maintaining a warm boiler during the summer

Live/Learn

Dear Wallies, With oil at over $4.00 per gallon I am seriously thinking of shutting down my boiler for the Summer. I heat my domestic with a stand alone Bock hot water heater. I could probably save about 15- 20 gals a month by doing this . Is this a good idea? I would probably clean it before Summer and cut down on the problem of caked on residue caused by possible condensation. My basement is quite dry and clean. Thanks , Live/Learn

TCR

summer boiler shut down

I have the same situation with my gas boiler. It's a 16yr old Burnham atmospherice boiler with a standing pilot flame. Heat is distributed by hydronic baseboard loop. DHW comes from a separtate gas fired DHW heater.

What is the likely savings and how does it compare to possible problems resulting from the boiler sitting in the basement at room temp/humidity for four months?

TR

mark schofield

summer boiler runtime

I have a WM WTGO 3 (tankless coil in boiler fed by solar storage tank). On the days when I get most of my DHW needs from the preheated solar feeding the tankless coil for DHW, and no heating demand, the boiler runs 20 minutes per day. I put a clock on the leads to the burner to figure out the runtime. Low limit is set at 130, differential at 20 deg. So during the summer months when I don't need heating, about 10 hours per month to maintain a warm boiler. I think with the price of oil going up, I would shut the boiler down if I had an independent DHW supply and could feel comfortable about not damaging or dirtying the boiler when it went off in May and then back on in October

Steve Eayrs_2

summer shutdown

One concern about just shutting it down for the summer. You will finnd that your circ pumps may be froze up upon startup in the fall. These circs are water lubricated and don't like to be left of for that long of time. If you end up buying a new pump or two, you ave saved nothing.

One fix is to install a control that will 'exersize" the pumps, for a few minites every few days. Tekmar makes a number of them, but of course this is one of the extras on the control and not the main purpose of it. Some of their outdoor reset conntrols could also help save, and some have this feature included.


Didn't catch what boilers you all had above, but doesn't sound like they are ones that I would advise to cold start all summer. Runninng at too low of temps also causes condensing, corrosion problems, unless its a boiler made to take it.
If your serious about savings it may be time to look at a new boiler and better controls, which would improve what you save all year around.

Steve

Live/Learn

summer boiler operation

I'm running a Burnham V83 boiler. The circs don't come on line anyway due to no call for heat. I just can't justify leaving it running all summer if it's not necessary as I could use the money saved for gas for my car. Thanks Live/Learn

John@Reliable_14

Here's my take............

Having installed and more important serviced 1000's of oil fired cast iron boilers I would suggest two things. 1)Service boiler (clean&tune) and if equipped shut off supply and return water valves at boiler, so system water stays in piping drain boiler. Refill in fall ,open valves, purge system. Down side if pump is on factory return, be ready with a new pump come fall start-up, as it will not have water in it. 2) Set low limit @ 100* for summer and just turn it up in fall, your boiler will be "happy". Remember the burner has to run for One full hour just to burn what ever the nozzle is rated, which isn't much.Most boiler will run less than 20 min. a day to stay at 100.

Leo_10

Up front cost

It would cost up front but the cheapest is to get rid of the Bock and add an Indirect to the boiler. Best of both worlds,less standby losses, and the boiler runs occasionally to keep dry as it heats water.

Presently, get boiler cleaned and tuned. Run for about fifteen minutes a week. The warmer a boiler is kept the cleaner it is, I service all brands through the year and see them all.

Leo