Burnham Boilers

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Any of the boilers that are manufactured today may have issues with outside three exposure chimneys. Boilers are more efficient today than ever before and most are cold start meaning they only operate on demand instead of sitting hot 365/24/7. You may want to consider a properly sized and installed stainless chimney liner even though your chimney probably already has a clay flue liner.

The MPO comes with flue passageway baffles that can be installed in the boiler to help extract more temperature out of the flue gasses. We leave these out when it is shipped and leave it up to the installer to make the decision as to use them or not based on the results of the combustion testing and in particular the stack temperature you will be running. A reset control is a great addition to any hot water boiler in that it will established much greater "system efficiency" and system comfort. The end result will be more energy dollars in your pocket and a greater return on your investment.

You will have a limiting factor with using a reset control on your system, however, in that the kickspace heaters will require water hotter than 140°F to properly operate. They are equipped with a sensor switch that only turns their blower on when the water temperature is near or hotter than 140°F. The control can be programmed to provide water hotter than 140°F at all times. There are also ways to modify the kickspace heater blowers by using a sensor switch with a lower temperature setting or by wiring the blowers into a relay so that will run whenever that zone is running. The question that exists with doing that is whether they will still be blowing warm air when operating temperatures are lower than 140°F. I have had an MPO-147 in my home since last September with four zones of baseboard and an Indirect Water Heater. I equipped it with a Tekmar reset control and heated my home comfortably all winter with water temperature less than 147°F. Hope this helps.


Glenn Stanton

Manager of Training

Burnham Hydronics

U.S. Boiler Co., Inc.

Andrew Sherman

Burnham Boilers

We've gotten several proposals to replace our 50-year old oil-fired boiler. The heat loss for the house (in Northwestern Connecticut, built in 1959) is around 160,000 BTUH based on the original calculations by the builder for two-thirds of the house and on a new calculation for the remainder that we remodeled last year. Much of the house is over basement, has radiant heat in the ceilings, and has an unknown amount of extra wall and attic insulation installed about 15 years ago by the previous owners (not accounted for in the heatloss calculations). The remodeled portion has a slab foundation and uses a combination of Runtal baseboard and toe-kick heaters. There are four heat zones (2 radiant, 1 Runtal, 1 toe-kick), plus a zone for a 20-year-old Phase III indirect hot water heater.

One proposal is for a Burnham V-85, while another proposes a Burnham MPO189, both at about the same price point. I've looked at a lot of Burnham literature, and, while the two differ in design, the specs seem to be about the same (AFUE of 86-87%, DOE capacity of approx. 165 MBH, similar Beckett burners). The one significant difference I can discern is that the V-85 holds approx. 18 gallons of water, while the MPO189 holds approx. 14 gallons of water. What are the ramifications of this difference? For example, we have observed that the radiant zones rarely run (probably due to the extra insulation), so the actual heat demand is often much smaller than the total load for the house. Also, in the warmer months, we only use the furnace for hot water; would the MPO be significantly better in that period because it has less water to heat up?

BTW, an alternative proposal (at more than twice the cost!) is based on a Veissman Vitorond VR2-50 boiler with a Vitotronic 300 controller. Is this likely to be a substantially better alternative for us to consider?

Unknown

Andrew

The V8 series of boiler has been and continues to be a very good and dependable product. The primary differences between the V8 series and the MPO boiler are that the MPO is a three pass flue passageway design and that it has a built-in internal mixing device on the return pipe connection that will allow it to operate quite well with the lower water temperatures that you will be encountering with the radiant zones without any special addon devices.The MPO series has been out in the field for going on two years now and the reception has been very good. The V8 will require some sort of adaptation to be able to deal with the cool radiant return temperatures. That could be something as simple as a bypass to something more state of the art as an injection mixing device. Your oil company will also be pleased with the ease of cleaning they will encounter with the MPO boiler. Hope this helps.

Glenn Stanton

Manager of Training

Burnham Hydronics

U.S. Boiler Co., Inc.

Steamhead (in transit)

I'll add to that

the MPO is much quieter than the V8. You can actually stand next to it and have a normal conversation, as Glenn and I have done. Go with the MPO.

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mpo

I would not recommend it mpo if you have an outside chimney

Andrew Sherman

Burnham MPO

Thanks for the helpful information. Both proposers were oil companies, and neither made any remarks about cleanability.

Will the MPO require any change to our chimney due to lower flue gas temperature? (The chimney's outside the end wall of the house.)

One other question is whether an outdoor reset is necessary or desirable with the MPO. (Neither company included one in its bid, but I've seen a lot of discussion about this on the Wall.)

lchmb

And

And Glenn and the way Burnham stand's behind their product is another reason to use the MPO. It's an excellent boiler, very quiet and a joy to install.

Andrew Sherman

Outdoor Reset

If the system includes an outdoor reset, does that require the use of different control electronics? The proposed systems include a Taco zone panel and manual mixing valves to lower the water temp from the 180-degree boiler output to the proper temp for each of the zones (radiant, Runtal, toe-kick), but I would think that the mixture ratios would have to change if the temperature of the boiler water changed.

lchmb

One other thought

One other option you could look into Andrew would be the Taco RMB (Radiand mixing block)system. This system works with it's own sensor's and allow's the mixing block to bring the water temp to the desired level. Taco has some interesting products on the market now which will do what you are looking for.

Unknown

Reset Controls

There are various levels of reset controls that would suit your installation fine. With a single temperature reset control your radiant zones would be getting the same temperature that your high temperature Runtal heaters and kickspace heater would be getting which would change the temperayires established with manual mixing valves. I would suggest using a control that can establish your temperature needs for the high temperature devices and create an entirely seperate reset curve for your low temperature needs. This control will also handle your Indirect Water Heater demand and will prioritize this demand with hotter water until the demand is satisfied at which time everything goes back to the normal lower temperatures. There are various Tekmar controls that have this ability as well as our Tier 3 BSC Boiler System Control which mounts right off the rear of the Burnham MPO as shown below. Hope this helps.


Glenn Stanton

Manager of Training

Burnham Hydronics

U.S. Boiler Co., Inc.