Summer winter hookup / indirect water heater / conventional electric hot water heater

jimmieskips

Hey, I have a burnham RSA110 oil boiler with a summer winter hookup, and I wanted to attach a electric hot water heater to it. The plan is put a circulator pump on it and have the potable water pass through the existing coil of the summer winter hookup built into the boiler. Indirect water heater tanks seem pricey and I don't understand why I would need to have a tank with another coil in it to heat the potable water. I would love to turn this boiler off out of season and just use the electric to cut heating costs.

billtwocase

what is

a summer/winter hook up? If the boiler will be shut off, I would suggest not piping the electric tank thru the coil.  I would also have it serviced just before it is shut down for the summer so come fall it won't be plugged. I would look into a better boiler if savings are what you are after. This is a dry base steel boiler that is not a very efficient or long lasting. JMHO

jimmieskips

burnham rsa110

Hey Bill thanks for the quick reply. This boiler is about 4 years old and came with the house when I bought it. In terms of oil heat I looked around and the raiting on this boiler is I think 82.5% aflu, the most efficient oil boilers are 86% aflu. I am not super familiar with boilers just what I come accross online. From what I have read on here I do plan on putting a temar 423 Controller on this unit hopping the outdoor reset and indoor sensor do help a bit on the economy of this thing.

billtwocase

a good start

and separating the hot water will save you some oil. It will last you a few more years, but have the chamber checked on it yearly with the annual servicing. They do fail on these.

jimmieskips

A summer winter hook up...

A summer winter hookup runs all year round to provide hot water to the house.

Steamhead

There's a difference

between a summer-winter hookup with a coil, and one that uses a tank of some sort.



The coil has a limited heat-transfer surface, so the boiler must stay at 180 degrees all the time to satisfy any hot water demand that may come. This is not very efficient.



With a tank, the boiler only fires when the tank or the heating system calls for heat. So the boiler does not have to stay hot 24/7/365.



One type of tank is a "booster", which uses the boiler's coil to provide the heat. This will store hot-water but may take a while to recover because of the coil's limited heat-transfer surface.



An indirect tank has its own heat exchanger, which is more extensive than that of a coil. So it will recover more quickly and produce more hot water at less cost.



With a well-insulated tank, the boiler may only have to fire once a day to maintain temperature if no hot water is being used.