Oil-fired Steam boil retrofit?

Tholzel

We will be moving into a 1900 sf house with an oil-fired converted coal boiler. It seems well cared-for, but they used 1300 gallons of fuel oil last year.

Are there modern, high-efficinency oil-fired steam systems and would it pay to convert?

(I searched the we and found NOTHING!)

Rod

Retrofit

Hi -Where are you located? Is natural gas an option for you?

- rod

BobC

New to steam

There are a few oil fired steam boilers that reach 85 % - Smith Series 8 and Burnham Megasteam are two that come to mind. The quality of the installation is very important; if the best boiler in the world is not installed right it's not going to work correctly. Find a good steam man before signing ANYTHING.



Before doing this make sure you have an understanding of steam systems so you know what to look for. It would be worth your while to but some of the books offered on this site to get yourself up to speed. The Lost Art of Steam heat has become a bible for steam, it is written in a way that makes for easy reading; I went through it in a few nights and it really gives you the information you need.



You are going to need to know if you have a single or double pipe system, if it is double piped is or was it a vapor system? What pressure does it operate at 9anything over 2 PSI is wasteful and less than 1 PSI is desirable. Is there any banging in the pipes while it operates?



There is a lot you can do to prep for this kind of a job. Go over the piping to make sure everything slopes the right way and pay particular attention to the main air vents. Steam cannot move till the air is displaced, you don't want to burn any more oil than you have to just to force air out of the pipes. Know how many of what type of radiators you have so you will know how many square feet of radiation you have to feed, that tells you how big a boiler you need.



Post some pictures of the boiler and the piping around it, also some pictures of a typical radiator (showing both ends) is helpful. Include pictures of any air vents you find and a picture of the air vents used on the radiators (if they have one). Then the knowledgeable folks on this board can tell you what you have and what to look out for.



Bob

Jamie Hall

Sure

Presuming this is steam, since your on this part of the wall...



One can think of a steam system in three parts: the boiler, the near boiler piping, and the distribution.  If you replace the boiler, you will also need to replace at least some of the near boiler piping (probably most of it), but that's no big deal so long as you keep the water line of the new boiler at the same elevation as it was in the old boiler.



There are any number of new boilers to be had.  Oil fired or gas fired, depending on what's best in your area.  Sizes range from cute little things for a four room bungalow to something you might power the Queen Mary with.  Replacing a boiler, though, is not quite what I would recommend as a handyman homeowner project, for a variety of reasons -- and in many cases, it isn't even really something which a plumber or heating pro. can do well, unless he is already familiar wth steam.



You might try looking under "Find a Pro" on this site, and search by state (the zip code function doesn't always function...) to find a steam guy near you, or just let us know where you are, and someone might know someone.