Switching from Oil to Gas

Jacobchemical

Hello everyone.



I live on Long Island and have an old boiler with oil heating. My house is 3125 sq feet with base board heating I am looking to switch over to gas. I was wondering what everyone would recommend. I have several contractors come through and they all have different recommendations. Some contradicting the other.

1. One contractor recommended a condensing boiler(95% efficiency) with and indirect water heater.

2. Other contractor say that a condensing would be a waste of money for me because I have base board heating so return water temp would be too high so boiler would be operating in non condensing mode at 85% efficiency.

3. Another contractor recommended and Burham es25 boiler and and Ao smith water heater. Another recommeded an Burhman es26 boiler and an indirect water heater with an out door reset.

4. Another recommended a Burhman Series 2 Model 206 with an indirect hw.



5. Any thoughts on geothermal heating since I may have to switch my air conditioning unit shortly



Any opinions on what the best option for me would be greatly appreciated.

knotgrumpy

"Modulating" Condensing Boiler

"2. Other contractor say that a condensing would be a waste of money for me because I have base board heating so return water temp would be too high so boiler would be operating in non condensing mode at 85% efficiency."



Even if it wouldn't condense, the boiler would modulate and run on a reset curve meeting the demand more precisely then a non-modulating boiler.

nicholas bonham-carter

The "solution"

Lochinvar makes the Solution, which has reset capabilities, with a stage burner, although not outside combustion air. It would be a lot lighter than a cast iron boiler coming down any stairs.

Did any of the plumbers do a heat loss?

If not, go to SlantFin.com, and download their easy to use program.--NBC

Jean-David Beyer

Did any of those contractors do a heat loss calculation?

1.) Did any of those contractors do a heat loss calculation?

2.) Did any of those contractors measure the emission of the heat emitters (the baseboards)

3.) Do any of those contractors know the design temperature of your neighborhood?

4.) Did any of those contractors ask you if you would consider increasing the size or effectiveness of the baseboard units you have?



Because if they did not, they do not know what they are talking about.



It may be that a mod-con boiler is not for you.



But what if the time your system spends heating and the outside temperature is considerably above the design temperature, and your baseboards are larger than necessary (perhaps because originally overdesigned, or because you improved the windows, insulation, outside air infiltration, it just might be that you could put low enough water into your baseboards to get condensation a lot of the heating season. And even if you do not, perhaps you would be willing to increase the size or type of baseboards so you could get condensation a lot of the time.



And even if you do not get condensation much of the time, the fact that the boiler modulates down will get you an efficiency increase because the flow of heat from the fire side of the heat exchanger into the water side is increased as that difference increases.

Robert O'Brien

Depends

It depends on what you are looking to accomplish. Do you want a conventional CI boiler or the higher eff of a mod/con? We are on LI and install about 75/25 mod/con vs CI. The condensing issue with baseboard is mostly a red herring,in the vast majority it will condense most of the time and even when it doesn't the modulation is a huge advantage in and of itself. BNL did a study of this topic right here on LI.



http://www.fcxalaska.com/PDFs/BrookhavenBaseBoard.pdf