Don't see this every day.

Charlie from wmass

Looked at a gas conversion today.
Thought you might like to see this old girl.

Charlie from wmass

Burner is way older then most people who post here.

Robert O'Brien

Older than most people alive!

Steamhead

Yup, you can still find snowmen out there. What are you gonna put in?

Charlie from wmass

PEG 30 OR A PIN 3 EDR is 160.66
Way too small to justify a wet base, budget constraints being at the for front as usual. Winnelson suggested a Crowne but I am not familiar with them aside from the nightmare I had last winter locating a blower for one.

kcopp

My parents old gravity HW boiler....a Capitol-Winchester had an oil burner like that. ... it was just metallic blue, instead of red.

Henry

We do not permit conversion burners as the boiler/burner combination would have to have on sit certification. BTW, it also requires a liner.

Charlie from wmass

Henry I am replacing the boiler not just the burner.

Steamhead

Henry, you really need to know what you're reading. Here is Charlie's quote:

"PEG 30 OR A PIN 3"

PEG 30 is a Weil-McLain atmospheric gas boiler.

PIN 3 is a Burnham atmospheric gas boiler.

Charlie never said he was going to use a conversion burner on this job.

Anyway, we've already discussed the conversion burner issue. Plenty of jurisdictions in the U.S. permit these units, and as they gain traction I'm sure they will gain greater acceptance. They are popular enough that there was a seminar/discussion on them at OESP Hershey- first time that's happened to my knowledge.

Besides, boiler companies like Columbia and Slant/Fin have approved the use of gas conversion burners in their wet-base residential boilers.

You can disapprove of conversion burners all you want, just like you disapprove of not ripping out or converting steam systems, but that doesn't affect us.

Charlie from wmass

Biasi, Trio, Buderus, Viessman, Weil McLain, Burnham, Smith, and several other manufacturers use gas power burners on their wet base boilers of various sizes even in Canada, in fact even in Europe. My father hated gas power burners because he never came across one installed properly. That is until I started installing them.

Steamhead

Charlie from wmass said:

My father hated gad power burners because he never came across one installed properly. That is until I started installing them.

That makes all the difference!

Dave in QCA

I love my wet base Weil-McLain 680 with Riello 2-stage GAS burner. I'm using 34% less gas than I was with the 1976 Pennco atmospheric boiler.

Charlie from wmass

I like the 80 series. The most common boiler I install for their EDR range.

John Mills_5

Amazing how many people keep relic boilers that are probably costing them an absolute fortune to heat with.

Dave in QCA

But, it was supposedly no different than the product currently on the market. Cast iron sectional pinned boiler. Same ratings as current models. I have to admit, the difference may be that the atmospheric was firing well below the rated capacity. I have been advised by some of the pros that some atmospherics do very poorly in this mode of operation. The wet base power burner unit seems to love being under fired.

Charlie from wmass

It is also stand by heat loss and excess combustion air during firing.

SWEI

Hatterasguy said:

I think these mod-cons with intake air plumbed from outside the conditioned space provide the huge benefits in fuel consumption as compared to an older atmospheric unit. The 10% in combustion efficiency certainly doesn't offer it.

I believe most of the benefits come from modulation (when properly sized.) Thermal equilibrium is a wonderful thing.

Charlie from wmass

Excess combustion air also equates to more air infiltration of the building evelope. This as I think was already stated is one of the benifits of direct feed of combustion air to the burner from the outdoors. That cold air is not mixing with the heated air of the envelope.

Dave in QCA

With my old Pennco, after installing tunstall inlet orifices on all of the radiator valves, I had to reduce the firing rate to maintain an 8 oz pressure at the boiler. The orifices were sized based on 8 oz pressure and although I had already repaired all of the traps, I decided to go with orifices as a means to achieve even steam distribution, which has been a problem, and was completely remedied by the orifices.

When the new boiler was installed and fired up, the firing rate needed to maintain 8 oz of pressure in the mains was 34% less than the old boiler. Nothing else had changed. When gas bills are analyzed, looking at selected months from old and new boiler, finding months with exactly the same average temperature and the same number of days in the billing cycle, again, we see a 34% reduction in usage. I was advised by one of the pros that my old Pennco boiler had a LOT of excess air when the firing rate was reduced and would have a big loss in efficiency as a result.

Of course, there were many problems with the near boiler piping on the old boiler too. Other changes on the new system were the use of crossover traps to vent and a master check valve on the system vent point, so that air was kept out and the system draws a vacuum between firing.

The old boiler had 2 14" diameter flues connected to the chimney and heat continued to roll out of the boiler during the off cycles. The boiler room does have a combustion air supply the opens only when the boiler is firing. No change with that before or after the new boiler was installed. However, the new boiler burner has a draft plate that closes when the boiler is not firing, stopping all draft and standby losses up the flue.

I don't know exactly what accounts for the increase in efficiency. I tried to apply everything I learned from this site on the new install. We selected a company that did superb work in putting all of the near boiler piping together. I think the result is a combination of everything.

Anyway, I didn't mean to hijack the thread, was just commenting that I installed a we based boiler with a gas power burner, and that the results were VERY good.

Charlie from wmass

No Worries I never complain when my threads get hijacked, I do it a lot myself.