replacement boiler advice

Noreaster

Hello!

My husband and I have just purchased a 1952 home with its original Weill Mclane boiler. It's an old enclosed hot water system, an external old tankless hot water coil and old mixing valve (non-anti-scald).  We've been told the system is an old workhorse, but is very inefficient, so we're considering replacing it. Does anyone have a recommendation for the best/most efficient replacement boiler we can get? So far we've gotten estimates from various oil company reps who recommend:

- Energy Kinetics System 2000

- Burnham Hydronics MPO Series, 3-pass water boiler + Superstor Ultra  Indirect water heater

- Oil Boiler w/heat management: Solaia SL4100 (Beckett NX Oil Burner) + Crown Megastor Indirect water heater



How do these systems compare to one another in terms of performance and efficiency and are there any other systems we should be looking into?



Thanks!<strong>

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Jim Pompetti

You will get

a different boiler choice from every contractor . The important thing is you get the right contractor . He will be the guy who , measures your home . He will measure the windows , the doors , the walls ,and height of each room. He will ask you about insulation in the walls and in the attic . He will not be the guy who looks at the size of the boiler you have and replace it with the same size. This is a big decision ,do not be tempted the cheapest price .  

Steamhead

You can't go wrong

with any of those boiler combinations. What matters most, as Jim says, is the quality of the installation.



Both the Solaia and the MPO are 3-pass cast-iron boilers, which are VERY easy to service. Don't see many System 2000 units around here, but i've head lots of good things about them. The Solaia and I believe the System 2000 are also approved with powered gas burners, so in case you ever want to switch you won't need to buy a new boiler.



Make sure the installer does a heat-loss calculation on the house instead of going by the old boiler's capacity or the amount of radiation. That is the only method that will avoid your buying a seriously oversized boiler that will waste a lot of fuel. If they didn't do a heat-loss, don't hire them.



Have you tried the Find a Professional page of this site?

Noreaster

Many thanks

Thanks for your advice, Jim & "steamhead". We were getting estimates from oil companies rather than from independent installers, so I will definitely make use of the "find a professional" page here. Our challenge is that there's almost no insulation in the house now, but we're getting it insulated before the winter sets in (for those in Massachusetts, Mass Saves will do a free energy audit and subsidize insulation work). That said, would it be difficult for an installer to estimate heat use given the new insulation going in?

Thanks!

Steamhead

Not

if we know what insulation will be installed. A savvy contractor will have a program on a laptop to do this.



And think about this for a bit- what incentive would a typical fuel supplier (oil or gas) have to make your system as efficient as it could be?