primera boiler

big willy

Its a volume water heater 400kbtu with a 120 gallon tank. The load is 15 hotel rooms and 16 water source heat pumps 9000 btu and one 36kbtu for the common area. The owner wants bids for three more like it for the other buildings. I have never touched one. Wanted to use a munchkin or a knight that I am more familiar with and have parts for. No dice they want uniform equipment throughout the place. Although I understand the point I am wary of the unknown and my name will be all over the finished product. I searched for any posts about them and found nothing. Anybody using these?

tim smith

Regarding Riverside boiler

I went out and looked at a PDF breakdown of that boiler, copper fin heat x???? That will cause him maintenance problems down the road, this thing runs year around and I feel will be high maint. prone. Now, I don't think the Munchie will be much better as far as the amount of cleaning that will be needed from what I have seen. I do agree with you that a better solution should be found. I think a better way would be 2 prestige 175s and 2 indirect water heaters. This gives redundancy and also part load capable. Just a thought. I don't know if the budget would allow this. Or 1 Prestige 399 & 1 indirect. From what I see, the maintenance will be lower on the prestige than on the munchie or maybe even the Knight due to the construction of heat ex. My .02. PS we have experience with the munchie & prestige as we have installed several of both and have at least 2.5 yrs or more on either model and all are installed well.

big willy

Thanks tim thants the kinda thing I need. I will look into the prestige. It is another unknown but a little advice goes a long way. I wish they were willing to spend money on a cleaver brooks clear fire they are great for maintanence. I dont think they come small enough though.

Bart Vaio

Riverside boilers

I disagree with the previous poster regard percieved issues with the heat exchager and maint problems. We have more than a few of these little jewels in service and we have nothing but good things to say about them. These are very reliable commercial grade boiler. Make sure you factor a few dollars in for a factory authorized startup, they need to be inspected and fired with a factory rep present to start the warranty ticking. Though that may be on boilers 1 million and up, we don't often install the little 400k guys. They are a great compact package, good control interface, they run super clean with very very low Nox, and they start with a niffty pop (high fire starts, quite amussing. All in all a great boiler...

Home Depot Employee

I gotta agree with Bart

The Primira boiler is a non-condensing copper fin as mentioned. As a comparison, I can show you many A.O. Smith "Burkays" with copper fin heat exchangers used in domestic HW applications that have exceeded 40 years of operation and still going.

tim smith

Regarding AO Smith vs this design

I too have worked on 100s if not 1000s of Burkays and still feel they are the sherman tank of potable hot water boilers. Happen to be very fond of them for their respective hot water supply capacity and reliability. I just felt, (as stated as opinion) that the design of the heat exchanger will pose more issues as to build up in the heat x than other designs in different boilers. One problem I see with Primara design that (I) don't like is refractory above and below heat x, does not allow to wash out and does breakdown as is the case w/ many fin boilers that use refractory lined fire chambers. Just an opinion. Tim