Do Any Steam Boilers Qualify for the Energy Tax Credit?

Unknown

I was all excited about replacing our 90-year-old low pressure steam boiler and getting the $1500 Residential Energy Tax Credit.  But then I read that the new boiler has to be at least 90% efficient, but all the steam boilers I see are 87% or less.  Please tell me it isn't true that there's no way for me to get my piece of the economic recovery act (which my children will pay for) by investing in a new boiler!

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Call your Congress person!!!

This is a ridiculous result of the method of testing for energy efficiency of heating equipment that automatically disqualifies steam boilers.  If they are going to insist on using AFUE as the basis for qualification, they need to begin including all aspects of energy use of the equipment, not just heating fuel.  In exchange for an increase in heating fuel use, the use of much more expensive and inefficient electricity is nearly eliminated in most steam boilers. The typical 80% efficiency steam boiler uses about 1/100th the electricity of a hot air furnace and about 1/10th of that of an equivalent hot water boiler. 

This disqualification also inherently favors certain manufacturers and contractors( namely forced air furnace manufacturers) and citizens in suburbs and in western states where forced air is almost universal.  It inherently discriminates against those that live in older cities and older structures where upgrades in heating equipment efficiency have a much greater impact on our country's Energy Use.

Everyone that works with steam should be putting pressure on their representatives to change this built in bias against steam heating in our energy policies!

Steamhead

In other words

it's the usual corporate welfare. 

Polycarp

malice vs ignorance

It seems I just quoted this but I think Hanlon's Razer applies.



The reality is that most politicians simply don't understand anything but whatever is most common.  In the US, forced air is most common, so they don't understand boilers.  And if they do understand boilers (usually because they understand water heaters which are common), they only understand hot water and not steam.



I recently did research for boiler efficiency standards and found out that there had been standards out in the market for years that were utterly ridiculous, not reflecting available equipment or even how boilers are rated. 



So, we end up with policy that is based on an incomplete understanding.

BobC

To kind

"The reality is that most politicians simply don't understand anything but whatever is most common."



You give them far to much credit. They are blind greedy slugs, and that is too kind.



Bob

Volvoguy87

System efficiency.

As has been said before, efficiency ratings must be taken with a grain of salt.  Yes, a forced air furnace can have an efficiency rating of 95%+ but how much of that heat gets to the room to be heated?  Ductwork is often leaky, poorly insulated, inefficiently routed and has a large surface area which aids heat loss.  I would rather have a lower efficiency steam boiler on a high efficiency distribution system (insulated lines, etc).



Rating individual components does not take into account how efficiently they work together.  In order to better understand what your energy usage and efficiency will be, you need to evaluate the whole system.  The most efficient engine in the world is useless if the car's tires are low on air.



Just my thoughts,

Dave

Joe V_2

my freind

claimed it anyway.  His fuel bill was 30% less than with forced air heating system. ; )

haaljo

I was thinking of claiming it myself.

Don't blame the government on this one. You need 95% efficiency. That's not going to happen with residential steam. It's up to the industry and they don't care whether you keep steam or convert to hot water or scorched air.

I believe the EU is  talking about banning steam boilers because Boderus can't get them above mid 80's..

jreed

The feds were no help...

but the State of Maine was. I got a rebate on my new MegaSteam. True, it was $300 on a $10k job, but that's still something.



I'm sure corporate greed played a role in forming the federal rebate rules. Realistically, corporate interests figure prominently in everything the government of a capitalist nation like ours does. But I look at it this way -- tell me if I'm wrong:



The reason for a rebate law is not to save money for each and every individual home owner. It may help you, or me, or it may not. Being 'fair' is nice, but it's not the #1 goal. What the rebate program supposed to do ( I assume) is help the country as a whole to use less energy. Not less energy in every single household necessarily, just less energy total. And maybe it'll help the planet too. And yes, it'll certainly help the sellers of new heating equipment.



Anyway, the way to use less energy as a whole is to get as many households involved as possible, as quickly as possible. So if you're a congressperson, you ought to pass a law that would encourage the largest number of people (which probably means central air owners) to do something soon. You don't want to spend 18 months figuring out a new efficiency standard for steam boilers, or fireplaces, or cow-dung furnaces; you want to do something now (especially if you're thinking 'stimulus' -- no comment on whether that whole thing was wise) that will have broad-reaching impact. Maybe not the broadest, but broad enough to do some good.



Sounds reasonable to me. What I'd like to know is, does anybody have any estimates of how much we, as a country, saved by doing this?



BTW, I'd have changed out my boiler anyway, rebate or no, based on my own personal greed (ie., to lower my fuel bills). So I'm really not the kind of person they were trying to motivate.

Jean-David Beyer

BTW, I'd have changed out my boiler anyway,

That is true for both of us. We are not quite the same, though. While saving money is always important to me, helping with the environment is also a big factor for me. That is why I switched a 55 year-old GE oil burner for a new gas mod|con. I do not mind saving money, but there are issues with either basis.



For example, the new boiler is more efficient than the old one. But they had to manufacture it, and there are environmental costs involved witih that. The old boiler must be disposed of, either by dumping it in a land fill, or by melting it down and making something else out of it. Does the energy saved by this compensate for these environmental costs? I do not really know how to figure that out.



How long will it take to recover the cost of my new boiler by the energy it saves? I used to burn 300 to 600 gallons of #2 fuel oil a year, depending on the weather. I burned about 450 ccf of gas last year. But those numbers may be atypical. W-M have a calculator to figure out the payoff of putting in one of their boilers. But it assumes the old and new one use the same fuel, so it does not cover converting from oil to gas. I could trick it into computing somthing, but it assumed my old boiler would last as long as the new, and since it was 55 years old, that is a terrible assumption. It figured it would take 100 years to pay off, or something like that. I ignored that.



I wonder how many people replaced boilers where the rebade was not a great factor in the calculation. Could the government be wasting all that rebate money?

Rod

Energy Credit

In this case it isn't "the government wasting money". You're just recovering some of  your own money from taxes you paid.

- Rod

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

95% furnaces are a farce.....

Even if you take the 20% distribution losses of typical forced air systems (this is from DOE testing), and also leaving  out the fact that forced air heated homes inherently tend to leak more air due to typical installation pratices and the operation of the systems, the 95% efficiency rating is a farce.   As I said from the outset, that 95% rating does not take into account the use of electricity, which is extremely high for hot air heating.  For steam heating it is almost nonexistant for typical home installations....especially gas.   Let's see a rating system that accounts for all energy use.  And, if the system is reasonable, it would give added weight to more efficient electrical use since it is an inherently less efficient energy source.  I have seen nothing in the AFUE testing procedure to even remove the heat created by the large motors in forced air systems from the efficiency calculations, so they appear to be inherently wrong from the get go even for only measuring heating fuel consumption.



AFUE numbers are helping mislead the country into higher energy use by supporting types of heating systems and equipment that are less efficient.

BobC

Replace it?

My oil boiler is 14 years old and reasonably efficient (400 gal / year). Nat Gas is about 28% cheaper in Boston than oil right now (November prices with the 1.4 factor included) but the savings on fuel would still take almost 20 years for payback, especially for a small system like mine. Gas or oil I wouldn't see a meaningful increase in efficiency. Now if it was my iold 1947 Delco it would be a no brainer.



Over time people will change out their heating plants with or without the rebate. The real savings come from insulating and cutting down on air infiltration, especially in a 90 year old house like mine.



When the boiler fails I'll replace it with whatever looks to be the most efficient choice, until then I'll get tuned up yearly to keep it running right..



Bob

jreed

What it has cost, and what we gained

According to USA Today this morning:



88% of $300 million in rebate funding paid out = $264 million

$27.5 million annual savings due to increased efficiency

This compares to a hoped-for $84 million in annual savings, due mainly (they say) to people buying things like washing machines that don't use much energy, instead of water heaters that do.

$732 million in sales of rebated appliances.



So...

- we're looking at a 9.6 year payback (264/27.5) in efficiency savings, but since most of the stuff that got bought won't last ten years, we probably won't realize that payback.

- We generated $732 million in sales, but since I don't know what sales would have been normally, without any rebates, I can't say how much 'stimulus' that counts for. Maybe $73 million, if you guess that sales might have gone up 10%?



If USA Today is correct, we'd have been better off if we pushed really, really hard to get people to replace their central air furnaces and electric water heaters, and offered no rebate at all for washing machines, refrigerators, and yes, steam boilers.



That's too bad.

BobC

Cost vs gain

This was done for political reasons, any gains in efficiency were a happy byproduct.



I think the rebate should have been for furnaces/boilers, air conditioners, water heaters, and refrigerators. Those three make up the bulk of domestic energy consumption. Also plasma tv's should be penalized for energy inefficiency.



Bob

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

I don't get it.....

how can you conclude that the rebate on steam boilers was no cost effective, especially when there was no rebate for steam boilers. Using your own logic, rebates for things that don't last 10 years don't make sense, so hot air furnaces typically fall into that under 10 year category, so they don't make sense either. Boilers last 30 years. 

Makes no sense to me.... 

haaljo

Here in Mass they used some of the....

stimulus money to offer appliance rebates. They were giving $500 dishwashers. Totally subscribed in one hour.

I had to laugh.

haaljo

" I used to burn 300 to 600 gallons of #2 fuel oil a year......

depending on the weather. I burned about 450 ccf of gas last year.,," Those are small oil numbers. to begin with. Natrual gas numbers should be even lower after replacing the 55 year old boiler. Sometimes I wonder about natural gas.

But like you said it may be atypical and the first year of a new boiler - you may have just enjoyed the new sytem a little too much :-)

haaljo

" I used to burn 300 to 600 gallons of #2 fuel oil a year......

depending on the weather. I burned about 450 ccf of gas last year.,," Those are small oil numbers. to begin with. Natrual gas numbers should be even lower after replacing the 55 year old boiler. Sometimes I wonder about natural gas.

But like you said it may be atypical and the first year of a new boiler - you may have just enjoyed the new sytem a little too much :-)

jreed

I didn't mean to say...

.. that it wasn't cost effective. As you point out, this whole discussion is based on the fact that there never was a rebate on steam boilers. My point was that such a rebate could never have been very effective, either in boosting sales or in saving money, because there simply aren't enough users of steam boilers to make a difference. Not compared to the number of people using, say, electric water heaters.



It's not lasting ten years that's important, it's lasting long enough to pay back the initial investment. Electric water heaters don't last very long, but they suck up watts at such a prodigious rate, they don't need to last very long for a more efficient one to produce large savings. Assuming that efficient ones exist, that is -- I don't know, I don't own one & never have.



BTW, I'm surprised to learn that hot air furnaces don't typically last 10 years. They seem so simple. The one in my father's cellar must be unusual; it's been down there for at least 25.

nicholas bonham-carter

the ultimate rebate!

suppose that a building is compared from one year to the next for fuel consumption, and those who have reduced fuel use by whatever means, would be entered into a lottery with big prizes-ala powerball. every year that the energy use drops would be another ticket to win.--nbc

PLUMMbOXED

That's what I thought!

Boilerpro nailed it!  So I will call my Senator, although my tiny voice has no authority.  I'd think steam contractors would push to get fair treatment for steam boilers, reflecting their lower electricity usage.  But when I asked the pro who quoted me a new boiler, he just shrugged.  Business is slow yet you guys aren't screaming at your representatives?

I hope "Polycarp" is right:  Congress is ignorant, not malicious.  But is residential steam so insignificant to the HVAC industry (manufacturers and contractors) that we can't lobby to educate Congress?  You can't argue that the number of affected tax payers would be too small to justify complicating the tax code by adding one sentence;  it already covers biomass stoves and FUEL CELLS for cripes sake!  Know anyone who's considering fuel cells?

So how do we get started for 2011?

Jean-David Beyer

distribution effeciency

I looked up the spare parts catalog for a manufacturer of modulating hot air furnaces. These were rated at 95%. The interesting thing was that there were about 30 pages of stuff related to distribution of air. Lots of different kinds of automatic dampers, blowers, in-line pressure boosters, and such.



They have 4 kinds of motors, from about 1/6 horsepower up to 3/4 horsepower.



In a building I am responsible for the heating in, are two 125,000 BTU/hr forced air furnaces. Each has a relatively small draft inducer and a very large squirrel cage blower. I do not know the horsepower of these blowers, but the motors are around 6" in diameter and 7" or 8" long. They can be wired to run at one of three speeds, and are wired to run at the top speed.



Compare to my hot water heating system that uses 3 circulators (1/25 horsepower each) of which usually only 2 run at a time. There is also a little blower in there that takes incoming air and adjustes its speed to mix air and gas, and has enough pressure to get the exhaust out. It is bigger than a clock motor, but pretty small.



Or better yet, compare to a steam system  with no circulation of any kind other than the pressure of the steam leaving the boiler and possible vacuum in the radiators from steam condensing.



I bet some professional out there can come up with a typical horsepower vs. BTU/hr to get forced air distributed around, similar to the gallons/hr vs BTU/hr to get hot water distributed around. Then compare that to nothing to get steam moved around. Then the price of blowers/BTU vs circulators/BTU vs $0.00/BTU for steam could be calculated. Of course the "it depends" factors apply here. But it might enable answering the relative useful efficiency of the different heating methods. As many seem to suspect, I imagine steam would come out better than it now does in these comparisons.

jreed

and then...

... a little old lady freezes to death, trying to win the lottery by using no heat. Possibly a weak point in this scheme.