Best Of
Re: 1972 HB Smith OHB13W-7T 7 Section Combustion Chamber Replacement
Your as low as you should go with the stack temp. 325 net is it.
The general rule of thumb is around 100 deg over water temp.
You may get flue gas condensation if you go lower.
Re: Circulators with IFC internal flow checks, some discovery.
If someone was getting ghost flow, the ifc failing would be one of the last things I would think of but apparently it should be the first.
mattmia2
Re: System 2000, nearly double the cost of Weil McLain, is it worth it?
Thank you all, this thread has been incredibly helpful and I don't want to start an argument! :-)
I'm going to get additional estimates for both options (@Roger I will get in touch with you for a referral), and I like everything I'm hearing about the EK. Given the state of the house though, and a limited budget, it sounds like it might make more sense to save money on the boiler and make the biggest possible investment in the insulation / airflow improvements. But I'll need to really work the numbers and then decide.
riny
Re: System 2000, nearly double the cost of Weil McLain, is it worth it?
@Roger that involves someone staying in one place for 20 years just to break even vs putting the same after tax money into another tax advantaged investment (401k, IRA, etc) without that restriction. The duration is 1 hang up, 2 is future weather and 3 is future fuel prices.
Ha I think it’s a funny part of our modern age that all sort of purchases now become “investments”. Haircuts, shiny fridges, boilers, etc. Why can’t we just buy things?
Re: The "equalizer" is mis-named. It does nothing to equalize anything.
Use 45s to get your lateral spacing. Drains better.
Re: System 2000, nearly double the cost of Weil McLain, is it worth it?
@Hot_water_fan, please take a look at the study. New boilers are included. As a quick reference point, the 87.5 AFUE low mass with thermal purge actually had a higher annual efficiency than the 95 AFUE modulating condensing boiler. I like your choice of words, many dealers comment that System 2000 "sips" fuel in comparison to others that are "thirsty,"
Another advantage of low idle loss boilers (low mass and thermal purge) is that there is virtually no oversizing penalty, so weatherizing after installing still can have good benefits and the boiler will still run at nearly the same annual efficiency.
Roger
Roger
Re: Packing Heat
From another arena, renowned quantitative trader & mathematician Ed Thorp on the subject of Technical Analysis:
You can’t prove a negative. I can’t prove it doesn’t work. All I can say is that I did not see enough substance there to pursue it. I didn’t want to take time to try things unless I thought they were pretty good.
Love that framing.
BTUser
Re: Observations on my old, rotted out wet return.
I noticed that most of the best professionals were using copper, so I decided to follow their example, and now that I've seen the difference it makes, I'm a convert. To be clear: the underwater portion of the return is the only place where copper should be used.
Re: Packing Heat
How cold does it get in the summer where you are?
The key to heat flow is temperature difference. To cool the crawl space down to 60F it would have to be even colder outside. If that's the norm for summer weather where you are it would seem that just opening the windows in the evening and closing them in the morning would keep the house cool.
Re: Packing Heat
@BTUser Don't take my word for it, I'm just a random dude on the internet.
You have to sit down and do the same math @DCContrarian did, figure out building loads, size solar collector/storage and heating system. I doubt you will come to a different conclusion once you look at BOM cost, never mind installed costs.
There is simply no way around the fact the PV is cheap and electricity is much more useful. It is actually cheaper to use a PV array to run a resistance element directly to heat water than a solar thermal collector.
Kaos