The efficient use of heat and energy at church

It's Tuesday morning and I am checking in after the Columbus Day holiday. A cold spell is expected so I moved the large screen television out of the sanctuary and brought it into the parlor. During the winter months we let the heat drop down to 45 degrees in the sanctuary in order to save on heating costs. We turn it up on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. It typically costs about $200 a week to heat up the sanctuary for those two services.

We set the heat to come up to 66 degrees in the chapel and office areas on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings when we have office hours. We've got to keep Sandy Stone happy. She does a great job in the office and typing gets pretty hard when you can't feel your fingers. The thermostat is set at 55 degrees the rest of the time. The heat in Fellowship Hall is set to come up to 66 degrees on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings to accommodate regular meetings here on those nights. The thermostats are pretty easy to set so when we have other meetings and events we can always bump the heat up temporarily. Programming the thermostats works well in our efforts to conserve energy and keep the costs down.

The idea is that we have what we need when we need it and try not to waste anything. This way we can make sure we are acting as good stewards of the gifts you give us. That is one of the reasons why we are looking into a new heating system at church. The boiler for the sanctuary is about fifty years old and not nearly as efficient as the new boilers. It could run for a while but we are using far more oil than we could be. You can suck it up at $2.00 a gallon but when it reaches $4.00 a gallon as it did last spring and summer, you really get hit hard.

The smaller furnace heats the rest of the building and it is 30 years old and limping along. This one needs our attention. Our plan is to replace both furnaces if we can afford to do so. We had hoped to work with Norwich Tech and their students. It seemed like a win -win project. We'd save on some of the labor costs and the students would be free to have at it and design and install the new systems. Everyone was excited from our Trustees to the supervisors and kids at the school. Then someone in the Central office rejected the proposal. They didn't give a reason but we feel it is because we are a church. The instructors were saying they do this kind of installation all the time. He couldn't believe it. It is a shame.

Ray Deptulski is looking into our options and we will hear more in the coming weeks.

Cal