Oil Burner, gas burner, hp questions..

[W4EWH]

Where does one go to buy a new furnace if you don't want to be raped by one's oil co? Yea I can sweat pipe.

Any plumbing supply house will be happy to sell you one. Here are the questions to ask before you buy:

• The boiler can be sized for the whole house, or "by zone".
  
  
  • A large boiler can heat your entire home at the same time, but that means it's larger and has a lot of thermal inertia, so you'll lose money because of the energy required to heat the boiler.
    
    
  • A smaller boiler will be more efficient, since it will remain hot while the controller plays hop-scotch between the heating zones. Of course, it takes longer to heat the house during setback transitions, but you can adjust the controller to heat the sleeping area first, etc.
  
  The trade offs are complex, and you'll need expert advice to make a good decision. The larger boiler can use a simple controller, even if it has zones, but the smaller one will need a much more expernsive computerized controller.
  
  
• Natural Gas? LNG? Oil? You'll need to research cost-per-therm, but there are a lot of intangibles, such as what dealers are available, availability of parts and service, etc.
  
  
• Government grants and subsidies for energy-efficiency. You must apply for these before you buy, so check them out well in advance.
  
  
• Installation cost vs. efficiency. Again, you'll need expert advice.
  
  
  • Hot water has less variance in heat, but must be specially prepared for shutdown if there's a risk of freezing, and requires regular maintenace. If you're in an area with a lot of power outages, you'll want to consider a backup generator: although all modern furnaces require electricity, hot water models will burst if the water freezes. If you  use gravity feed, you'll save on electric cost and pump maintenance, but it needs more installation effort to properly pitch the pipes, and you'll have to get used to wider temperature swings and longer response times.
    
    
  • Heat pumps can only be used in Southern lattitudes, but they are also air conditioners by their nature.
    
    
  • Hot air is easier to install, and can be turned off for long periods, so it's popular for vacation homes. It's also easy to add humidifiers, but it needs air filters that have to be changed regularly, and has a much wider variance in heat. The ducts must be cleaned at least once per year, and sometimes more often, and the systems are also noisier than hot water or electric.
    
    
  • Electric is immune to freezing, but very expensive to operate. It's just a temporary measure, or for occasional use in vacation homes or outbuildings.
    
    
  • Solar is usable only with extremely high startup costs, and payback can be as high as twenty years - assuming fuel costs don't go up.
    
    

Well, you get the idea: do the research and then do some more. Your worst enemy is folklore, your best friend is cold (pun intended), hard facts.

HTH. YMMV.

73, Bill W1AC

[K1ZJH]

Where does one go to buy a new furnace if you don't want to be raped by one's oil co? Yea I can sweat pipe.

If you buy as a homeowner, and DIY, you will most likely lose the manufacturer's warranty.

Be sure and do a heat loss study for the home,  too large a boiler will short cycle and waste energy.
Most boilers installed twenty years ago were grossly oversized for the load.  My 2,000 square foot
ranch in CT could be heated by the smallest oil-fired boiler on the market.

An indirect DHW tank with a cold-fired boiler is much more efficient than a tankless boiler that
must maintain temperature 24/7/365.

Consider going with an outdoor reset controller.  ODR can save a considerable amount of fuel
during the shoulder seasons.  Even the Beckett Heat Manager is guaranteed to save at least
10%.   

If going with gas for hydronic heating, look into the newer mod/con boilers, properly installed
they will deliver up to 97% efficiency (when operating in the condensing mode.)

Pete

[WA1GFZ]

cool you don't need an extra class license to buy a new opec monster.
The guy who cleans my furnace told me the longer it runs the more efficient it is because you don't have to reheat the chimbley. Also said the size of the hole going into the air effects suckage. A friend installed a real efficient one and got moisture coming down the stack so they had to detune it to send more heat up the stack.
little opie will stay put until death as far as I am concerned.

[K1ZJH]

cool you don't need an extra class license to buy a new opec monster.
The guy who cleans my furnace told me the longer it runs the more efficient it is because you don't have to reheat the chimbley. Also said the size of the hole going into the air effects suckage. A friend installed a real efficient one and got moisture coming down the stack so they had to detune it to send more heat up the stack.
little opie will stay put until death as far as I am concerned.

Who ever did that was a hack. Most states require a stainless liner when replacing a boiler with a higher
efficiency one. Removing baffles or "detuning" a boiler to raise the stack temp  is a waste of expensive fuel.
Might as well not clean it and let it soot up! Same wasteful effect.
I wonder what the smoke number or CO levels are at?

Reillo burners have air shutters to reduce heat loss up the flue.

[WA1GFZ]

My Dad just had a mcClain gold installed in his place

[W1RKW]

Oil just broke $100.00 on the futures market.

[W1EUJ]

>An indirect DHW tank with a cold-fired boiler is much more efficient than a tankless boiler that
>must maintain temperature 24/7/365.

What's an indirect DHW with cold-fired boiler?

Dave Goncalves
W1EUJ

[WA1GFZ]

I think I will get an electric baseboard for the living room and drop the rest of the house down fer oil. I have about 400 - 500 gallons in the tanks.  

[W1RKW]

I think I will get an electric baseboard for the living room and drop the rest of the house down fer oil. I have about 400 - 500 gallons in the tanks. 

I think I'll just get electric blankets.

[K1ZJH]

Dave, here is one of many manufacturers who make cold start
boilers:
http://www.qhtinc.com/efficiency.html
Cold start boilers require a good installer. The boiler
return temps much reach 140 degrees within a reasonable
time to limit the amount of condensing that occurs. High
water volume systems may need boiler bypass loops or
thermic valves to protect the boiler.  Besides Biasi, there's
Buderus, Viessmann, Burnham, Solaia and many other
respected manufacters producing them. I'm using a Biasi
with an Amtrol indirect tank; and a Tekmar 260 outdoor
reset controller.

Pete

[W1ATR]

lmao, I love this forum. Last night, Frank was asking how many gallons he should burn. I come home from work, and all of a sudden he's looking to purchase a new one.  If'n it ain't, don't fix it.

>snip from Frank:Where does one go to buy a new furnace if you don't want to be raped by one's oil co? Yea I can sweat pipe.

What the hell, we need love too. I got two boats to pay for.

Pete, those biasi's are pretty nice. Triple pass is where it's at.

I just put in a Burnham megasteam triple pass here at home and the damn thing never runs, I love it. About 2-3 hours a day run time on the hour  meter but we have parrots who like to be warm, so we tend to keep the house a little high. My garage is a 5 section Peerless ECT, (next to go), and my shop is a f'n monster 5 section Peerless LC.(3 240,000bth unit heaters in the garage, and about a 60 feet of sunray bb in the offices.


Bob: Please, take the electric blankets and toss them in the trash. 5 years ago, a good friend of mine had one that shorted while they were sleeping. He got burned real bad on his legs, and the fire blocked the bedroom door so he and his wife had to jump out the second floor window. Everybody got out fine, but the house and all his things were a total loss.

[WA1GFZ]

I was just wondering if I would be stuck buying from Home Depot when that day comes when the guts leak out.
I super insulated this place 20 years ago and sort of foam over the windows at night I'm done. Snow sits on the roof longer than any other house around me.

[W1ATR]

Seriously, no you wouldn't get stuck getting f'kd at home cheapo. If it came down to it, I could take a ride out for a nice cold 807, size it up for ya, and have one dropped in your driveway the next day. As long as you install it right and it passes the sniffer test, I could file the warranty card under my company name as well.

Remember man, we're amer's, we need to have each others back.

[WA1GFZ]

cool! I'll remember that one. TNX I'm sure the XYL would be glad to see you walk out with a part or BA.

[W1ATR]

Get'n them out the door is the easy part. It's getting the new one's back in. But I have a system. I have so much radio junque spread out in different locations, I use the excuse that I'm just moving things around.

I play the "You know I can't talk in this neighborhood. All I can do is work on restoring them for future enjoyment." sympathy card and I get left alone. I got more RFI, TVI, EMI, ADD, ADT, than I can shake a stick at. I couldn't swing a dead cat in this neighborhood without hitting a plasma TV. Been in a battle with cl&p for a couple years over power line noise, (which I can deal with on SSB, but completely deafens the RX on AM.) So I pretty much can bring it all home from valiants to vending machines, and I don't get any flack.

[WA1GFZ]

I've been hear since 1977. I'm at critical mass...at least the opec monster is near the basement door.

[WR2E]

Maybe you guys can help ?   I can't get my oil company to service my system that I installed over the summer, and it's not running quite right.  I'm a good plumber, but don't know too much about how oil burns, and I think that's what's wrong with mine.  I also can't seem to be able to get all the air out of the lines.  Any suggestions ?  Here's a picture of my system, I hope I did this right, cuz I'm not too good at computers either:

[WA1GFZ]

Expansion tank looks a bit low but I don't know nuttin.

[W1ATR]

That's not the boiler that's in your house. (I've seen this one before btw.) Go take another pic with your ham ticket in front of the camera.

You didn't register just to screw with us did you?

[ka3zlr]

I don't know whose boiler that is, but I'll bet gud money it makes sum neat sounds when it fires...heck there's three pumps in that system i see..are they sequential or individual fired...LOL...

[K1ZJH]

That's not the boiler that's in your house. (I've seen this one before btw.) Go take another pic with your ham ticket in front of the camera.

You didn't register just to screw with us did you?

That's a beautiful install!! I love how the circulators were installed with that jaunty tilt!

[WR2E]

Jared's right... I can't do this to you guys... I feel terrible about it 

Please forgive me if you can find it in your hearts to do so.

It's a DIY nightmare is what it is.

What it does do though is illustrate a very good reason why installs should be given to those who know wtf they are doing.  I'm not saying necessarily to the 'so-called' pros... cuz there are certainly a ton of knuckleheaded pros out there, just someone who knows.

It's not as easy as it sounds, cuz there are just so many ppl in this world who proclaim themselves as 'experts' whose work and knowledge is so pitiful as to be almost laughable.

A recent quote from a 'knucklehead' who visited my home to adjust my burner, after setting up the combustion 'by eye'. 

"Arghhhhh, that's a _SHARP_ flame!"

me: "Ohhh, is that good or bad ? "

" Arghhhh, can't get any better than that! "

me: "Aren't you going to check the smoke and CO2 ? "

" Arghhhhh, with a flame like that, WHO NEEDS INSTRUMENTS ? "

There's just so many details that need to be considered when installing a system that a typical DIY'er can't comprehend.  They don't even know what they need to know!  It's not something that you can really learn on your own.  (I'm not saying that you _can't_ learn it on your own, just that it would take YEARS of self-guided study to even get close to that level of comprehension).

Yeah, I'm pullin' yer collective legs... maybe there's a lesson in it though.

[W1ATR]

Unfortunately, there's more of this running around out there than you might think. With the onslaught of misguiding DIY programs on TV and the internet, all of a sudden every Joe Hack weekend warrior thinks they can handle a trade that takes a few years to learn and many years to perfect. Even at that point, a person needs a generous amount of mechanical aptitude to perform the work correctly in the first place.

It's the lack of training and experience, coupled with the inability to judge when something is over your head, that leads to installs like that Buderus job.

Attempting to work outside your understanding has a very dark side also. You will never know if something is going wrong. I've seen water heaters installed in closed up closets with no makeup air. I've seen single wall smokepipe coming from oil fired equipment running thru walls charring the wood. I've seen really reckless and dangerous things like vent-free fireplaces installed in bedrooms!

I tell these people,(as I'm hanging a red tag) that it's OK if your so damn cheap, your willing to risk your own life, but don't risk the lives of your family by attemping to perform a task you have no understanding of. Most people are too arrogant to know the difference most of the time.

To each his own I guess.

Here's some more tasty pics of that Buderus mess along with some colorful comment's from another forum.

http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=156324     

[WA1GFZ]

The best thing to do if you want to go it alone is to become good friends with your building inspector. I have a good one and he has given me great advice. When he sees me trying to do a good job he is very helpful.
They are used to dealing with crooks trying to make a fast buck so I'm sure it is refreshing to them to deal with  someone shooting for high quality.

[K1ZJH]

Hi Jared!

HVAC-Talk!! Now, that is a tough-love crowd

Here's another shot of the infamous Buderus from the HeatingHelp.com
website.

You'll love this one!  At least the firetrol is in a good spot!



Pete