saving oil--nozzle size

Ken Field

Engineering and understanding

are 2 different things. I think the late John Marran had the ability to understand what made a heating system efficient and he designed the System 2000 around it. 45 seconds of a blocked chimney and his equipment shuts down. You don't need the vacuum cleaner any more. Just a dustpan. It has saved me countless 3 hour cleanings because it shut down. When customers tell me they can't afford it, I tell them they can't afford not to have it with fuel prices headed toward $5 per gallon. Back to the original topic, I can get 350 stack temp on all 3 firing rates of that boiler when the load is appropriate for the firing rate. I don't find that on most other systems.

Ken

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Keith_8

Consumption?

As to Jim's point.....with the lower firing rate do you use more or less fuel?

The oil company should be willing to furnish you with the last couple years of fuel usage and degree day information. Make them understand you need the information to evaluate how the system is performing, not to use against them.

Unfortunatly many techs don't understand how the entire heating system performs. With out knowing the results of changes to the firing rate and how they impact the boiler, chimney, radiators and occupent comfort they are doing you a diservice.

Keith

realolman

I am not sure

that it is possible to compile conclusive empirical facts. I have sure been trying, but in my case I am not willing to fire the boiler with the large nozzle for any extended period of time to compile any baseline data. It seems to me, recording my data over about 2 downfirings, over 2 years, that I am seeing a savings with the smaller one.

It sounds simple to say," see if you use more oil now or then", but it is not so simple. Are you keeping track of whether your kids are home from college or not? Do you track the number of times the front door is open while you haul in groceries, and what the temperature was? Can I not change the setback on my thermostat any more? How long has this setback thermostat not been working? How long was that power outage?


After discovering that my tankless DHW coil used 2 gallons of oil per day in the summer, I quit using it. How much do I credit to that in the winter of 2006?


It seems to me reasonable that a boiler manufacturer would have to calculate the dimensions and firing rates of their boiler. Do they always calculate it to be the most efficient at the top firing rate, or maybe the middle one? Is there a little room at the top firing rate for just a bit more oil? Or have you already exceeded top efficiency?

Why is it not possible that the lower firing rates would be the most efficient? Just as some of these folks have said, for the reasons they have said. Why is it not possible that due to the specific installation, a lower firing rate is more efficient?

Most of the time you are not operating at design temperature anyway. Assuming properly setup burners, using an analyzer, it just makes sense all the way around that an oversized boiler will waste less fuel with a smaller nozzle.