The Boston Synagogue

A view from the front of Boston Synagogue with the new Heat Pump

On April 10, 2010, Boston Synagogue was presented with a "Leading By Example" award by Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light in honor of the Synagogue's greentech efforts. The award was presented at MIPL's annual meeting and celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.

At Boston Synagogue, we take seriously our responsibility to further the Jewish concept of 'tikkun olam,' or repairing/perfecting the world.

A few years ago, we began to study what we could do to reduce our carbon footprint and energy consumption.

As a starting point, we joined the Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light consortium (MIPL) -- a group of churches and synagogues that shares best practices on energy conservation. They did an initial evaluation of our situation.

Our basic problem was that we had a beautiful early '70s building with minimal insulation and with a highly energy-inefficient heating and cooling plant. The initial prospects for making a substantive difference were not promising.

However, we refused to give up, and began by making small changes. One initial focus was improved insulation. Since we needed to replace our original membrane roofing anyway, we decided to pay extra to install several inches of additional insulation underneath. More recently, we replaced incandescent floodlights in our hallway that were 'on' 24/7 with fluorescent lighting. The annual savings from the light bulbs was surprising large. We also weatherproofed our doors.

Our biggest move was a complete (and expensive) revamping of our HVAC plant in stages over the past two years. In the summer of 2008, we were forced to make some fundamental HVAC decisions, when our almost-forty year old system completely died. The existing (original) heating system relied on generating steam in a coal buring power station somewhere in Boston, piping the steam across the city, using the steam to heat air in the synagogue basement, and forcing the heated air through ducts in the building until the sanctuary started to warm up. In addition to being highly inefficient and expensive, this system required several hours to heat the space once it was turned on.

An energy system analysis showed that what we really wanted to do was simply to transfer heat from the outside air to the interior space as efficiently as possible (and vice versa during the air conditioning season in summer). After reviewing the alternatives, we decided on an air-source heat pump system with a variable compressor that only worked as hard as needed, and which generated hot/cold air in the sanctuary space within minutes of turn-on. One characteristic of these heat pumps is that they can transfer four to five times as much heat between the exterior and interior of the building, as compared with the equiivalent electrical energy input.

Two years later, we are seeing dollar energy savings of 57% and BTU savings of 70%. We're also seeing a substantial reduction in repair bills. As a result, the estimated payback period is approximately 5 years (not including donations to defray some of the capital costs).

The details of our decisionmaking process can be seen in the MIPL Boston Synagogue Case Study. and is highlighed on the MIPL website (www.mipandl.org).

And we're still not finished! We just replaced our 40 year old commercial refrigerator with a new Energy Star unit. While the payback will be somewhat longer, every little bit counts!