Is steam heating or hot water heating better for hotels? What’s the difference between the two?
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Is steam heating or hot water heating better for hotels? What’s the difference between the two? How much is the cost difference?
Of course, hot water heating is better – it’s stable, reliable, and safe.
Steam heating, being a method with high energy consumption and high risks, has been prohibited by relevant regulations; hot water heating must be used instead. The heating temperature for hot water heating can be reduced to as low as 30–40 degrees, and it can reach up to 80–85 degrees; the range of adjustment is quite wide, allowing it to adapt to different weather conditions. It also enables the utilization of excess heat, which is an important aspect of energy conservation. Hot water heating is very energy-efficient. Take, for example, a heating system I installed last year in an office building: the total heated area is 12,000 square meters. It’s a five-story building with a ceiling height of 3.3 meters on each floor (3.6 meters on the ground floor). There is no insulation on either the interior or exterior walls. The building is located on the Shandong Peninsula. Since the start of the heating season, 100 days have passed; heating has been provided for over 12 hours each day. On average, 1.1 tons of coal are consumed per day. The coal used is lump coal from Baotou, priced at 1,000 yuan per ton. Thus, the daily cost of coal amounts to just 1,100 yuan. It is estimated that during one entire heating season, the cost of heating per square meter will be around 20 yuan. The main measure for saving energy is to adjust the water temperature according to the weather conditions, striving to maintain low-temperature water supply. When selecting radiators, it is necessary to use a larger number of them, with a heating power of 110W per square meter, and to include a little extra capacity as well. When heating and the weather is good, we set the lowest return water temperature at 30 degrees, and it is still possible to maintain an indoor temperature of 18 degrees. Of course, energy savings are also achieved through the use of highly efficient coal-fired boilers; we have chosen gasification burners with a fully enclosed design and a secondary combustion mechanism. I won’t mention the specific brand to avoid any appearance of advertising. For hotels and guesthouses, the energy-saving benefits are more significant due to their excellent insulation properties. However, most of the hotels I’ve seen use central air conditioning, and it is relatively energy-efficient when occupancy rates are high. However, the heating costs are still higher than those of coal-fired hot water boilers that use primary energy.
It’s still better to use plumbing for heating; with steam heating, it’s difficult to control the temperature. A hotel is a place where people stay, and if the temperature is too high, guests will feel thirsty when they wake up the next day. Over time, there will be no more guests, and the hotel will fail； Furthermore, from an investment perspective, when opening a hotel with the aim of making a profit, hot water can be used for heating; the water temperature can be as high as 65–75°C before it is distributed, while the temperature of the water returning back should remain above 45°C. In total, this approach allows for the saving of N tons of coal, which translates to significant cost savings! Saving money is essentially making a profit! Furthermore, if the steam heating system causes moisture to penetrate and tear apart the bends in the pipes, and there is pressure involved, then in case a wire gets short-circuited or guests get injured, the owner will have a lot on their plate. . .
Hot water heating is great; it’s stable and comfortable. Steam heating is difficult to control and produces a lot of noise.
This post was last edited by luodanwsk on March 9, 2011, at 08:46. For steam heating, you need to purchase a boiler, which isn’t very safe. Using hot water is much better instead. In larger hotels, screw-type chillers are used as refrigeration units; in such cases, implementing a hot water recovery system and connecting several hot water units in parallel would be quite cost-effective. For smaller hotels, it’s simpler and more convenient to just buy several hot water units.
Hot water heating is simple and easy to implement, while steam heating requires higher standards.