New to steam, need help lowering my gas bill...

JACQ

Rory from the pics you posted the pressuretol is located below the water level in the bioler,thats no good it is reading water pressure instead of steam pressure,also the near boiler piping is not the best needs to be corrected.Jacq

NRTDave

Hi all,
We just moved into a 1923 Colonial with two-pipe steam. We also just got our first gas bill... I wasn't sure what to expect, but $678 for 32 days kind of shocked me. The house heats up great (we keep the stat between 62 & 64) and other than burning more gas that I think it should, we don't have any problems. I got Dan's books when we bought the house, and I'm still reading "Lost Art". I read about pressure and maybe mine's too high. Set now to a cut in of 3 psi and a differential of 2.5 psi. If I lower it, the burner won't ignite. Does that sound like a problem with the pressuretrol? The springs in the pressuretrol don't have any tension if I lower the settings. There used to be a rad connected in the finished attic, but that (longest in the house) run was disconnected and capped in the basement. That's why I thought maybe the pressure now doesn't need to be as high as it is. I've included some pictures. Any help would be greatly appreciated. It might be best for me to get a pro out to look over everything, but I don't have anyone in mind yet.
Thanks,
Rory

jim_156

Things that help
Insulation,
New Windows,doors,and update equipment.

Contact a local heating expert, they should steer you in the right direction.

Jim_152

How many MCF's did you use. How many sq ft is your home? What is your BTU of boiler. I also have an older home 1929, 500K BTU. with a two pipe Mouat steam system. My last gas bills were $905 and $955. I spent about 11K this fall trying to help improve my costs. I replaced 13 windows and had an expert from this site, come in and replace most all my traps, replace my vents (six Gorton's) and added a low burner set-up, So when the furthest main vent reaches 155F, the low burner kicks in, reducing my gas intake by about 33%. My house is set at 62 for 19 hours and 67 for the other 5 hours, each day. I have been looking at the threads on this site for about one year now, to try to figure out where I should invest my next ten grand. I think the improvements I made have helped very little. If I would have been smarter, I would have paid for someone to not only do a great heat calculation loss, but have paid for instrumentation analyisis (thermograpic imaging) to really find out where my heat was escaping. Or maybe just dump my oversized boiler and buy a new one. Hope this helps and good luck. If you find out how you were able to reduce your gas bill, please let me know.

johnnyge

insulation

My house is also a Colonial build in the 1920's and if you house hasn't had any upgrates you probably do not have any insulation in the walls. I also get a 917 dollars gas bill the previous months, so I have been getting estimates for insulations contractors. So far i got 2 companies that came. I called back one to to the job but they hasn't showed up yet.
So I am still looking for a insulation company in case any of the pros in this site happens to Know someone.
In other works my advised to you is to get more insulations install in your house because you are losing heat everywhere.

ed wallace

hi gas bill

1st off I see a boiler that is totally piped wrong how the heck its heating at all is amazing since you already have Dan's book look up the proper way to plumb a steam boiler

ed wallace

hi gas bill

1st off I see a boiler that is totally piped wrong how the heck its heating at all is amazing since you already have Dan's book look up the proper way to plumb a steam boiler

John_173

Another old home owner here

Is that an owner of an old home or a geezer? Maybe both.

By all means update equipment, insulate & tighten the envelope. You have come to the right place for boiler info; lots of wise heads here.

While I'm no wise head, I'll post a caution - new windows are not any more effective than old windows, provided the old ones are in good condition. You'll do as well with storms & rehabbed double sash - which will likely look better (more appropriate) in your older home. It's a lot of work - I wonder how I know - but if you want new windows & doors why not get the rest of the new house too?

Just my opinion. Enjoy your new old house.

NRTDave

Jim,
I used about 52 Mcf in a month. The house is about 2950 sq feet. The boiler is 500K BTU as well. Overall, I don't feel like the house is losing heat really bad, at least a lot better than my last place (which had all new windows and doors). I'm looking for any comments on the pressure and pressuretrol. What would cause the boiler (while cold) to not ignite the burner if I turn the pressuretrol down at all? Thanks again for the advice.

HitzKup_2

System Updates

Some taughts

#1 repipe your boiler header the main takeoff and equalizer needs to be AFTER the last boiler riser.

#2 check all traps and vents if they work properly.

#3 insulate ALL your supply piping.

#4 your pressuretrol is connected without a pigtail so since its not designed to see steam it's probably not working to well.

#5 under resources on top of this page look for the find a pro option enter your zip code and contact a real STEAM pro.

NRTDave

NRTDave

Thanks again for the comments and advise guys, I appreciate it. I will find a pro (I'm north of Pittsburgh) to help me get this system up to date.

Jamie Hall

I'll second that...

I live in a National Register house -- 1780 to 1893 construction -- and the old windows were a job to get tight, but they're every bit as good as new ones and much more satisfactory.

I have used Icynene insulation in some places; it's a foam in place which makes an integral vapour barrier as it cures. Great stuff. Not cheap. Much more effective than anything else, though.

A word of warning on any foam in place, though: don't do it in a space with old plaster on one side and roof or siding on the other. There is a very good chance you will pop the old plaster off, and that can get expensive.

JohnG_3

Rory, I'm just a homeowner, not a pro, but I am a data junkie and I took the liberty of crunching some numbers for you.

You said you used 52 Mcf. By my calculations, this is 541 therms (my gas company measures Ccf and multiplies by 1.0412 to get therms. 1 therm is 100,000 btu).

I am assuming that your bill was for January. You also said you live north of Pittsburgh. The number of heating degree days for Pittsburgh in January was 1069 (from http://www.wunderground.com). Finally you said your house is 2950 square feet. Putting it all together, your normalized consumption for January was 17.2 btu per square foot per heating degree day (541 x 100,000 / 2950 / 1069). My numbers for January were 138 therms, 1,645 sf, 1121 hdd, for a normalized usage of 7.5 btu per sf per hdd. Now, your gas consumption probably includes some non-heating items such as domestic hot water and perhaps clothes drying and cooking. Nonetheless, your normalized gas consumption seems quite high to me, about double what you could reasonably expect to achieve in an old house without too much effort.

My guess is that the reasons for your high fuel consumption go far beyond your pressuretrol settings. I agree with some other posters that you should look first and foremost at your building envelope, i.e., your insulation and air infiltration. A logical place to start would be an energy audit. Your gas company will do one for free but it will likely not be very sophisticated. For several hundred dollars you can get a professional energy audit done with an infrared scan, blower door test, and report showing your best opportunities for energy efficiency improvements. Check out http://www.natresnet.org and http://www.bpi.org and good luck.