Cold Start vs \"Warm\" Maintaining opinions

Saggs

I think you're right with a heat only- cold start boiler in a damp basement. W/out the indirect there could be long periods of cool down and short cycles. esp. in the spring and fall and all the "global warming" that's going on. Thx

Saggs

I,ve heard several people say that cold start boilers aren't going to last like the old hi temp maintaining ones b/c of condensation and expansion and contraction stresses placed on the boiler. I've put in a bunch of Buderus and Smith cold start units and always thought that was the way to go? Maybe a low temp (100 degs) or so would make sense in a cold damp basement but what about a nice dry warm basement? I'd be interested in people's' thoughts on this subject as there are now alot of these rigs out there. Seems like Buderus would know best but maybe they just wanna sell more boilers, i don't know?

Al Gregory

It is a better option on pin type boilers,

Todd_18

Warm start

If you clean these boilers, I think you'll notice that the warm start boilers tend to stay cleaner. It depends on the situation. If they have an indirect DWH in a dry basement, they may be allright, but in a damp basement never cold start. There is something called a "wet soak" or "running saturation" that seems to be attributed to a few different factors cold start being one(constant ignition,no low temp protection,no combustion chamber) being a few others, combine them all together and you'll NEVER forget the smell when you arrive at one of these calls. Its like a cooked electric motor smell - but worse.