Water-cooled vacuum pumps at UCHealth Memorial North are an essential piece of equipment for patient care, but they had one major problem.
The pumps used 2.43 gallons of water per minute, which is more than 1.2 million gallons of water each year- nearly enough to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools.
While the water-cooled pumps worked as expected, hospital leadership knew replacing them with more efficient oil-cooled models would lead to lower bills and continued savings.
We partnered with hospital staff to install a portable ultra-sonic water meter at the facility to measure water use, which showed the true impact of making this change.
Since the new oil-cooled models use no water, all 1.275 million gallons used each year became water savings.
"While the newer pumps offer operational cost savings, our decision was driven by more than just financial factors," said Mitch Howell, facilities director at UCHealth Pikes Peak Region. "As a major consumer of local utilities, UCHealth is committed to being responsible stewards of our region’s resources. Through our strong partnership with Colorado Springs Utilities, we emphasize conservation, recognizing its critical role in both sustainability and long-term energy efficiency."
Our custom water rebate for commercial customers covered approximately 65% of the cost of the project. When factoring in our rebate and the annual bill savings, it will take about two years to pay off the full project cost.
Water savings by the numbers
- $58,800 qualified rebate
- $17,434 annual bill savings
- 1.3 million gallons of water saved annually
Are you interested in learning more about our business custom water rebates? Call (719) 668–8281 or email sschreier@csu.org for more information.
