To convert or not to convert?

Kayaker

We have an oil fired steam Burnham V905 from 1997 in a small commercial setting.  It's firing 3.75GPH and has a tankless coil providing hot water.  It's worked pretty well over the years.  We use about 3800 gallons of fuel annually.  Adaquate gas is already supplied to the building to convert.





Am contemplating a gas conversion and don't know if we're better off putting 11k into this boiler to accomplish that, or if we're better off replacing the 15 year old working system.  Or if we upgrade this boiler, if the gas burner we'd be using in it could be installed in a replacement boiler some unknown number of years down the road, or if improvements in technology will make the gas burner obsolete.



One of us doesn't think it's worth converting anticipating a long payback period of the expense.



Guidance appreciated.

conversiontime

go for it

At these prices converting is a no brainer, espcially if your oil burner is also same age as boiler. You should be able to switch the ng burner to another boiler if needed but if your steamer is in good shape one could expect additional years of service with the new burner if properly maintained.



Doubtful ng and heating oil prices will remain so divergent but long term heating oil competes with china diesel demand. China is aggressively buying all oil resources it can and with "quantitative easing" now a daily fact of life, china will only buy more and more oil resources to blunt inevitable US debt default and/or trillions in money printing.



bottom line better to be on ng vs oil over the next 10 years