Observations on my gas conversion heating System

halnwheels

When I bought my house in 1985, an old gent in my workplace asked me what kind of heating system it had. I told him it had a coal converted to oil and steam heat and Base-Ray radiators. He was ecstatic! I may as well have had a Duesenberg in my garage.
The first thing he suggested was to put heat timer varivalves on the radiators.
In 1996 the old girl blew her crown. It was an old American Radiator. My oil company replace it with a Smith Series 8 and a Beckett burner. I saved the old gauge and pressure control, but all new controls were installed.
In 2013, I decided to use a Wayne conversion unit to convert to gas and keep the boiler. The tank was removed by a specialized company and inspected by my town so all is proper. The conversion work was done by someone recommended and he replaced the gun but kept my controls and gauge from the 1996 conversion. He put a liner in the chimney too.

Recently, the gauge become stuck above zero psi and I decided to replace with the large American Radiator gauge. This alerted me to the fact that the Honeywell PA404 controller was letting the pressure go too high. That's not how it was before, so something was amiss. It was on a pigtail, so I removed that and cleaned it out, but that was not the problem. I quickly determined the controller was clogged. I broke out the old Timken Steam Conrol and fit it in. Wow! What a difference. The build quality of this older control is so much better. The magnetic assisted switch is precise and the boiler pressure cycle range is dead-on repeatable.

There seems to be no choice these days in pressure control. Why in these days of 1/2 psi cut in, do we use controls where that is the lowest setting? Shouldn't it be more in the middle of the range? It's true that the Timken has that as the lowest range too, but it is much better at achieving it reliably. If I didn't have the Timken, I would probably have bought a vaportroll.

I love my steam heat. All the radiators are balanced and the hosue is comfortable. Oh yes, I also bought a New Old Stock Honeywell Mercury round thermostat because the Anticipator circuit works well with steam. I have a First Alert programmable setback device designed for the round thermostat. It's worked well for over 10 years.

What's next? I have to figure out how to quiet down my boiler/Conversion Gun. It's considerably louder than the oil gun. When it's firing, there's a lot of rumble. Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks for listening.

Steamhead

Which Wayne burner is that?

Was it tuned with an analyzer? If so, what were the results?

halnwheels

Thanks for replying Steamhead.
It's a Wayne model P265F BB DIN
It was measured with an analyzer as follows:
Measured flue Gas Temp 162.1 deg F
Co2 calc 8.2%
Meas. O2 6.1%
CO 8.2% 1ppm

I hope these numbers make sense.
You have ideas as to what causes the rumble?

Thanks again.

Hal

Steamhead

Not good.

The flue temperature is low enough that it's below the boiling point of water (212° F). Either it was measured in the wrong place or there is something wrong with the analyzer they used. That number cannot be right.

I'm not a big fan of that burner. It cannot produce any static air pressure, therefore it cannot overcome any back-pressure the boiler might have. We always used Carlin EZ-Gas burners on those boilers, and they ran nicely.

That job needs to be re-tested. We also need to know what the draft is. Tell us where you are located and we'll see if we know someone in your area.

halnwheels

I thought that number seemed funny. I'm in the clifton passaic NJ area. He used the Wayne because he said he found high failure rates on the Carlin. The guy had his own fleet of trucks and a he used his boom truck to lower the liner into the chimney.

OK, I just found the actual printouts from the meter.
RH is 50%
The 161.2 is T gas.
T air is 71.2.
Draft is -0.012 inH2O
Exc. air 41%
Efficiency 88.7%
Delta T 90.9F

Nothing says stack temperature but it sure looks like T gas is just that.

Steamhead

Tgas might be the "net" stack temperature, where the ambient temperature is deducted from the actual reading. That would make 232.4° F in your case. Still way too low- the flue gases are condensing all the way up the chimney if that turns out to be correct.

We have a bunch of EZ-Gas burners out there and have not had issues with them. Also, Carlin supports their burners extremely well, which means a lot to us.

You might want to call this company. One of the owners posts here under the name "JStar" and he really knows his stuff:

https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/thatcher-heating-and-air-conditioning

halnwheels

Thanks Steamhead. I will give my guy a chance to make it right on his nickel before I switch over. I noticed that the draft is supposed to be a minimum of -0.02. So even that is not spec.

Hal

halnwheels

I just was looking at a Testo 310 combustion analyzer. Do you suppose a hands-on guy like myself could justify something like this?

JStar

halnwheels said:

I just was looking at a Testo 310 combustion analyzer. Do you suppose a hands-on guy like myself could justify something like this?

You should also invest in the $$$$ courses and training to learn how to use and interpret the analyzer readings. Even people with "experience" have a hard time understanding combustion. The proof is in your current contractor.

halnwheels

Joe, you are right of course. I value the information and opinions I've gotten here, and I guess I got enthusiastic trying to reason this out.

JStar

There are a lot of things that I/we encourage people to try on their own. Messing around with combustion is not one of them. Nobody needs to take that risk.

halnwheels

I have a video showing my boiler in operation with the Timken Steam Control with a modification where I added indicator lights for operation.
You can view the video here:
youtu.be/5PzZsed-ok8?list=UUgG6ZOFXP-uJJh9Xk976R_g

vaporvac

That's very cool. i think your gauge is exactly like the one on my old coal boiler. I have another one I picked up at the Restore just cuz I'm a nerd. I never thought about seeing if it worked!..Something else to try.

halnwheels

Thanks vaporvac. I would classify myself as a nerd also. I had fun adding the lights to the Timkin steam control. The gauge is cool but I think I will add a 3 psi gauge in a tee. 30 psi is required by code.

Fred

From watching the video, it looks like that gauge is sensitive enough to measure pressures even at the lowest end of the scale. I don't know that you will get any additional value out of a 0-3PSI gauge other than maybe verification that both are registering around the same pressure. Even then you won't know for ssure wich one is off if there is a descrepancy. Looks like a nice control set up.

Larry_52

Compared to the ez-gas the Carlin g3b is a hell of a lot quiter. If noise is your motivator and your input is below 180,000 btu then the g3b should be fine on a smith boiler with a decent flue height.

halnwheels

Thanks all for your comments.

Hal