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GA Fleet
Case Studies

School District Boiler Retrofit



For this performance contract retrofit project, GA Fleet helped a Long Island, NY school district update 11 schools with 41 AERCO boilers.

AERCO boilers provide heat during 95% of the heating season. Peak load is augmented with cast-iron dual-fuel boilers. An energy management system controls boiler firing rate for maximum system efficiency. Hot water temperatures are reset from 180 to 100 degrees for maximum efficiency; hot water pumps operate on VFDs to vary flow in response to changes in building load. AERCO boilers operate properly without primary pumps, isolation valves, or other flow.

Project Update: 2006
Since the original contract work was completed in 1997, the school district has built a 200,000 sq ft middle school and a 350,000 sq ft high school. In both of these schools the newer, larger AERCO BMK-2.0 boilers were specified by the school district, and are used year round for both heat and domestic hot water.


Beyond the high efficiency provided by the AERCO boilers, the school district takes advantage of an Interruptible Gas rate, further reducing their fuel costs. In this case the alternate fuel is Propane-Air, an all-gas alternate fuel solution that allows the use of high efficiency gas-fired equipment, rather than lower efficiency oil-fired equipment. The propane air system consists of a buried propane tank, with a vaporizer mixer (shown) and fully automatic controls and safety features.


The propane air system was supplied by GA Fleet and is fully integrated into the district's EMS system.