W Hotel Washington, DC

The W Washington, D.C. is a historic hotel located at 515 15th Street, NW within view of the White House. It opened in 1917 as the Hotel Washington and is operated by Marriott Bonvoy. The hotel was renovated in 2008.

Scale buildup on the copper coils caused a loss of efficiency in the hotel’s 4 dynamic water heating unit systems. This necessitated annual expenditures of approximately $7,200 - inclusive of labor and chemical treatment costs. In addition, management of these issues required time and attention from hotel engineering staff, which could otherwise be spent on other critical items. This test was conducted to ascertain whether IOREX-conditioned water would prevent scale buildup on the copper coils of the hot water loop.

LOCATION: Washington, DC 20004

DEVICE: The IOR-80 was installed on December 24, 2019 on the 3”- diameter domestic hot water loop

TIME FRAME OF PILOT: December 24, 2019 – December 3, 2020

TEST CONDUCTED BY: Engineering staff at the hotel, using the Myron L Company’s Ultrameter II

Prior to acid rinse cleaning

Prior to acid rinse cleaning

OCTOBER 29, 2020
Prior to rinsing with just water

OCTOBER 29, 2020
After being rinsed with just water

ph levels

IOREX tends to move water towards neutral and maintain pH within the acceptable 6.5 to 8.5 range, which is what occurred based on the three post-installation tests conducted. While there were variations in pH after the installation, the levels stay within range at each location and for each test.

TDS Variations

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in source water fluctuates constantly as the chart underscores. IOREX does not remove minerals (like calcium, magnesium, and manganese), but prevents them from binding to form scale. As this chart shows, TDS did fluctuate and, in fact, increased as a result of source water variability. Nevertheless, IOREX prevented the TDS from forming into scale and maintained a consistent pH (as shown above) in spite of source water variability.

The unit of measure for TDS is mg/L.

The test period of 287 days conclusively demonstrated that the installation of the IOREX device in the dynamic water heater system resulted in reduced costs for maintenance and chemical treatments. 

*The IOREX device has a minimum useful life of 25 years.
**  This does not include the cost of system and pipe replacement due to degradation.