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Steam Boiler Sizing

paul lessard_3
paul lessard_3 Member Posts: 186
in THE MAIN WALL
go to burnham and check out the ratings,I would go with the guy who measured the rads.I think would be even smaller!

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Comments

  • Mike Schulman
    Mike Schulman Member Posts: 1
    Boiler Sizing

    I have a 35 yr old 450,000 btu boiler that needs to be replaced. After several quotes 1 gentleman suggested that after measuring all my radiators I could easily use a 300,000 btu unit which is considerably less expensive. How do I know if this is legit. No one else suggested a smaller unit. Are they all just greedy, or ignorant? He says we need 580 sq ft of heating surface in our radiators. We would like to give him a go ahead but???? What should we do to either prove or disprove his facts?
  • Robert O'Connor_12
    Robert O'Connor_12 Member Posts: 728
    Mike Schulman

    How loooooow do you wanna go? The only way to size is to measure. If only one guy measured the radiators than that would be the one to go with. You could go get another quote by someone who WILL measure. Depending on the brand, I'd say even that size is a tad big. I install alot of Weil-McLains and in a EG series that would be a EG-65 with a 250,000 btu input, but whats important is the NET rating that will at least handle the sq. foot you said was 580. EG-65 is rated at 654. With fuel prices they way they are I'd measure it again, or even learn to size it yourself, its not very difficult and at least that way you can make an informed choice as to which unit will be there hopefully another 35 years.

    Robert O'Connor/NJ
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Mike

    I would assume that he went room to room and actually measured the radiators to determine this. If he did, then he did his job right! I guess the question here is how did the other fellas size their boilers? If they only obtained the rating off of the old boiler, they didn't do their job right! Steam boilers want to be sized to the actual connected load while also taking into effect pickup losses caused by uninsulated mains, long mains and unusually cool basements. The boiler ratings already have 33% pickup factors built in but unusual conditions may warrant additional amounts. Hope this helps.



    Glenn Stanton

    Manager of Training

    Burnham Hydronics

    U.S. Boiler Co., Inc.
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