steam vs water boiler

Mr.Bill_2

When boiler comes on,nice quite blue flame,but sometimes comes on with a fizzzzzz and a yellow flame.Is this air in the gas line. How correct? If I turn it off and on again it corrects itself.

Eddie M

What has a longer life span Hot water boiler or steam boiler?

Brad White_9

Generally hot water

because of lower thermal stresses and more fully wetted surface area that protects it from direct oxygen. But it depends on the type and the margins are narrow.

Cast iron has a median age of 30 years in hot water and 25 years if steam according to ASHRAE. (Edge: Hot Water). This is probably what you are asking about.

Water tube steel boilers (talking commercial here) are 24 years in hot water and 30 years in steam so steam wins. Steel fire tube boilers are equal at 25 years.

The differences are pretty marginal though as you can see.

Keep in mind abundant make-up water to either system, poor near-boiler piping and a host of other poor practices can conspire to shock, crack or corrode either boiler. You can destroy a boiler day one if you really want to...

There are exceptions on all sides and some steam boilers are chugging along at age 40, 50, 60... I replaced a 1910 HB Smith boiler in 1988. 78 years and still running but the efficiency just was not there anymore.

Brad White_9

You may want to

post this as it's own question (post new thread).

Dennis

Old geezer steam boiler

Just removed an eighty year old steam boiler, in it's life cycle it was converted from coal to oil to gas. This baby was an asbestos factory, no vermiculite here the fire bricks were backed up with beautiful friable asbestos, as were all the piping, and a nice thick board of it nailed above the flue pipe.
Kind of a shame, the system (vapor vaccuum) still worked perfect, the new owners wanted all that nasty asbestos gone. The removal folks took all the piping and the boiler away. We installed a Ultra boiler, and reused all the beautiful radiators, they were so oversized the system works just great with water.
Now all these folks need to do is remove the 100 layers of lead paint and they will have a safe place to live.