A boiler location question, and Thanksgiving greetings

TRob

I inspected a 100 yr old residence and am giving advice on replacing the very old "snowman" oil fired boiler.I am an engineer not an installer.

For some reason it was located near the center of the basement with a long, at least 10 ft long, smoke pipe. I assume that a more efficient atmospheric gas boiler will be questioinable with that long flue pipe.  Would it be possible to extenend the two main supply steam lines for a better location near the chimney? It is probable that the extended main lines would need to be pitched down to drain back to the new boiler.  Also, the ceilings are reasonably high so a dropped header should be possible for dryer steam. Is this a working plan?

Steamhead

That depends

on how the radiator takeoffs are arranged. If they're all toward the ends of the main, you should be OK as long as you vent the heck out of the longer main. If there are some takeoffs in the middle of the house, you'll have to repipe them into the new main configuration, making sure the newly configured long main can handle the added radiation.



Oh, and an atmospheric gas boiler would be more efficient than a snowman, but a wet-base power-burner boiler would be even better.

TRob

Photo of this snowman

An old timer, for sure.

TomM

holy cow.

awesome!

Dave in QCA

My choice would be

I'd leave the boiler in its present location.  Piping for steam is probably more sensative and difficult than smoke pipe.  Even an atmospheric could probably be vented 10' away as long as the slope of the vent pipe was adequate.  Better yet, Much Better, follow Steamhead's advice and go for a power burner gas model, then no problem at all, and also the best efficiencies that you can get too.

Henry

Asbestos?

Is that asbestos? Here, it will cost around $20K to remove it!

Enreynolds

I believe

that is an "Asbestos-Like" material, unless definitively tested to be asbestos.  Please do be careful not to do anything that will raise dust from the insulation.

Eric