Overlooking Venice’s famous Grand Canal, the Hotel Principe combines the beauty of historic Venice with the modern conveniences of a luxury four-star hotel. To ensure hot and cold water throughout the hotel 24 hours a day, Xylem was contracted to provide a pumping system that included a Lowara GHV booster set.
The hotel has 143 guest bedrooms over five stories, as well as two restaurants. The building itself, however, was not originally designed to be a hotel. The Hotel Principe’s maintenance team is therefore under constant pressure to ensure the building’s plumbing system continues to run seamlessly behind the scenes.
“Given the historic nature of many of Venice’s buildings, including the Hotel Principe, it is vitally important to ensure water systems meet the highest standards,” says Roberto Chimellato, Maintenance Manager at the Hotel Principe. “As a luxury hotel we have to ensure our guests have readily available access to hot and cold water at any time of the day.”
As part of a building-wide renovation program, the Hotel’s parent company, Gardena Hotels, contacted Xylem for a pumping system tailored to the building’s unique design and user requirements.
“We decided to approach Xylem as they are well known within the industry for offering cost-effective solutions, while helping to drive down overall energy bills,” says Roberto Chimellato.
Reaching the hotels highest rooms
In order to meet the demands of pumping hot and cold water to all corners of the hotel 24 hours a day, Xylem recommended the installation of one of its GHV booster sets. The Lowara GHV booster set includes two variable speed pumps that can deliver water at a rate of up to 640m³/h, with a head of up to 160m at up to 22kW, at a maximum operating pressure of 16 bar.
Each variable speed pump is controlled by a Lowara Hydrovar variable speed pump controller. The Hydrovar controllers allowed the hotel’s maintenance team to increase the pressure from 3.50 bar – the rate at which water is supplied from the municipal water company, to 3.92 – the rate required to reach the hotel’s highest rooms.
Increased efficiency and less energy
The smart design of Xylem’s Hydrovar control system means that the speed can be varied to match demand, so that it only pumps at higher pressures when needed. This keeps the hotel’s energy consumption, and therefore its energy bills, to a minimum.
“Since their installation, our Lowara GHV booster set and Lowara Hydrovar control system have enabled us to reliably pump water to all of the hotel’s rooms – something which was previously difficult to achieve given the pressure of the city’s municipal water supply to commercial buildings,” says Roberto Chimellato.
“What’s more, we have noticed our energy bills decrease as well, as our pump controller is only operating at high pressures when needed. Put simply, the installation of our Xylem products has significantly improved the overall efficiency of the hotel’s pumping system.”