING CONTRACTOR: EH Marchant Co.
MECHANICAL ENGINEER: BLW Engineers
MANUFACTURER’S REPRESENTATIVE: David Gooding Inc.
MATERIALS
Trillium Brewing has two distinct areas at its Fort Point-neighborhood location related to hot water. “The restaurant and the brewery each have a standalone, instantaneous hot-water plant providing different supply temperatures,” explains Michael Petrilli, president of EH Marchant. “Efficiency is of some importance on a job like this but it takes a back seat to the need for redundancy, satisfying peak demand and constant circulation.”
EH Marchant worked with BLW Engineers to design the hot-water systems around Navien’s NPE-240S condensing tankless water heaters. The two systems are nearly identical. Each includes five 199,900-Btu-per-hour gas-fired Navien tankless units with a 10:1 turndown. The system dedicated to the brewery provides 160 F water for vat cleaning, floor washdown, etc. The restaurant system supplies 140 F water for sinks and commercial dishwashers.
“We’ve standardized on cascaded tankless systems for restaurant applications for their redundancy,” Petrilli says. “The fact that the systems are wall-mounted is a big advantage too from a space and sanitation perspective. We’ve had very good experiences with the Navien NPE line. Reliability, price point, and the support and training we get from the local rep are all big factors. Stainless-steel heat exchangers and 97 percent efficiency aren’t hard to sell either.”
The Fort Point building that houses Trillium Brewing is one of many warehouse-type structures in the old Boston Waterfront district. “Most are brick and built in the 1800s, so the option to common vent these systems is a big advantage,” Petrilli adds. “One of our systems here is sidewall vented and the other penetrates the roof. We’d have preferred to vent both through the roof, but a large part of Trillium’s roof space is occupied by a deck.”
The units are piped in parallel to a 2-inch manifold and eventually a 1-inch recirculation line. Navien’s cascade kit is used so the system is only firing at the needed input and there is always plenty of capacity available when peak demand occurs.
The brewery is equipped with washdown hoses, allowing brewers to spray down equipment and floors throughout the day. Water use is especially high when fermentation vessels are cleaned out, which occurs two or three times a week. The brewery can require as much as 30 gallons per minute. In the restaurant, demand for hot water is lower and steadier, never exceeding 20 gpm.
TANKLESS WATER HEATER MANUFACTURER: Navien
THE RETROFIT
The 10-barrel system at Trillium Brewing’s Fort Point location isn’t Trillium’s largest production facility. Rather, it’s a pilot system comprised of stainless-steel fermentation tanks and oak foeders for testing new recipes and ingredients. It also brews much of the beer for the location’s gourmet restaurant that can seat 490 patrons when the roof deck and patio are open.
PHOTOS: Navien