Replacing 1950s Oil Boiler in large home in Maine

Dwight Appleby SFC USA (R)

Also we are realists we realize we can not afford to heat the house completely...and we keep most of the house at 50 degrees except for the two bedrooms. I have an 8 year old daughter and I do keep her room at 70 ours is kept at 65.

Dwight Appleby SFC USA (R)

My Boiler froze up and is destroyed...tough situation now.

Hello,
I am trying to replace my Oil Boiler I had a heat loss done and I require 300 BTU to heat my entire house all three floors. the system has six zones the old pumps also froze up. So I am in a world of hurt. I found a real good deal on a Biasi B-9 boiler and I was wondering if anyone might be familiar with that boiler? My goal is to run a Lead Lag configuration but I do not have a whole lot of money just now to do the entire set up at once...so I was going to install the 257000 BTU Biasi B-9 just to keep us afloat until we can sell of enough of our belongings to buy a second unit to do the Lead Lag system. Am I going about this wrong? I figure I can close the loop to the third floor until I can afford to get the Lead-Lag done? And also I was looking at TACO cast iron pumps for pushing the six zones How do i determine which pumps will do the job sufficiently please? I have a 40 foot rise from the boiler room to the highest zone I figured a 1/6 HP Taco will handle that? My question is; do I buy different pumps based on the rise to each zone?
Thanks for your time and my family appreciates any advise you might render us during this time of crisis.

very respectfully,
Dwight Appleby
SFC USA /DAV

Paul Pollets

One way to do it...

I'd be using a Viessmann Vitola VB2-63 with Vitotronic 200 control, if you truly need 260K+ btu output, with the chassis oil burner. I'd use one pump and six zone valves, with a pressure bypass differential above the pump to prevent it from "dead-heading" as the zone valves close, or use a variable speed pump. Six pumps would not be energy efficient, considering the available technology.

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kpc_75

Where in Maine?

There are probabaly a number of wallies in your area....kpc

Jim_64

I see the DAV

if you have a legitimate hardship,why not contact Oil Heat Cares? It's a charity setup to help people in legitimate desperate straits. I can put you in touch if you'd like,what part of ME?

Unknown

Dwight

I can understand your plight about being tight(no pun intended)!, as most here do too. ;-)

I can`t see you having a prob with the Biasi proposed(unless the oil supplier does),, you need heat, and they are quite reliable.


Good Luck! ;-)

Dave

KevinCorr

300MBH!!

You have some good answers already.
Some things to think about.

1st- put anti-freeze in the new boiler. I know, shut the barn door, now that the horse is gone.

2d- 300,000 BTU!!!!!!!!!! That is crazy high. So eventually you will get the house retrofitted and then you will have to have that hotel sized boiler hauled out.
Even here in central Alaska where it can be over -60 BELOW ZERO, you would rarely see over 130,000 btu.

Your best bet is to set up in one part of the house and as soon as you can afford it, weatherize that part. The rest of the house you can use in the warmer weather.

You realize that the energy audit tells you the heat consumption on the coldest day of the year. The rest of the time it is way oversized. If you get a boiler that big you will have to waste lots of fuel to heat it when you need only a little heat or hot water. Well, if you do buy a monster boiler you would be better off having a small warm weather domestic hot water system so you don't have to heat the behemoth in the summer.

A much better option is 2 boilers, one to serve the part of the house that you will spend your time in when it is cold, plus the domestic hot water.
The 2d boiler would serve the rest of the house. That one could be used to keep the cold area above freezing if you want, and heat that area when it is not so cold out or when you are feeling rich. I am talking about two separate systems, not tied together. Each would serve a different area as you would a duplex home.

You may be able to buy 2 smaller Biasi for near the same as one huge Viessmann.

For the "extra" area I would get a boiler that is designed to shut down when not needed. For example, a Burnham MBO 189, which is not expensive can put out 150,000 btu but could be shut off in warm weather, and can be moderated the rest of the time.
I am not saying the Burnham is better than a Biasi 150,000 boiler but I don't know if Biasi can be shut off. I have not worked with those.