Lenox Air Handlers/Hydronic Boiler

Nick_28

I am looking for technical literature and support information on an existing residential heating systems that uses a Hydronic Boiler in a basement (Utica Starfire III), Phase III indirect hot water storage tank and 2 Lenox Air handler(s)in the attic. I had a system installed in 1999 through a home builder's sub-contractor. I am happy with the performance although I don't believe they were setup, balanced correctly nor efficiently designed.

I would like to increase the efficiency and performance to meet the current NYS energy conservation code standards for Long Island, NY Suffolk County Region if possible without a major rehab or retrofit.

Any feed back would be great... Also if you know of any seminars on Long Island that cover this topic through Heatinghelp.com, that would good too.

thanks in advance

Nick

Big Ed

Need Retrofit

You will ( most likely)need to redo the duct work to R8 insulated duct work. TheAC system would have to be 14 SEER or higher and be properly designed from a heat gain calulation to 12* delta . My guess from a 1999 install and from my experience that you have a oversize unit with low R insulated duct that are not properly sealed. Also 12 SEER was the high end back then. .

Nick_28

Lenox Air Handler

Hey Ed,

Hey thanks for replying back. The SEER numbers sound familiar which may have been somewhere between 12 - 14 which was high end efficiency units along with central AC pumps. I have one unit that seems acts up and no heat comes out to the supply registers. The hot water is pumping up to the attic by the Taco circ. But the fan is not kicking in even if you hear the prog. T'stat kicking on....the fan unit seems to do this for no apparent reason at night only. Perhaps it knows I am sleeping!

Anyways... the cost of the ductwork sounds like an expensive project to undertake. Do they make a retrofit insulation covering to put over the existing ductwork without going through the costly process of changing out the duct work? I know for a fact that the connections are not tight and there is leakage at the connections. Do you have an idea what cost per linear foot would be for ductwork that meets the NYSECC? What about SMACNA? If I recall the two units were ~5.5 tons of AC combined.

Besides, there are three out of four rooms on one side of the house on the one unit that are ten degrees warmer than the room with the tstat that is separated by approx forty foot distance.

Anyways...Not sure who can answer my concerns.. but..hey Just a thought and again thanks for your reply and anyone else to give some feedback...thanks

Nick

Nick_28

Air Handler Maintenance

Can anyone reccommend a good heating/mechanic/technician that can do maintenance on Lennox Air Handlers and a Hydronic Boiler in the Suffolk County Long Island NY region?

My boiler service guy won't touch the units and is more willing to sell heating oil instead. Hence the reason I rather not mix the two services for my best interest of fuel efficiency and cost savings.

Any feedback would be great... thanks in advance

don_185

Two services.

Hopefully you can find a contractor that can do both.

Or maybe you'll get lucky and find a good forceair guy that would be more then willin to help your service provider on the boiler side to understand how his system will effect how
the his boiler operates and vice versa.

Sounds like your problem can be one or two things when it comes to your fan not coming on.Either you have a strap on aquastat that is not working properly or was not adjusted properly from the get go.Or, it could be they never even added a aquastat and install a tstat that brings the fan on in the heat mode.

You have the same dilemma I see often around my area.If they
know forceair they dont know boilers.If they know boilers they dont know forceair.If.if.if.

And the bad part of it is they dont care to know.Talk about
leaving money on the table.

Anyway good luck and I hope you find someone that can address all your issue.Or at least know of someone that can.

Robert O'Brien

Give

me a call

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Nick_28

Two services

Hey Don.. thanks for the feedback.. it is important today to know more than the basics when it comes to systems but sometimes the basics are the starting point of understanding how things work. A good book I bought from this website was Pumping Away... excellent reading material from Dan Hollohan..

thanks again