Building Operating Management

BackBack

How to Rent a Boiler

As any facility manager working with boilers knows, it is one of the more expensive HVAC system projects at institutional and commercial facilities. 

When you include all the components associated with boilers, the labor required to install and operate them and delivery costs, boiler projects can often escalate into millions of dollars. Those costs can soar even higher if an emergency requires replacing or temporarily replacing a boiler, resulting in the need to rent one. 

At the Boiler 2024 trade show hosted by the American Boiler Manufacturers Association in Denver, Colorado, Michael Pfeiler of Wabash Power Equipment Co., presented an education session on the specifics of renting boilers.  

Pfeiler’s reasons why a facility might need to rent a boiler include: 

What do I need? 

The manager or person in charge of specifying and/or a rental boiler should understand all the boiler components required for operation

Components that need to be part of the rental include: 

Knowing what type of boiler fits a facility’s needs also saves rental companies time evaluating and questioning managers about needs, whether it’s a firetube, watertube, electric, low NoX, etc. 

Installation/operation tips 

Like new installations, boiler rentals are not cheap. Renting boilers and the additional required components could cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to tens of thousands a month, according to Rassmussen Mechanical Services, a supplier of rental boilers. 

Pfeiler says the three most important aspects of boiler renting for clients: 

Adhering to these concepts can help managers keep rental costs at a minimum. Some factors managers need to consider when renting include: 

Boiler technology today allows rental companies to install remote operator workstations on their systems, potentially saving the customer thousands of dollars in having to adapt their operations to the temporary boiler solution. 

As Pfeiler said in his presentation, “a boiler is a big pile of money.” If facility managers have an emergency plan in place for if/when the time arrives to rent, the process can go smoothly and reduce costs in the process. 

“All of the questions that the rental boiler company are going to ask will pull all this information out,” Pfeiler says. “It’s all these little pieces and parts that need to come together to make a successful rental project.” 

Dave Lubach is the executive editor of the facilities market. He has more than nine years of experience writing about facility management and maintenance issues.