Upgrade gas conversion burner?

pcloadletter

I have a 10 y/o Peerless EC/ECT-03 steam boiler with a Midco Economite E20 of unknown age. Boiler was installed by previous owner in 2004. I have all of the install/service documents for the boiler but no information about the burner. I assume it was installed on the old boiler during an oil to gas conversion and reused on the new boiler since none of the proposal/install documentation mentions a burner for the new boiler.



Does anyone know how old the E20 model is? I've heard it's been around for a long time. The one I have seems to be working okay but I'm wondering if I should upgrade to a new Midco model or the Carlin EZ Gas.



Thoughts?

rich11coop

If it ain't broke

No real reason to replace it.



I would check with Midco to see if parts are still available



http://midcointernational.com/products/economite_ec/index.htm

Steamhead

I was never a big fan of the E20 series

being descended from their older Lo-Blast burners, it was not a true flame-retention burner, so its flame pattern was too big for many newer boilers. This could cause the flame to impinge on firebox material or even the cast-iron, which would chill the flame, possibly causing high CO readings. I've fixed a few of these by reducing the gas input, fortunately the boilers in question were oversized enough that this would work. Same applies to the Wayne P250/P265 burners.



Midco's current model is the EC series, which is a much better unit. We have several of these in the field and they have worked well under the proper conditions. But they won't fire a boiler that uses positive pressure over the fire, like most modern 3-pass boilers. The Carlin EZ-Gas and the Riello are the two good choices for these.



You will want to have your unit tested to see how good its combustion parameters are, and see what the best course of action is.