Lochinvar vs. Triangle Tube

Kal Row

it’s way way less per ft – yes you really don’t need more than 140 on most days but it really drops off fast from there because it’s convection based and you need a good change in temp to make the air move, and baseboard gets buried behind stuff, where it cant convect, - i can show you the before and after gas bills of someone, where we took only one part of the house – his mother in law’s apt – who was cooking the heat, sitting 8ft opposite the baseboard wall, watching tv, and the zone was running 50min out of the hour, and yet she complained all the time that it was cold, I put in three 6 section sunrads evenly spaced along that wall, and now it runs 20 min out of the hour and she feels comfortable steady – and as that was the most used zone, the usage drop was so huge, that the gas company came to check on the meter!!!

so I am sold on radiators and the more surface the better and the more mass the better – it’s the original radiant heat – me and moses of ENYQ do tons of home-runned pex to radiators and our customer are happy happy happy, as it was cheap to buy and cheap to run – and you can use those plastic radiant manifolds that cant even handle the high temps, take a laars mascot – hang it on the wall – put an embassy manifold underneath it or make it up yourself and run pex to the rads and presto you have heat and DMHW for a song!!! and a boiler room in a closet!!! – I’m on Lochinvar’s case to make a WB210 “combi”, there is more than enough room in the WB210 enclosure for a pump, 3way valve, a 100kbtu flat plate hx, flow switch, and a conformal expansion tank

Steve Kessel

Comparing Proposals

I have an old oil fired boiler that heats my home using a combination of hot water baseboard and steam radiators. I am converting to a gas mod/con boiler and replacing the radiators with hot water baseboard. I received 4 proposals to do the work and am down to 2 based on the quality of the proposals and meeting the installers. One proposal includes a Lochinvar KBN 210 and the other Triangle Tube Prestige Solo 110. A couple of questions:
How do the 2 brands compare to each other.
I can't explain the huge variation in the BTU ratings for each recommended unit, both installers are standing by their heat loss calcs (done by supply house). I did my own calc using SlantFin's free on-line software and am coming up with a need of around 100 BTU/hr using very conservative assumptions.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated.

tim smith

Re: boiler selection & heat loss

If you did a heat loss and came up with a 100mbh and one of the contractors came up with similar. I would go with that. The 110. Our boiler of choice has been the Prestige for over 3 years now w/ no failures or breakdowns except for one that had bad power supplying it and was shutting down. Not any thing to do with boiler problem. Great piece of equipment as far as I can tell to date. My .02 worth. Tim

Henry

We have installed hundreds of Knights. They are very reliable. We only had one last year that had an air switch issue. We are presently doing 9 apartment blocks annual inspections. They are all Knight. They are all so far very clean with only a light film of dust on the exchangers. No parts were needed so far.

Robert O'Brien

To be

honest I'd be leery of anyone who depends on others to do a heat loss.How easy to use was the S/F program? The Prestige is closer,I'd go with the guy with the better wholesaler!

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eluv8

prestige or knight question

I have installed and sold both, the knight has the advantage when you install multiple boilers, and or need a boiler bigger than 399k, but I think the advantage ends there. I have had multiple minor issues with the knight boilers from leaking factory installed fittings, bad boards, shorted wire harnesses and assembly line damaged temp sensors that the factory wont take care of due to 1 year parts warranty. Mostly QA problems. The triangle tube I have yet to see a single problem. The knight is a good boiler, I think the prestige is better. As far as sizing will you be heating domestic water also. The knight contractor may be taking that into consideration if you have a large hot water demand. Choose the contractor you trust will do the job to your satisfaction based on refrences, job pictures, and your gut. Will the salesman be doing the installation or be on the job? Meet the installers. Take care

Steve Kessel

The S/F software is very easy to use. It is the only software I have used but it seems to have a great selection/range of options for various heat loss factors that let me play with my assumptions and see how the numbers changed. I have a very old (early 1700s) home that is part stone, part wood frame that have a broad range of insulation.

HydroMan

You should check out the Ray Boiler at www.knowsomethingmore.com. Great boiler, cast iron reliability, condensing efficiency!

DanHolohan

Time and place

True, a fine product, and one that helps support this site, but I think that when it's down to someone asking for help in making a choice between two other fine products, and each of those products is being recommended by a professional contractor because that is their choice for this particular job, then it's best to sit this one out rather than try to hijack the thread.

There's a time and place for everything.

Kal Row

i have had really good experience with the knight…

But with the advent of the internet – no vendor making junk will stay in business very long – so if triangle tube has stayed around, then they are usable, and Erick is right, the quality of the contractor installing it is way way more important,

since the cost is about the same – it boils down to what you are doing with it – the knight is way more flexible and controllable and a mature and proven product, but the prestige with it’s low head loss allows you to pipe a load right through it saving a pump – and in that light, perhaps mestek’s RAY cast iron condensing boiler would be a better fit, and matches your load type better, but it’s relatively new

there is lots to choose from, as long as you know them and your parameters – I am done disparaging any one boiler – I have many a successful Laars endurance install and you should hear people rag on that one, so just because I love the knights – doesn’t mean that there aren’t other good ones

like we said – more important to choose an up to date “heating professional” !!!! look at the jobs

as for the btu diff – check on the hot water load and how long you can go without heat –

ps my favorite indirect happens to be the triangle tube’s “plus” line, as it has the biggest heat transfer area

I noticed that your loads are “hi temp”, you are really not condensing much, but the modulation part is what you really need and will still save you money, but, the biggest return on investment is to change the baseboards for cast iron or panel radiators – heating air to heat people is really really wasteful – you want to radiate infrared light on people with warm NOT hot surfaces – with the baseboard the water needs to be hot!! With a cast iron radiator it works at much lower temps – that why people always say that the heat lasts much longer – a 90 degree radiator doesn’t feel hot but you will feel warm if you are in it’s line of sight – and if it’s at 140 it will produce enough infrared light to heat objects in it’s line of sight room that they can intern heat you – but I don’t like running them at 140 because a toddler will hold on it and burn hands, so i put in more sections or larger panels and run them at 120, – there, “ radiant on the cheap”!!! – not to mention that the lower the temp, the more efficient the condensing boiler becomes

Mike E_2

Baseboard is more than capable of running at condensing temperatures. You just have to look at the manufacturer's ratings and put in the proper length of baseboard to get the required BTU output. SlantFin gives ratings down to 110 degrees on their website. With the lower heatloss of today's better insulated houses, you don't even need that much basebard to get enough output. For example, my 1800's farmhouse (reinsulated in 1964 to R-11 walls, and R-19 attic - so not even that great) is running baseboard at 145 degree water at -4 design temp. At 30 degrees which is the most common winter temperature around my area, the baseboard is running at 115 degrees (could go lower when it is sunny). The baseboard is installed the full length of one outside wall in each room.

You don't have to run baseboard at 180 for it to work.

CC.Rob_4

yes!

Agreed! I have a 2100sf house, built 1979, with plain vanilla baseboard that was probably sized for 180F water at 0F outdoor design using a conservative Manual J. Now we have ODR with indoor feedback.

It runs the shoulder seasons at 85-110F. On a near-design night of 5F, we see supply temps of 130-135F, tops.

Heat loss is around 34k BTU/hr at 5F outdoors, thanks to envelope improvements (insulation, sealing, windows) made over the past 5 years.