Boiler gas consumption

JohnG_3

I think you need to measure your rate of fuel consumption with finer granularity. If your gas meter is like mine, you have a main odometer-like meter which measures CCF, plus two dials which spin faster, one faster tham the other. I don't know how to read these dials, but someone here probably does. Once you figure that out, you should make your measurements to at least two significant digits. I bet you get a fuel consumption rate much closer the input rating of your boiler.

George T

Gas Boiler Heating consumption

Hello, the other day I received my heating bill, and seemed way to high. This is a new 2 month old Burnham gas boiler install. Model no 206H Input is 164,000; output is 136,000; IBR output is 118,000.

I turned all gas appliances off, and ran the boiler for 1/2 hour long. The meter registered 2. So since the meter says x 100 I would say that is 2 CCF, right? So if i have 2 CCF and my gas company uses a therm conversion of 1.0393 per each ccf then that would be 2.0786 or 2.1 total therms used.

Now if a therm is 100,000 btu, which in my 1/2 hour would equal 2.1 x 100,000 = 207,860, and my boiler can only take i 164,000 per hour, then how could my meter be correct??

Am I calculating this wrong?

George T

Maybe, but the small dials can spin until you move to the next digit. So take for example if the dials spin for however many revolutions, and you do to the next ccf which in my case would be 3 because it seems to right now according to the meter consume 2 ccf per 1/2 hour, or 1 ccf per sixteen minutes, then we could say that in 45 minutes in consumed 3 ccf = approximetely 311,790 btu, or in one hour 4 ccf = approximately 415,720 btu. So the accuracy of the dials does not matter because it seems as though the meter is so far off. How could a boiler input of 164,000 have a gas meter show 415,720. So the small dials for accuracy become a moot point, since its so far off.

Anyone else have any comments, am i looking at this the wrong way with my calculations?

Mitch_4

your gas meter has what is

called test dials usually 1/2, 1 ,2 or 5 Cu.ft. (most times there are 2 of thesedials depending on the manufacturer of the meter)

Pick the larger dial and turn on the appliance, and time how long it takes to complete one revolution.

Plug the numbers into thei formula.

Gas flow = 3600 / time for one revolution x size of dial

so lets say you took 45 seconds on the 2 cu.ft. dial, your gas flow will be 3600 / 45 x 2 which 160 cubic feet. 1 cu.ft of nat gas = 1050 btu's approx so 160 x 1050 168,000.

Hope that helps.