Pilot light strength on old boiler

Dave M.

I have an old Arco Ideal boiler from about 1927 that is used in a gravity fed system in a house my wife and I purchased a couple of years ago. We had problems with the heater, so a repair guy came out and replaced the gas/pilot unit. He told me he turned the pilot, which is more like a burner, all the way up because the old one was that strong. With the recent cost of natural gas going up we find that our bill is about $200/month for the pilot alone. I had a guy from P,G & E come out and he said we could substantially reduce the cost from this by turning down the pilot and adding some tees in so that the burners would fire evenly. I don't want to do this if it's dangerous or if this will make the system run less efficiently. So my question:

Is an intense pilot burner necessary for this system or can I reduce it to the minimum that will allow the burners to fire evenly when the thermostat kicks in?

Thanks for any advice,
Dave

Steamhead (in transit)

Sounds like an old Ideal round boiler

If so, I wouldn't even mess with the pilot- your high gas bills are a result of the boiler's inefficiency. One of my Dead Men's Books says this type of boiler cannot be expected to produce more than 40% efficiency on oil, and I suspect the same is true on gas. We've replaced these things with standard cast-iron boilers, nothing fancy- and cut fuel bills in half.

If this isn't an old round boiler with a conversion burner, you may still want to replace it. If you're not sure what you have, take some pics and post them here.

A new boiler will use a circulator to move the water. If the circulator is properly sized, it won't affect the way the radiators heat up. You'll still be plenty comfortable while saving fuel. Most new gas boilers also have electric ignition, which does away with continuous pilot lights.

I wouldn't mess with the pilot on the present boiler- it may light OK for a while but then have trouble lighting if conditions are just right.

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Dave M.

Hi Steamhead,

Thanks for your response. My long range plan is to replace the boiler, but I'm in Stockton, CA and there are probably only a handful of houses in this area heated with boilers -- no experts to do the work and not alot of dealers around here . I know that these old boilers are highly inefficient, but I have to live with this one right now.

We have had an extremely mild winter. I don't believe it even was below freezing last month. We used the heater on very few days, so most of the gas consumed was from the pilot. My calculations, which were confirmed by the PG & E rep, are that the boiler uses about 4 therms a day just for the pilot. Is there really no way to cut down on this?

Dave

ps. I'm not sure what a conversion burner is. This one has a burner type pilot and about a half a dozen other burners that kick on when the heat is on (if memory serves me.) I do believe it was converted from oil at some point.