General questions about efficiency/replacing boiler

Yanks2009

Hi Everyone,

My heating situation is pretty odd in that I have hot water baseboard on the first floor of my home and steam heat on the second floor and in the attic.  At some point, the prior owner decided to replace the radiators on the first floor with a hot water baseboard loop.  He must have had someone retrofit the boiler to accommodate this change.  As a result, I have a one-pipe steam boiler that provides heat to the first floor baseboard and also the second and third floor radiators.  The baseboard system and radiator system are each controlled by a separate thermostat.

Does anyone see anything inherently wrong with this setup (I have posted pictures of this setup on this board before, but will repost later on).  Is it a problem that steam heat requires water to be heated to a higher temperature than steam heat?

Also, the boiler is a Crane 200 series gas fired boiler, which is probably about 40 years old.  The boiler seems to run pretty well b/c it has been regularly maintained for the last 40 years. 

The only problem that I have with the boiler is that a few days after I flush the boiler down, the auto feeder appears to add too much water to the system, which prevents  the steam portion of the system from working well (some of the radiators will not get hot perhaps due to "wet steam").  I am not sure why the auto feed keeps adding water - can it have something to do with the fact that I leave the baseboard heat on all the time? Can there be a leak that I don't know about?

At what point do you think it would be a good idea to upgrade the boiler to gain greater efficiency?  I presumably would need another steam boiler unless I convert the second and third floors to baseboard (which I do not want to do). 

Thanks.

Unknown

Get a Steam Pro

You need to have your boiler system checked out.The excess water could be caused by several things. A leak in the piping and the auto feed over filling.  A leak in the HW coil (if you have one) causing water to leak into the boiler . A bad seat in the auto feed leaking water into the boiler, just to name a few possibilities. You need to get this taken care of right away. The excess fresh water contains dissolved oxygen which is bad for your boiler.



Replacing your boiler- What you need is to have a steam pro to evaluate your system. You may just need a tuneup rather than a replacement. If you need a replacement boiler he can advise you on that too.. There are guys on here that specialize in your type of mixed system and I'd get one of them.

Check the "Find a Professional" at the top of this page, scroll down to the "STATES" and look there. If you try by zip code, you sometimes get weird results. You might also want to tell us where you are located so a pro local to you who reads this can contact you.

- Rod

PJB177

Efficiency

Not sure about the additional water, but in regards to the efficiency, before I had my steam boiler replaced, I had an energy audit of my home.  Check with your city or town and/or utility company to see if they offer energy audits.  My town offered mine for free, and I later found out that because I had the audit done, I am now entitled to a $300 rebate on my new system.



The town sent an independent company out to perform the audit.  They took a look at the entire house, and offered me with tons of information on both general construction, heating, plumbing and electrical as well as energy saving tips.  At the end of the audit, they were able to print out a number of different recommendations, with an estimated fuel or electrical savings for each, as well as the estimated cost to complete the project and projected payback period.  After the audit it was easy to see where it made the most sense to spend my money/time. 



Also, I had my audit completed in the summer, but the company told me that if I had it done in the winter, they have a thermal imaging camera they could have used to show me where insulation and air sealing would make the most sense.  They have to come back out to confirm that I replaced the boiler, so when they come back I am going to request they do the thermal imaging.