UL gas burner for oil boiler

clammy

Wondering about a UL listed conversion gun for a weil gold 4 section steam boiler ,HO are worred about there 106 year old buried tank and want to convert to gas the boiler in question is only 6 years old and of course has not been cleaned or serviced in 3 years ,getting a tank in therer basement is a no go and they are not to kean on a outside tank and the possibality of fuel gelling or burning kero to avoid promblems ,the steam piping leave alot to be desired single pipe with take offs vertical and horizontal no 45 take offs and most of the insulation is gone ,so what gas conversion gun is UL approved for installation in this poor ole oil boiler peace and good luck clammy

Big Ed_3

Carlin Riello

Riello and Carlin both make gun type burners for a retrofit .

Unknown

Check with Weil McLain

to see if they will approve a gas conversion. That is the first step, second they may then recommend a burner that works well with their boiler.

If not then get in touch with me and I will recomend a burner for you.

Joe Brix

I thought most boilers

are only certified for one fuel type. Biasi and EK are among the few that offer the same boiler in a gas or oil setup. If the oil tank has to be abandoned anyway, can't a new fiberglass burried tank be put in?

Steamhead (in transit)

Biasi and EK

only do hot-water. For steam, the Smith G8 and Slant/Fin Intrepid and maybe some others are approved for oil or gas burners. I wish I could say the same for the Burnham Mega-Steam!

I believe David Sutton uses Carlin EZ-Gas burners in W-M SGO boilers. Maybe you could check with him for certification info?

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Jim Davis_3

UL does not rate gas burners only, that is CSA. They do oil and gas/oil combinations.

Any boiler that can fire on oil can fire on gas! If a boiler uses a power burner it can fire on both 99% of the time or it is not very good equipment. When converting just make sure you are firing at the maximum capacity of the boiler. Anything less can cause increased energy usage.

Unknown

The EZ burner

from Carlin does not allow for changing orifices(It does not use an orifice but a hole drilled in the burner body) as it is a preset input so make sure you know what input you are looking for.

If you are under 180,000 I like the Carlin G3B.

I agree with Jim Davis that any oil fired boiler can be converted and I do it all the time. However keep in mind the manufacturer will not support the conversion many times. You are on your own and better know what you are doing.

J Sacco

Gas conversion

As Mr McElwain said check with boiler mfg first. Unit must be approved for gas or it's your !!!

Jim Davis_3

Coal to gas conversion???

I think of the tens of thousands of coal boilers that were converted to gas or oil and many times the manufacturers of the equipment were long gone. Guess we weren't supposed to do it?

When has working on equipment not been our liability?? If you have the technical skills to do the job you can do it. Getting the manufacturers permission doesn't mean if you screw up it not your fault.

Choose a correct burner for retrofit(read the specs), size it properly(whats the btu's of the boiler)and set it up properly and it will work every time. I sold retrofit gas burners for 25 years and never had to ask anyone if I could. I made sure the peope I sold them to were qualified to put them in.

Unknown

As one who has installed over

3500 conversions in my career running all the way back to when I was 14 years old, my goodness that was 53 years ago I agree with Jim totally we never asked anyone and as long as you knew what you were doing it was not a problem. Emphasis on knowing what you are doing, I have seen some real nightmares of gas conversions from coal to gas and from oil to gas. I beleive you need to be trained to install these burners that is why we run five days of classes to teach foks to do that.

The manufacturers get nervous because when the conversion is done to their boiler and something happens they have to deal with the mess even though they did not approve of it in the first place. I personally do not asked permission and never have nor has Jim to the best of my knowledge. The truth is not all of you out their are Jim Davis or Tim McElwain, no boast just a fact that between use we probably have close to 100 years of experience and Jim I am sure because he travels all over has seen it all.

It just makes it easier if you are inexperienced at this to get the boiler company on board if possible, if not as Jim said we all have insurance and that is what it is all about. If I can be of any help to you just let me know.

Frenchie

Jim or Tim

Why fire at boiler's maximum input for best efficiency? Many new 3-section oil boilers have 3 or 4 oil input rates. If the smallest oil input rate matches the heat load best, why jack up the gas input rate?

Unknown

Jakester, The maximum firing rate is

when you get maximum efficiency on the boiler as you are firing it at design rating. In this case especially with steam as you want to get it to the maximum firing at the call for heat and then cycle on pressure. Some are going to high fire to low fire systems on steam and they report reduced fuel usage. I wonder if it is not also the case with those that systems are cleaned up and piping is redesigned to give better rates of making and moving steam and reducing cycling rate. I really have not been a fan of derating boilers and furnaces my experience with that over the years has not been good.

With a conversion burner with monoport firing (single tube) input rate needs to be at the highest for the gas replacing the oil to give best combustion analysis with low CO (Below 100 PPM). Not that combustion efficiency is the best way to determine if the boiler is at its best firing rate but it is one measure just be careful. With certain gas conversion burners I have gotten 82% combustion eff with low CO and draft at -.02 before and after the barometric and the stack temp at 350 degrees net with CO2 at 10.5% and O2 at 3% . In some of those cases I have lowered the input and gotten higher combustion efficiency but it was not really firing at its design perimeters.

One of the nice things about conversion burners is that they are a single orifice so you can change around until you get close to the maximum design firing rate of the boiler or furnace and then adjust the pressure regulator to tweak it to a slightly higher level without messing up the CO, O2 and stack temp. On some oil systems you can't trust what the oil setting was as the GPM rate may be way off, it is a good place to start but don't trust oil settings fire it to its maximum for safe and efficient operation.

I know that boilers come with the ability to fire them at reduced rate just be careful. Do a heat loss, check square feet of rediation and then work toward the best that boiler can give you.

Just one more thing, I have had a lot of customers over the years with two stage systems and they wanted them set up to fire at maximum all the time as they could not get enough heat and kept jacking the t'stat up. I found on most of those one big problem was the system itself was poorly designed. So a well designed piping system with sophisticated control of flow and temperatures does lend itself to staging and modulation. I just do not think it works well with older conventional designed systems.

Why convert if you can't make it better than it was with oil?

I am sure Jim can add some more to what I have noted here.

Jim Davis

Timmie has it right on the nose. Firing at lower firing rates would be like putting a 2-cylinder engine in your van because you are going to drive slow. The size of a heat exchanger doesn't change. To get the maximum radiant transfer(flame)and the maximum convective tranfer(gasses)you have to fill the container. Combustion analyzers are designed to only calculate efficiencies of equipment at full input, at full load with a fix btu fuel. Never really see this therefore they are usually wrong. Underfired equipment only calculates into a high efficiency but never delivers. Low fire only appears to save when high fire is really messed up.

Jim_139

Timmie

Carlin has just recently changed to orifice nipples for the EZ-Gas. You can up or down fire by changing the nipple. On burners with a drilled orifice you can upfire easily by drilling a larger hole. To downfire you replace the air tube and use an orifice nipple.

Unknown

That is a lot of work

just to change an orifice. I always carry about 100 different drill sized orifices and can just pop one in and be done.

Queen

Gas gun need to change boiler from oil to Gas

Truly enjoyed reading Jakster's Comments.  Loss mother whom left a house with an old, old Delco Co. Rochester, 30's or 40's made.  It really burns good and I cannot afford to do a complete conversion to gas.  Do you think there is something I can do to make this conversion using a gas gun to change the boiler from oil to gas. The house uses raditors and there is a thermostat in the bedroom and gas is used for cooking.   Please help!!

Steamhead

Something that old

might not be worth it. Can you take some pics and post them here? 

Queen

Old Oil Burner 30's or 40's

I hope not, and yes, I will post a picture.  Will go there over the holiday and take a picture.  Again, its old, but I had wishful thinking.  Accordingly, if necessary I have to look into a new system for a 2 family house built in 1924.  You have any suggestions as to what is energy efficient.  Maybe just contacting Con Ed for some type of incentive/rebate program.  Please advise.  Again, thank you for your assistance.

Queen

Old Oil Burner

Might be a little embarassing to post; however, you never know.  I was told it still has some years in it.  Built very well and has been serviced by same company for 30 years.  Oh well!!

Steamhead

There are better boilers available

some of which are EnergyStar. Even if you plan to sell the house, a new boiler with that label is a wise move. I've attached pics of two such models. For steam, the Smith 8 series with Carlin EZ-Gas burner is a good choice. For hot water, we like the Solaia series- these formerly used HeatWise gas burners but are now using Carlins. Both of these are EnergyStar labeled.



Looking forward to the pics.