sizing

Jamie Hall

your arithmetic and, if it's right (probably is!) go with your best judgement -- you're the pro. on this one. Won't be the first time and existing boiler is oversized...

MP1013

Sizing

I recently sized a small church for a replacement steam gas fired boiler. The existing boiler is a Burnham K5009 with DOE of 499,000 . After sizing the EDR 515 sg ft .and using 2 times instead of the usual 1.5 because of the excess piping . I come out with DOE of 247,200 which would have me use a Burnham IN10 DOE OF 259,000. As you can see there is a big differ in size. Just want to get some feedback. What do you think.

Unknown

I agree with Jamie,

good catch, I`m sure you`ll be very highly thought-of when the fuel bills take a drop!

Edit- If it were me, I would be temped to cut back that 1.5% rule even further. ;-)

Dave

Charlie from wmass

Make sure you got every rad figured correctly. It could be the old boiler was rounded up by the engineer then the installer then the company that replaced the first boiler. But also note as the boiler will run on a longer cycle than the old one does, so the owners will think it is costing them oil as the boiler will turn on and run for a long time as heat is called for. Also note that the church may have a deep set back for when services are not being held and they may insist on a quick recovery. All can propbably be done with proper venting and a properly sized boiler. Buit check the math. I had one way back in the day that the wholesaler talked me into letting them size. After installing the boiler I realized it should have been one section larger as the wholesaler had rounded down a section and going high fire rating to be within 10 Square feet of the actual load. It works great for 350 days a year. Just on those few days it gets real cold it gets too close for my comfort level.
So in Short check the Math at and make sure the rads are the rightones on the chart. EDR is well worth the money if you do many of these steam replacements.