annual service for firetube boiler (HTP Elite FT)?

Nom_Deplume

Does a vertical-HX 'firetube' boiler really need an annual cleaning and inspection? In my last boiler, a Munchkin, all I was doing was vacuuming up the coffee grounds each year. The vertical design should be self-cleaning. Any reason not to let things go for a couple of years before opening it up? It's been running perfectly except it is about 10% less efficient as the Munchkin was.

Many thanks for any advice.

Rich_49

If your EFT is running 10% less efficient than the Munchkin was someone may very well have done something wrong . What Munchie did you have and what EFT do you now have ? What other changes if any were made to the system ?

Nom_Deplume

On each gas bill I calculate the therms used per degree-day, and the Elite FT 110 seems to use ~10% more. But the installer was the best available locally, and I made sure a combustion analysis was done. (I didn't like it that he found the factory settings to be just fine, but what can I do?)

The previous boiler was a Munchkin 80 wall-mount (I forget the model number); it was right-sized for the house, but of course the new installers did one of those hugely conservative heat loss calculations and insisted 80,000BTU was too small even though the Munchkin 80 had worked fine. I gave in since I figured I might have trouble selling the house with a right-sized boiler.

Anyway my original question is, do I really need to service a firetube boiler every year?

JStar

Yes, you do. Natural gas, fire-tube boilers can be very forgiving with neglect, but there are a few key points of maintenance that should be done for safety, and reliability. You will also lose a warranty claim if you cannot prove that a maintenance was performed every year.

Gordy

How do you know it does not need annual service? There are a lot of variables as to how long a boiler can go with out service.

Your new boiler is 15% larger than the munchkin there's your extra fuel used.

Nom_Deplume

Gordy said:

Your new boiler is 15% larger than the munchkin there's your extra fuel used.

Wow.

(PS It's actually 37.5% larger.)

Gordy

Nom_Deplume said:

Gordy said:

Your new boiler is 15% larger than the munchkin there's your extra fuel used.

Wow.

(PS It's actually 37.5% larger.)

Yes you are correct.

Actually the Elite FT 80 would have given you over 6%'more output at 100%'fire than the munchkin 80 did. 74000 verses 79000.

I'll bet you feel worse about the error than I do.

NYplumber

Read through the manual, and play with the settings one setting at a time to keep the experiment as controlled as possible. There should be a way to cap the high end modulation as well as slope the ODR curve to your needs.
Keep us posted with the findings.

Nom_Deplume

Gordy said:

I'll bet you feel worse about the error than I do.

No, I was being flippant. The energy usage in a given house is not proportional to the size of the boiler, that's absurd.

Gordy

The price of the boiler is though.