Convertible Boilers (oil to gas)

Darin Cook_8

How much could you possibly be saving by switching fuels back and forth? I assume you are talking about having a service technician come out, switch burners, replace the gaskets, set-up the burner with a combustion analyzer. Of course do not forget that the first time you will have to run a gas line, set-up with your utility to have a gas meter set the day you switch over. Remember they will not set a meter unless you have something to fire up.

Oh and another biggie - You will lose about 5% thermal efficiency overall by firing a gas burner into a oil boiler.

What do you think the cost of having a company come out to do that work is?

Hmmm, seems the money might just be better spent on putting in the highest efficiency boiler that you can get your hands on and really improve the shell of your home with better insulation, air sealing, windows, etc. Then you will see HUGE savings. You will have to pay bigger dollars up front, but you will have low operating cost.

There is always alot of talk about this switching of burners but I have not seen anyone posting pictures or talking of ACTUAL installations. No one quoting customers on how much money that they saved them. I would love to see a real world effort taken by someone to prove that this would actually save someone money.

Darin

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Wendy_3

High Efficieny oil burners that can be converted to gas

I've done the research and scheduled the gas company to run a line to my house. While I wait 5 weeks, I start looking for an installer. After listening to countless BS and quotes of $13,500....I came up with an idea. System 2000 can be converted to gas from oil. My thought, put in the high efficiency System 2000 oil boiler(quoted at $7000 installed)....when the gas installers come back down to earth......convert the system 2000 to gas.

Are there any other boilers that can be converted?

Long Beach Ed

Many Can...

...but few are rated for both oil and gas, so converting them can void the warranty.

Smith makes one with very nice castings that is rated for both oil and gas.

Sun-Ray made a dual-fuel burner up until the 1980's, and I sure wish some oil burner company would pick up the ball and reintroduce a SMALL residential one.

I could sell a thousand of them.

Unknown

Wendy just about any

oil boiler can be converteds to gas if the person doing it knows what they are doing. I have converted over 3,500 oil boilers and furnaces and never had a problem.

It is true now days do to liability that some boiler companies will void the warranty if the boiler is converted. I never let that stop me as I would cover the warranty after that.

Steamhead (in transit)

Assuming this is a hot-water system

and not steam, you can choose from several boilers including the System 2000 that are factory certified to run with oil or gas burners. The following are boilers with 3-pass heat exchangers:

Biasi

Buderus (at least the 115 series)

Solaia

and here's one that's a pin-type-

Smith 8 series.

I believe there are some others but can't think of them at the moment.....

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Bruce M_2

Where are you Located?

Very often the gas companies will pay part of the installation cost for customers that convert to gas. Call them up and ask.

Long Beach Ed

BTU for BTU

I realize that you can match the BTU output of a gas burner to that of the original oil burner. And I understand combustion losses may be greater or less with the conversion.

If all is equil would both an oil and gas burner boiler water in a steam boiler in the same amount of time?

Unknown

Way back in 1980

an engineer by the name of Dr. Ulrich Bonne from Corporate Technology Center, Honeywell did a comparison between oil power burners and gas power conversion burners. He put it into a chart form which showed "System Efficiency" with a Natural Gas Power Burner with Intermittent Ignition would be in the 80% to 85% range and # 2 Fuel Oil Power Burner in the 70% range. I can tell you from experience that overall costs savings fuel for fuel when prices are close is very small, but when oil is high and gas is much lower overall operating costs drop greatly with gas. That is just common sense, what am I saying, the advantage to putting in a conversion burner is that if prices flip flop put the oil back.

With that said it has been my experience over the last 50 years or so that conversions from oil to gas are driven by one thing and that is the cost of the fuels. When oil prices go up people want to install a conversion burner. When they equal out the conversion burner business stops.

I will not argue with the fact that a Mod/Con system is more efficient but again cost becomes a concern. Here locally (RI) conversion burners are going in by the hundreds for around $3,000 to $3,500. There is not a lot of high end equipment being sold around here because of the fact that the economic situation here is not good and old time heating contractors do not like high end equipment.

As for time to make steam one to another it takes 1 BTU to heat 1lb of water 1 degree (F) from 32 degrees to 212 degress and then an additional 970 BTU's of latent heat to change 212 degree water to 212 degree steam. A BTU is a BTU!!! whether oil or gas as a fuel. A 9.5% CO2 reading with gas is the same as 10.5% with oil as they have different ultimate CO2 values oil is 15% and gas 11.7% at stoichemetric conditions (perfect combustion 0% excess air).

In fairness to their customers a good contractor should be offering all the options and prices and then let the customer decide. Many contractors have there favorite package and they push it which is okay. I would prefer all options are on the table and let the customer decide. Make sure you give them real facts and not your slant on things.

Steamhead (in transit)

We've posted several

but these were boilers we installed new, on which the factory would support their use with either oil or gas burners. They can be expected to burn either fuel efficiently, unlike, say, an old coal boiler.

Sure, it would cost something to convert these boilers, but it would not be as expensive as completely replacing the boiler.

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steve_29

Wendy I concur with your opinion. While there are many fine boilers out there that could be converted, System 2000 is still the most efficient. Your biggest problem will be from people servicing this unit who are not qualified to do so. Make sure they have gone to at least one of EK service and installation classes.