Convert only the oil burner head to gas?

Patchogue Phil_2

I have seen a boiler that normally would have a Beckett type oil burner head in it,   with instead a natural gas firing burner head.



My propane supplier had mentioned some sort of conversion that would fire propane.  Unless I misunderstood,  it sounded like the Beckett air blower would be retained.  Instead of the oil pump and oil tube/nozzle assembly there would be a propane supply and "nozzle".



In either case,  how well do gas conversions with existing boilers work?



Natural gas is in the street right in front of my driveway (I think the line ends there),  so I *might* be within the limit for free install of the gas hookup from National Grid (or is it LIPA?) here on Isle Du Long.



Thinking this conversion of my existing boiler could be a cost effective first step in full conversion to a Nat Gas boiler in the future,  while giving me less costly heating fuel.  And probably the ability to spread the cost of fuel over the year (balanced billing) rather than pay the bulk of it during Winter months for oil deliveries  (COD prices are so much lower).

Tim McElwain

Could be something

new that I am not aware of. I have never heard you could change the configuration of an oil burner and just add a gas head.



Most conversion require replacing the oil burner with a power gas burner made by Carlin, Heatwise, Riello, Midco, Wayne and others.



After installing over 3,500 gas conversion burners I can say that properly done it is an excellent move. You can obtain combustion efficiencies is the 80% range very easily. They can be fired on both LP or natural gas by simply in most cases a change of the orifice or simply order it all set up for the gas you plan to use. Carlin by the way will preset a burner up for you from the factory and all that has to be done then is the install and some minor adjustments made using a combustion analyzer.



By the way your company out in the island of long is National Grid. 

Robert O'Brien

Heatwise

Tim,Heatwise is out of business

Patchogue Phil_2

BTUs per Dollar

Now the question is,   what will be the BTUs per dollar I will get from this same boiler vessel with nat gas versus the present oil burner?



I have no idea how much nat gas costs here.

icesailor

Conversions:

Phil,

That's a good part of the equation, but I always wonder the cost of the conversion versus how much saved and the time of payback.

And the Bankstera and Wall Street Crime Family are just bidding their time before they run up the cost of natural gas. There was a time not all that long ago that customers who switched from oil to gas in 1971, still hadn't made up their investment in gas equipment.

Patchogue Phil_2

Switchable burners

Maybe then I'll keep my oil burner head so I can switch back and forth to whichever fuel is cheaper at the moment!  ;-)

Tim McElwain

Switching back and forth is not such an easy

process and itself gets expensive unless you know how to do it yourself. I have a chart that will help you determine cost comparison to Oil, LP, Natural Gas or Electric. Give me a FAX number and I will send it off to you or I can e-mail it contact me at gastc@cox.net.

Tim McElwain

Robert I did not know that. . .

We do however still have an outfit selling SU-2A burners here in RI as I just saw one installed about three weeks ago. How long have they been out of business?



I think Steamhead had installed some of those at one time not really sure about that however.

Robert O'Brien

Tim

Been out since September,I believe Patriot Supply bought all the inventory. Never installed one of their gas burners but never heard a bad thing about them

Robert O'Brien

Gas

Cost on LI is the equivalent of $2.30 oil

Patchogue Phil_2

COD oil is more

Does that have all costs like delivery charge all in?



Even COD oil prices are much more.  Last I looked in teh $3.40 to $3.50 a gallon for 200-plus gallons.

Patchogue Phil_2

gas head looks like oil burner head

I just looked at the Carlin EZ-Gas.



http://www.patriot-supply.com/images/medium_EZ-GAS.bmp



It does look *mostly* like an oil burner.  Perhaps the propane supplier was awkwardly describing the gas head and made it sound like the guts are swapped out.

Steamhead

I have

and like them a lot. The SU-2A can fire a positive-pressure boiler- it was the standard gas burner on the Solaia boilers until HeatWise went under.



PP, what make and model is your present boiler?

Patchogue Phil_2

Make and model

>>>> PP, what make and model is your present boiler?



I think you mean me?    I have a New Yorker  KD-118-AP.   140psi with a 0.75 nozzle.  HW coil feeds a 50 gallon electric HW tank which hardly ever kicks on the heating elements.

DIYMaster

Converted from Oil Head to Gas Powered - Not heating water enough- Please HELP

Hi Guys, I just recently changed my oil powered head to a Gas gun (wayne 50,000 to 250,000BTU). It was clear to me that I would not get the same heat output as oil but I understand that by changing the size of the gas outlet. I adjusted the hole to a 1/4 inch drill hole but the water continued to not go over 160 degrees, the I adjusted to the next bigger size drill (5/16)and the water still does not go over 170 degrees after leaving the boiler on for a very long time. With the oil gun the water reached 190 degrees easily in less than 1 hour. Is there anything else I can do to make the burner produce more heat and heat up the water more? I have a large 2 family and the water reaching 170 is not enough to heat the radiators enough to stay warm and not have the boiler turn on very often.



Thanks guys

heatpro02920

Is that a p250?

Which burner is it, p250af? Which boiler did you install it in? Is the boiler clean? I have seen guys throw gas burners in oil boilers with out cleaning them out and then wonder why it never shuts off, soot is an insulator.... When ever I do a conversion, I open them rite up, clean the flue ways so they look new inside... I did one about 2 weeks ago, I removed the firebox and ran hot water through it and vacced it out of the bottom....



Have you calculated your heat loss, to figure how many btus you actually need, and did you perform an eff. test tomake sure the unit is running rite..



By the way 5/16 is like 8mm thats way too big, that would be almost 300K btu Are you adjusting the burner at the same time, and what are your pressures?

Brian_19

Combustion test

I have installed several Wayne gas burners the past year and one thing is for sure you must perform a combustion test to get these running at peek efficiency.  Installing any kind of combustion equipment is not a simple "bolt on" installation.

SWEI

NG cost equivalent

$2.30 oil comes out to $1.66 a therm -- yikes.



Out here we'd have to get oil at 78 cents per gallon to match the NG prices.



http://www.eia.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls is worth a few minutes of your time before you make a decision.

Allan_M

convert oil furnace to gas

I am sure many of you will be agree with me that gas furnace is the most economical rather than oil furnace. Oil furnace is quite increase the cost of energy. I have got nice info on it to share:

http://www.cleanairheat.ca/gas-heating-conversion.php

rick in Alaska

link

Allen;

 The link doesn't work. Do you have a better one?

Rick

chapchap70

Extra space

Rick,



There is an extra space in the address after "php"  hit the backspace button in the address bar and the link should work.

Steamhead

It does

he's selling Lennox-branded boilers, which are re-branded Dunkirks. The cast-iron gas boilers have thermal efficiencies of 81-83.9%, which is an improvement over past atmospheric gas boilers. But with a good wet-base/power gas burner boiler like a Solaia with Carlin EZ-Gas, we can get to 84-86% thermal efficiency.

Allan_M

Now Link working

I have adjusted the link which was not working. Thanks for indicating!

rick in Alaska

website

Allan:

 Not sure if this is your site or not, and I am not wanting to be critical, but someone needs to re-write it with better grammar. It reads as if it is a translation.

 As I said, not trying to be critical, just trying to help.

Rick