will converting to hot water from steam save a lot of fuel

gerry gill

a better investment would be to keep the steam system and work on the envelope of the house..it doesn't matter what heating system you have, as it only turns on to replace btu's lost thru the envelope.

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World Plumber

Will coverting to hot water from steam save a lot in fuel

Has anyone seen the saving and comfort diffrence between steam and hot water. Am I right in thinking I'll have the fuel savings of not having to convert the water to steam and the water will maintain temperature in the radiators longer? Is it worth the work and material to run supply piping to the radiators?

Mark

Steamhead (in transit)

Not really

and you run the risk of problems.

For example, since hot-water needs over 10 PSI more pressure than steam, the vastly higher pressure will do a great job of turning weak spots into leaks.

Also the radiators may not have the capacity to heat the building on hot-water.

There are other pitfalls- go here for more:

http://www.heatinghelp.com/newsletter.cfm?Id=22

My company does not recommend or perform such conversions, and will not work on a system someone else has converted. We don't need the liability. It's much more cost-effective and less disruptive to the house to fix whatever problems you're having with the steam.

As far as we know, there has never been a scientific, apples-to-apples comparison of transporting BTUs by steam as opposed to water in a house heating system. Once in a while, some snake-oil salesman will post about savings from a steam system being replaced by hot-water, but in every case we've seen the steam system was in horrible condition and thus was wasting a lot of fuel. If people neglect their steam systems they will almost certainly neglect their new hot-water equipment, and it will also fail.

And the higher delta-T of a steam boiler is matched by a higher delta-T at the radiators. Comfort-wise, they're about the same when both systems are in good condition.

Keep your steam.



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World Plumber

will there be fuel savings

The system is in good shape. I live by myself in a nine room house. I was thinking use thermastatic valves and only heating the rooms I don't use to minimum. Then I would probably need to anti freeze. I pretty efficent now I only spent under $1400.00 0n natural gas last year. But then 1/2 the winter I was in Europe and the temp only set at 45 degrees.

World Plumber

Better off staying with steam

It sounds like I might be better off abandoning my idea. The sealing up the envolope of the house has really made a big difference. I was thinking I could save the BTU's need to change state. But maybe I'm better off staying with steam that way when I'm traveling I don't need to worry about the system freezing. The boiler is less than 10 years old. It works great. I was looking at the steam system requires a 200,000 BTU's and I could get away with an 80,000 BTU boiler if I zoned. I was thinking I could save a lot in fuel. But It seem You don't agree with me.

Tony Conner_2

Change Of State...

... works BOTH ways in a steam system. More BTUs per lb need to be added to boiler water to make steam. But then that latent heat is given up in the rads, to the space to be heated. The marginal savings of hot water over steam are to be had in the boiler, in the way of lower flue gas temps. But what's the payback on the conversion? Most steam systems I've seen can be brought back up to par for about 10% of what the cost to converting to hot water has been quoted.

World Plumber

Keep tweeking the steam

So your suggestion is to keep tweeking the steam. I got it to the point that my cost of heating the house last year was less than what it cost me when I bought the house in 1986. I could just imagine what it would cost me for 1800 gallon of oil now. I'll have to do an effency check on the boiler and see if I can down fire anymore with out condensating and still produce enough steam. I guess I shouldn't complain when I hear people with houses less than half the size of mine with 3 times the gas bill. It's a fine balance to have enough heat to produce steam but not excess. I'm still learning. Any sugestions to help the learning process is greatly appricated.
Mark

Tony Conner_2

If You've Got...

... a properly functioning steam system (and it sounds like you do), then the fuel savings you can achieve by converting to hot water will be pretty minimal. I'll bet your looking at a 15 or 20 year payback on the conversion.