Best Of
Re: York Gy9s trouble
Well on a good day, if they ordered the board and they don't want it, maybe restocking charge. A not so good day you now have a spare board. I would call them ASAP, especially if there is a scheduled appointment to cancel.
109A_5
Re: Moldy smell from previously dormant radiators
That's a pretty decent install. If the boiler is running well and not leaking — keep it.
You mention 95%. Nope. That's only available on "mod/con" boilers for water heat — not steam. Steam, however, should run around 85%, and that one will if properly adjusted. Changing to hot water would be a HUGE mistake.
The best bang for your buck is going to be tightening up the building. See my comment on windows…
Re: Can you combine Energy Kinetics with Rheem hot water tank?
I have made the mistake of breaking the studs before. It's not fun and turns a routine boiler cleaning into a major disaster. Nowadays I am very careful when it comes to making the decision to mess with them or not.
If the boiler has been neglected and the chamber is collapsing and needs to be rebuilt or the boiler is full of soot then I will need to open the bottom of the boiler.
If the boiler is one I have been taking care of every year and has been tuned to a true zero smoke I probably won't even need to vacuum and brush out the top of the boiler, nevermind messing around with opening the combustion chamber up.
It only takes a few minutes to find out if the combustion chamber needs to be opened up. A quick visual inspection through the observation door and a measurement of draft through the boiler will establish wether it's necessary or not.
Re: Riello F3 burner bad from factory??
Never had a bad burner. What's "bad"on it? The burner motor? Oil pump? Control? These are all easily replaceable parts that don't require an entire burner replacement.
I agree that the problem is likely something related to the installation. They are not plug and play. Everything needs to be checked during commissioning and adjusted for that particular installation. Pump pressure and vacuum on the suction line need to be verified. Combustion needs to be checked. Draft checked and adjusted. Static pressure and temperature rise need to be checked and airflow adjusted on furnaces. It's a process.
One time I had a defective Beckett Genisys primary control on a new boiler. But that's one instance in 20 years.
Re: Help with new boiler selection and install
Nothing wrong with Weil Mclain. That boiler has been around a long time and has proven itself to be pretty decent.
I would go for the 3 section and fire it at .75-.85.
Re: How efficient is this Boiler setup
That is the issue with series primary loop. Unless you add some exact gpm numbers to this drawing you cannot predict what the blended temperatures are. The AH cannot get 160 SWT as it is being blended with the return, which could be 20- 30 ° degrees cooler than the SWT it is actually getting. So you are running a much hotter boiler temperature than you need. A thermometer on the supply to the AH would shed some light on the questions we have.
The AH may in fact have enough BTU output at 145- 150, but it is taking you a hotter less efficient boiler operating condition to get there.
Are the pipes to the AH 3/4" or 1" copper? If they are 3/4 I don't see a second boiler adding any additional btus?
4 maybe 5 gpm in 3/4 copper is all the 15-58 may be shoving up there.
hot_rod
Re: Replacing Near Boiler Piping with Drop Header
- What model boiler is that?
2. Is it surging?
3. Is steam getting to your radiators?
If the answer to 2 is "no" and the answer to 3 is "yes" then you will not see any difference in fuel usage, efficiency, or heating.
The answer to your question #3 is no, there is no reason to make the equalizer larger than specified.
Re: How efficient is this Boiler setup
just from what I can see your two loads, the radiant and air handler are piped with 3/4” So probably you are not movering more than 8 gpm when both are calling. Your 110,00 boiler at. 87% is 95,000 btu/ hr output. I don’t see a time where both boilers would need to run at the same time. DHW is probably a priority zone as it needs 180f. So what you have, piping wise works fine.
The second boiler will be a bit less efficient as it may see return around 140 if the first is running 150, which blends down when it hits the primary from return from the operating zones. Certainly not worth a repipe for what little efficiency gain you might get. And if one boiler is always off, it’s a moot point.
hot_rod
Re: Burnham boiler failure
The thing about a lot of older cars is that -- sort of like your guy in Minnesota) -- there was nowhere near as much salt used in, say 1970 (never mind earlier) and so it was much less of a problem. It took quite a while for the automakers -- all of them (some took longer than others!) -- to figure out how to design things to minimize corrosion damage. It's not just the materials -- galvanized steel sheet metal took a while to catch on (there are real problems with forming it for body panels) never mind newer synthetics (the early Saturns -- not the later ones -- and Corvettes, of course were the pioneers)(I'm going to be very interested to see how aluminium pans out...). The other problem is redesigning things so that salt laden slush and gunk didn't get trapped, or didn't trap as badly. That's taken a LONG time, but it's getting much rarer to find a suspension member, for example, which doesn't drain freely, or a fender well which traps goop, but mounts and other fastening locations are still problematic.
That's fair enough......... Early 70s Chevys didn't rott much different than the competition, though i think the late 70s was a whole other story.
The problem is we know how to make steam boilers. There's no learning curve in this situation.
The 90+ year old Redflash my neighbor had using the same exact water the two V8's in my house used, and tons of it, as well as all of the Redflash boilers we see pop up on this forum are proof of that. We know how to make boilers last. It's not a mystery. Why would a 90 year old Redflash have no problems using tons of the same water that rotted out two V83's in my house next door in only 8 years? In this case I do not feel the water is ultimately to blame. The water isn't great, but the equipment should be able to cope with it. Apparently they thought so in the 1920s-30s. My neighbor's system ran 2 PSI or so often, and every valve steam leaked and half the steam vents leaked. He was adding water two, three times a week and on that boiler that was a lot of water. An inch on that gauge glass wasn't like an inch on a modern boiler. Just a guess, he was probably adding a good 15 gallons per week?
Lasting 90 years all while being able to achieve efficiency numbers that were pretty respectable. Sure is nothing like a 3 pass boiler eh?
WM, Peerless etc make steamers currently that last reasonably long, not great in my opinion, but not bad either. Those are pin type and still last 30 years.
It probably doesn't matter.
Between rotting boilers, the lack of knowledgeable contractors, and people claiming electric is better there won't be any boilers to complain about soon enough.
Wow. Sorry for the rant.
ChrisJ
