Photo courtesy of Propane Education & Research Council

While breakdowns in the hot water system once plagued Ruby’s Inn near Bryce Canyon in Utah, a tankless hot water system retrofit solved the problem.

A steady flow of hot water is like good health; you don't appreciate it until it's gone. Hot water is critically needed in commercial operations, where its absence can mean the difference between making a profit or not, keeping the doors open or closing up shop. How can a hotel, restaurant, fitness center, hospital, care center, school, or other facilities stay open without hot water? They can't. Still, threats to a steady supply of hot water plague establishments daily: aging storage tank systems, overloaded systems, broken systems, and more.

Considering the critical need for hot water in commercial operations, architects, designers, specifiers, and property managers should understand what can go wrong when the flow of hot water lessens or stops, and the potential for natural gas or propane tankless water heaters—which also save energy, money, and space—to solve the problem.

THE PROBLEM: LACK OF HOT WATER = DISGRUNTLED CUSTOMERS

Consider this situation at a historic, sprawling establishment in Utah. When up to six tour busses simultaneously roll up to the iconic Ruby's Inn complex on the edge of Bryce Canyon National Park, the travelers tumbling out of the busses usually want one thing above all: a hot shower. Upon arrival, the visitors would not be aware of the strain that dozens of concurrent showers put on the tanks of a conventional hot water system. The visitors would not know about the tons of laundry done by the staff every day. They wouldn’t realize that Ruby's Inn is 25 miles from the nearest natural gas line. The customers have likely been on a bus for hours. They simply want hot showers when they arrive. But if the massive complex with hundreds of hotel rooms and an RV park fails to deliver the required hot water, bad reviews and refund requests are sure to follow.

That is where the business found itself several years ago with a faulty and failing storage tank hot water system. The inn was founded in 1916, long before Bryce Canyon was a national park. Over the decades, the inn expanded and rebuilt to its current size of more than 700 hotel rooms and other amenities. That equals a massive demand for hot water and colossal repercussions when that hot water supply fails. The inn operators searched for a solution that would provide a more effective water heating system.

"Our goal was a reduction in the discounts we had to give," said Ron Harris, part of the management team at Ruby's Inn. "We had to completely refund a room and sometimes an entire building block because guests took a cold shower in the morning. We looked at about $60,000 a year in discounts and refunds." And with the refunds came less-than-favorable reviews. "Couldn't get water to a comfortable temperature," or "The water was barely warm," said reviewers on Trip Advisor in 2011.

Photo courtesy of Propane Education & Research Council

An array of tankless water heaters at Ruby’s Inn saves energy and space and provides reliability to keep the establishment running smoothly.

The Solution: Propane Tankless Water Heating Retrofit

All those complaints stopped a few years ago when Ruby's Inn underwent a retrofit of its hot water delivery system. The solution ultimately included 175 new propane tankless water heaters with 35 tankless rack systems and four hybrid commercial water heating systems. With the more efficient tankless units in place, the resort has had no issues with hot-water supply or customer complaints, freeing staff time and money for other efforts at the resort. And perhaps just as importantly, Ruby's Inn saves about $6,000 per month on propane alone.

The online reviews of Ruby's Inn have certainly brightened in tone. "There was plenty of hot water," stated a reviewer on TripAdvisor in 2024, and "The water pressure in the shower was unbelievable and so hot that you hated to get out!" wrote another satisfied guest in 2023.

THE HISTORY OF HOT WATER

Hot water provides thermal comfort, a means of cooking, and cleanliness. To get these benefits, some ancient humans settled near hot springs, which naturally created and stored hot water. When Homo erectus learned to harness the power of fire around 1 million years ago, they heated water using skins on a stone-lined fire pit. Indigenous Americans heated stones in a fire pit and then transferred them to a container of water.

In ancient Greece, circa 5th century B.C., Homer and other Greek writers told us the Greeks, for whom athleticism was paramount, favored a variety of public baths for health and relaxation. During the Roman Empire, starting around the 1st Century BC, the Romans expanded the concept of public baths. According to historical studies, Roman baths were open to all citizens and allowed them to relax, mingle, and gossip, with separate baths for women and men. The baths consisted of heated rooms and pools, many sited to harness the sun's heat. Some systems, called hypocausts, employed water heated in fiery wood-burning furnaces beneath the raised floors of the baths. The resulting steam rose through chambers beneath the floors. Tiles and decorative mosaics lined the floors.

Public baths in the style of the Greeks and Romans did not catch on in the United States, partly because of taboos toward public nudity. Early American bathing focused on the "Saturday bath," a tin tub drawn into the kitchen and filled with water heated on the stove where family members took turns getting clean, presumably in preparation for Sunday church.

Invention of Tank-Style Gas Water Heater

In 1889, a Norwegian immigrant in Philadelphia named Edwin Ruud invented the first automatic tank-style gas water heater. Advertisements at the time touted that water heating was no longer tied to the kitchen stove but was done in the basement, and you didn't even have to light a match. It was called a "mechanical masterpiece." After that, heating and storing large amounts of water in tanks until it was needed became the norm. The sound of a water heater firing off and on during all hours to keep the water within 10 percent of the thermostat setting until needed became a familiar scenario and a virtually non-stop consumption of natural gas, propane, or electricity.

However, while large hot water tanks in home basements improved domestic life, the same strategy to heat and store massive amounts of water for commercial operations has become problematic regarding reliability, energy efficiency, and space required.

THREATS TO HOT WATER IN COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS

Try for a moment to imagine any of the following establishments operating without a steady flow of heated water:

• Hotels, resorts, and spas
• Restaurants and bars
• Commercial kitchens
• Retail restrooms
• Schools and dormitories
• Fitness centers
• Laundromats
• Long-term care facilities
• Hospitals and clinics
• Industrial facilities

Without this vital feature, these establishments would be unable to function. So, what causes problems with the critical delivery of hot water when it's needed? Most often, problems stem from issues with the old-style storage tank systems.