Determining Efficiency

Thom_Tizzer

Fellow steam-heads,

I'm curious if our Utica PEG150CDE is running efficiently. The other day I noticed steam coming out the chimney which lead me to believe there may be a small crack above the water line. Not sure if this is truly the case, or if it was just caused by the negative temps outside. I know the other tell-tale sign of a crack would be a high gas bill. Unfortunately we did not install the new boiler so we have no reference as to it's cost new vs now.

In the summer our gas bill averages $20-25/month, in the winter it averages $120-150/month. The house is 1400 sqft, single pipe steam system, we live in Michigan so our winters are very cold.

Does this increase in cost seem pretty average?

I don't want to pay someone to inspect the boiler for a crack if the numbers sound relatively normal.

Thanks!

Jamie Hall

The best and most reliable guide to a crack is an increase in water usage. I presume you are tracking that? The plume out the chimney is not a reliable gauge -- although a really big plume is kind of grounds for suspicion. As you note, on a cold day any combustion appliance will have at least a wispy plume.

Fuel costs are a miserable guide, unless you are tracking actual fuel usage (gallon/therms/cubic feet/whatever) against actual degree days at your locality. Even then, fuel usage isn't really helpful with a small leak -- although they can tell you that the boiler needs to be cleaned and adjusted.

As I say, by far the best guide is water usage.

ethicalpaul

For a purely anecdotal data, I had a few houses in West Michigan from 1995 to 2012 with natural gas scorched air and never had a winter month that low so I'd say you're doing pretty good. My typical winter month was probably $200

Thom_Tizzer

Thanks Jamie and Paul!

I'll try to track the water usage. It doesn't seem excessive but I'll dive deeper.

mikeg2015

$120-150 is a little high for 1400sqft, but not far off. It depends a lot of air leaksage, insulation and window leaks. Our last home in Michigan was newer construction with a 96% furnace, 2000sqft and had a $90 bill, But didn’t have a lot of windows.

Older homes have dramatically more window area. Larger Victorians often have over 30% window area on exterior walls. New construction is around 10-15% typically. My downstairs must be almost 50% window area on exterior walls.

Thom_Tizzer

MikeG - good to know. Our place is old (1926) but not a ton of windows. It is not nearly as air tight as a modern home, though, so I'm sure it loses quite a bit of heat.

nicholas bonham-carter

The best way to check for a leak is to overfill the boiler up into the header, and let it sit for a few hours, while turned off.
Any leaks will show up on the floor or in the firebox.
Drain it back down before turning it on again.—NBC