Boiler upgrades receive high marks at Cornell College
‘We wanted boilers that were user-friendly so we could train our team how to use them—plus a heating system that could be monitored and controlled remotely.’
A failing steam heating system posed many issues and challenges for facility services at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Cornell College was founded in 1853 by George Bryant Bowman, a minister from North Carolina with a passionate belief in higher education. The campus has a rich history with some of the original buildings on campus dating back to the 1860s. The entire campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Installed in the late 1800s, the original Cornell College heating system consisted of a steam central plant that supplied all of the buildings on the university grounds with steam heat. Originally using coal, the school’s boiler plant was converted to gas in the 1960s. Three 350-hp gas-powered steam boilers handled heat for the entire campus.