Gas Coversion on New Yorker firetube boiler

FrankT

I have a mid-80's vintage New Yorker model FT horizontal boiler in my new to me house. It's got a Beckett oil burner on it now, and since I've added gas service to the house, I'd like to convert the boiler.



New Yorker says not to convert it to gaseous fuel in their service and installation manual, but doesn't give any reason why.



I've looked into the Carlin and Midco burners and as far as I can tell, the only limiting factor they refer to is the firebox size. The FT boiler's firebox might be a little small, and I'd possibly have some flame impingment on the arch at the back of the combustion chamber.



I found something on the internet that suggested that New Yorker has backed off of this prohibition, with lots of lawyerese disclaimers, but no specifics on what burner or how.



Does anybody here have any experience, guidance or suggestions?

Steamhead

First thing I'd check

is whether the boiler is oversized for your house. This will require a heat-loss calculation, but it's worth the cost. I'm assuming this is a hot-water system. If it's steam, the boiler should match the installed radiation.



This sounds like a "dry-base" boiler. If so, the firebox must be in perfect condition or the base will burn out. Also, in dry-base boilers the firebox may be very difficult to replace if it's bad. Have a pro look it over.



A gas gun in this boiler would show a bit better efficiency than the usual atmospheric boiler, since you'd have better control over the excess air percentage in the combustion process. But if it's oversized or in less-than-good shape, I'd replace it.

FrankT

Haven't done the full heat-loss calc, but

a quick and dirty one shows the boiler just slightly oversized. It has a once-through domestic water heating loop that I have disabled when I put a gas water heater in, so either the original installer included that in the load, or just oversized it a little.

I will do a better load calc this week; that is a good idea. I'm a mechanical engineer, work as a boiler specialist for the local electric utility, and have done them before in past jobs, but a little rusty. If it's not much bigger than needed, I'll keep it

The boiler is not dry bottom. It's actually wet bottom. The dry bottom NY boiler is the AP-U model. Mine has horizontal, not vertical tubes. It's hot water not steam.

Tim McElwain

Get in touch

with Carlin Conversion Burner company they may have done some testing with New Yorker boilers and could give you a good run down on expected performance.



Using either Carlin EZ or the Midco EC burner will give you good performance with proper installation and set up.

Steamhead

A wet-base boiler

will be more efficient than a dry-base, since the flame is almost completely surrounded by steel that has water on the other side.



Definitely talk to the Carlin people.