Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Old W-M WGO-4 Leaking, Replacing with W-M Gas-Fired Boiler

NTL1991
NTL1991 Member Posts: 103
edited May 2015 in Gas Heating
Hello everyone. It's been a while since I've posted on here. My system hasn't been running for a while due to the warmer weather, but on a cold morning, the system started up and the pipes were gurgling like crazy. The pressure in the system was at zero, with no obvious leaks from the piping system. The concrete floor under the boiler looks very damp and there's quite a bit of rusting from the cast iron sections on the floor around the boiler. I have a feeling it's shot.

So here's the current setup:

-2st Floor Apartment. 1020 square feet total. 838 square feet conditioned living space (the remainder are the unheated common-area hallways). 1948 construction. New double-pane windows, everything caulked and tight, uninsulated walls.
-1st and 3rd floor below/above are conditioned with separate heating systems.
-Approximately 60 feet of Haydon baseboard in the single-zone system.
-Separate Gas-Fired Hot Water Heater, No Tankless DHW needed from the boiler.
-Weil McLain SGO-4 (converted to water, so essentially a WGO-4) Oil Boiler @ ~125k BTU output

With Taco's software, I'm getting a Design Heat Loss of about 33k BT (that's including a 10% safety factor)
Looking at the baseboard already installed x 550BTU/ft, I'm getting about 33k BTU/hr needed to satisfy the installed radiation completely.

I want to go with Natural Gas for the new boiler, and I'm looking at a Cast Iron boiler to keep cycling issues at bay. I'm looking at the Weil McLain CGA-25, which is 38K BTU/hr output, which AFAIK is the closest match to my system.

Does everything sound okay? I'm a bit afraid of having the boiler undersized, but I think anything would be better than the GROSSLY oversized boiler that's installed now (which used to provide all three floors with steam heat).

Any ideas? I've got a little time to get the details sorted out due to the excellent timing of the boiler failing, and I'd like to have the boiler delivered and set for my brother, a boilerman/HVAC technician install the boiler.

Thanks,
Nick
Nick, Cranston, RI