Ideas for reducing utility costs?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dan Richesn on August 21, 2008 at 10:57am

Jeff,
I am with a kitchen ventilation manufacturer. One of the largest sectors of your utility bill is the heating and cooling of your facility. The fact that the kitchen exhaust hood system draws that heated and cooled air out of the building adds to the pain.
We offer the most efficient exhaust systems available; including a recently improved control system that reduces the amount of air exhausted from the kitchen whenever the cooking equipment under a hood is not going full tilt.

Let me know if I can provide you more info.

DanR

Permalink Reply by Tony Martinez on August 23, 2008 at 7:04am

What type of operation are you running? There are many new energy saving pieces of equipment that you can aqquire to help. Properly trained staff can help as well. Turning lights off in dry storage, fewer trips in and out of the walk in, running full loads through the dish washer, closing off sections of the restaurant during slower periods...

Many times, if you take a step back from the operation and really focus in on some of the smaller aspects, you'll find a ton of ways to save!

Permalink Reply by Mary Jo Beniger on February 24, 2009 at 11:51am

I have reduced my water bill by half through the installation of on demand hot water heater. The water heater has also saved on our natural gas consumption, and I am just in the process of putting those figures together.

I am looking for light emitting diode bulbs to help reduce my electric bill.

The other item I am hoping to add is a wind turbine. This is quite involved requiring wind speed schedules, city permits - at this time there are NONE, and grant funding.

Permalink Reply by Steve Szalinski on March 13, 2009 at 9:45am

Hi Jeff, I don't know what state you are in but I contacted FP/L (Florida power and light) which is our utility company. They did an in depth study on each of my restaurants for free. They wrote up a detailed comprehensive action plan that was quite revealing.
My biggest problem was the hoods had way too much pull and were sucking the a/c right out the top. Air balancing saved us a ton of money . We also invested 300 bucks in an air curtain for the back doors. (this also helped the fly problem)
I would imagine this service is available in other states as well.

Permalink Reply by Dan Richesn on March 13, 2009 at 10:01am

Steve,
You are right, the exhaust hoods can be one of the biggest energy wasters in a restaurant if not designed and set up correctly. Our test and balance technician finds this all the time. Hoods that exhaust to much pull out extra conditioned air, and can put the store into a "negative balance"; making doors hard to open, and bring in insects. Hoods not exhausting enough or designed incorrectly can leak cooking fumes and heat into the kitchen, adding to the load that the air conditioning has to handle.
Every commercial kitchen exhaust system should have a test and balance done after the equipment is installed.

Permalink Reply by Bill Aruscavage on March 30, 2009 at 6:29pm

Have your kitchen staff turn the equipment on in inkerments and not all at once to spike your utilities.

Permalink Reply by Paul Kuck on March 31, 2009 at 9:25am

I would look at all your practices before installing any sort of technology. All the others have mentioned a lot of good things. Are lights being left on, do you have bad refrigeration gaskets, do you have a energy checklist with start-up / shut-down times, are you defrosting meats with running water, are you using low-flow aerators? You will save a lot more by changing some simple business practices rather than teching your way out of large energy bills Even if you do go with the management system (which are cool) you'll need to change some practices because it won't work right if your staff isn't using it correctly or overriding the settings.

Permalink Reply by David King on April 2, 2009 at 6:35pm

Look not only at your hood, but how and when and at what rate it operates. I'm working on getting variable frequency drive motors spec'd and installed for my kitchen. This is part of a system that spins the hood exhaust fans only as fast as needed for the amount of exhaust. If your stoves, fryers, etc are at idle the fans spin at the lowest possible rate. As the exhaust needs ramp up so do the fans. This system ties into your make-up air so that they move in tandem, moving only the needed air.

Other than that, the advice to ask your local electricity supplier to do an energy audit. Some thing you can do yourself or reasonably inexpensively with an electrician. (Be sure to get multiple bids) I've knocked over 20% off my electric bill since 2001 by replacing old magnetic ballasts and T40 fluorescent tubes with newer electronic ballasts and T8 bulbs and incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.

I'd be happy to share supplier info with you if you would like.

Permalink Reply by Think Tank HG on January 21, 2011 at 6:37pm

I was recently reading about a system the sucks up all the heat that comes off the kitchen equipment and recirculates it throughout the building.

 

Another is radiant heated flooring, solar water heaters, and take a little extra care in designing windows that during the day let in as much natural light as possible it will help your electricity and heating.

 

Really the most efficient way to keep costs in line is to design your space like a tool that makes you money. Don't buy the stove that will do the trick until x amount of time, build your space to perform at optimum levels and the rewards will be two fold.