I desperately need help with my steam heating system!

WillyP

I don't know much about steam heat. But I just want to throw this out there. Back in the day, they would melt wax and brush it into the groves of double hung windows (every fall). This sealed up the cracks around the window and greatly reduced drafts. In an old house it is one of the cheapest and easiest repairs you can make to reduce heat loss.

PC7060

Meash said:

WOW! I am totally impressed that you made your own storm windows. That is incredible! I will go and try and find the boiler serial number and post it. Thank you so much for your help. Our houses are the same age :-)

I recently updated our old house with West Window "Vel-A-Lume" storm windows. The window are approved by the National Park Service and fit into the old wooden storm window track (even when the windows are not square). Look nice and protect the old windows too.

mattmia2

WillyP said:

I don't know much about steam heat. But I just want to throw this out there. Back in the day, they would melt wax and brush it into the groves of double hung windows (every fall). This sealed up the cracks around the window and greatly reduced drafts. In an old house it is one of the cheapest and easiest repairs you can make to reduce heat loss.

You also get something called "rope caulk" that is a semi tacky putty that is rolled in to a string form that you can press in to the cracks around a window to seal it up over the winter then peel off in the spring.

If the thermostat is in one of the rooms heated with those indirect radiators, I suspect even if the outdoor intake is sealed off they may only get maybe 25%-50% of the heat that goes in to them in to the room of interest given that the boxes don't look to be sealed at all and the intake and outlets are choked down. A small blower in the outlet with an aquastat or just replacing them with some salvaged radiators installed in the space might be a huge improvement.

There will always be a trade off between the cost to improve the system vs the fuel savings.

Jamie Hall

There is also a trade-off between fuel savings and historical accuracy. From what I've seen of that house, historical accuracy is kind of important...

underdog32

spgdsl said:

Here is a recent link from another person experiencing problems with a Nest thermostat on a steam system: https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/182276/could-my-boiler-be-oversized

And I second the previous poster's comment about bidet toilet seats - I recommend them to everyone!

That is me, and yes, I recommend turning true radiant OFF. For me, it changed my usage from 20 minutes an hour to 24 minutes/2hours. It was a big difference...not enough to make my bills reasonable though.

You have a battleship boiler like I do. Did you find the model # yet?

motoguy128

MaxMercy said:

At nearly 8000sq, that house is going to use a significant amount of fuel during the cold months regardless of how you're heating it. If it uses three times the fuel that a house 1/3 the size of yours would, then $450 a month in gas heating a somewhat drafty 2600sq ft house isn't out of the ordinary in the winter.

While the steam pros come up with a plan for you, you should maintain your efforts to seal the house up. Windows and doors can be huge leakers as can the basement. If the attic is open, consider replacing the insulation and if there's no attic storage, blow in insulation over the batts.

Smaller homes lose more heat as they have more surface area compared to square footage. But I’d expect a 7500sqft depending on layout (3 story will use less than 3 story, but will have more stack effect) to use around $500-1000 most of the winter in Atlantic coast climate depending on construction. Air leaks will drive a lot of the use. I think $1300 is a little high.

Balancing the system and shutting off unused rooms can help trim the bills.

Definitely need pictures.

motoguy128

IF the nameplate cant be found, a count of the number of burners. I think its a WM EGH. 22 Burners is a EGH-125, 405k BTU input. That’s the largest residential boiler they make. About that you are into light commercial units I think.

jumper

good idea: probably a major source of heat loss.

WillyP said:

I don't know much about steam heat. But I just want to throw this out there. Back in the day, they would melt wax and brush it into the groves of double hung windows (every fall). This sealed up the cracks around the window and greatly reduced drafts. In an old house it is one of the cheapest and easiest repairs you can make to reduce heat loss.

Jamie Hall

Another significant source of draughts in counterweighted double hung windows can be the weight channels, if the trim pieces which are supposed to seal them have come loose -- which they often do.

mattmia2

Or even the hole around the pulley

ImYoungxD

I would suggest having an energy audit done to figure what is making the house drafty. Some utility companies offer this service for free. PSEG (Electric) in NY audited my house for free.
Contact your local electric company and ask them if they offer free energy audit, if not, you'll have to hire one.

ChrisJ

jumper said:

>>Energy was cheap<<

In the olden days folks had to chop wood & haul coal for heat.
Now in our post industrial times when machines and pipes supply gas then why is energy not even cheaper?</p>

Honestly, I have not seen any actual real evidence that energy was ever cheap. Electric certainly wasn't cheap during the great depression.

I'm far from an expert but my opinion is it was never cheap.

Jamie Hall

I'd agree on energy was never cheap, @ChrisJ . Sometimes we look back and think it was (I remember pumping gas on Rte. 66, years ago, for 9 cents a gallon -- and washing the girl's windshield for her, too!) -- a dollar went a lot further in those days than it does now (remember 15 cent hamburgers?).

And if you didn't pay money for it to somebody, you paid in sweat and time.

ChrisJ

Jamie Hall said:

I'd agree on energy was never cheap, @ChrisJ . Sometimes we look back and think it was (I remember pumping gas on Rte. 66, years ago, for 9 cents a gallon -- and washing the girl's windshield for her, too!) -- a dollar went a lot further in those days than it does now (remember 15 cent hamburgers?).

And if you didn't pay money for it to somebody, you paid in sweat and time.

What year was the gas 9 cents a gallon and when were 15 cent burgers?

Jamie Hall

The 9 cents a gallon was in '64; the station I worked at (Amoco) was having a gas war with the folks down the highway (Phillips 66). It was usually 19 cents. And the 15 cent hamburger was McDonalds in the late '50s.

pecmsg

Jamie Hall said:

I'd agree on energy was never cheap, @ChrisJ . Sometimes we look back and think it was (I remember pumping gas on Rte. 66, years ago, for 9 cents a gallon -- and washing the girl's windshield for her, too!) --
.

Along with checking the oil.

Grallert

You can get all the information you need on your boiler with the CP#. In the fifth picture on the top right front of the boiler is the CP#. If you speak with anyone from Weil McClain they'll want that number. and service person will need it as well. Why in the world it would be record3d on flimsy paper is beyond me. Nice building by the way.

Robert_25

Jamie Hall said:

I'd agree on energy was never cheap, .

A house in Philadelphia in 1893 would almost certainly have been heated with anthracite coal. I did some digging, and in 1893 one ton (2000 lbs) of anthracite had a wholesale price of $3.48 in Philadelphia.

Today a ton of anthracite is about $160 per ton at the mine in Northeastern PA. Add on $10 to $15 per ton for trucking to Philly and it should give you a good comparison.

ChrisJ

Robert_25 said:

Jamie Hall said:

I'd agree on energy was never cheap, .

A house in Philadelphia in 1893 would almost certainly have been heated with anthracite coal. I did some digging, and in 1893 one ton (2000 lbs) of anthracite had a wholesale price of $3.48 in Philadelphia.

Today a ton of anthracite is about $160 per ton at the mine in Northeastern PA. Add on $10 to $15 per ton for trucking to Philly and it should give you a good comparison.

What cost $3.48 in 1893 would cost $100.25 in 2019.

Now, out of curiosity how does 1 ton of anthracite coal convert to natural gas, propane and oil? We can compare those prices as well.

Also keep in mind what the efficiency of the boiler they were using likely was at the time.

Jamie Hall

A ton of coal has -- very roughly, depending on the coal -- as many BTUs as 150 gallons of fuel oil (21 million). Take it from there...

jumper

I think a ton of washed anthracite contains about 300 therms. So bagged fuel retailed at less than a nickel per therm? Is that so different from what OP pays now for NG relative to what she paid for their house? Guessing it cost about $10,000 in 1893? Compared to her mortgage and taxes her heating bill is not so bad.

ChrisJ said:

Robert_25 said:

Jamie Hall said:

I'd agree on energy was never cheap, .

A house in Philadelphia in 1893 would almost certainly have been heated with anthracite coal. I did some digging, and in 1893 one ton (2000 lbs) of anthracite had a wholesale price of $3.48 in Philadelphia.

Today a ton of anthracite is about $160 per ton at the mine in Northeastern PA. Add on $10 to $15 per ton for trucking to Philly and it should give you a good comparison.

What cost $3.48 in 1893 would cost $100.25 in 2019.

Now, out of curiosity how does 1 ton of anthracite coal convert to natural gas, propane and oil? We can compare those prices as well.

Also keep in mind what the efficiency of the boiler they were using likely was at the time.

jumper

My memory says that I paid pennies per gallon for heating oil delivered in fifties. So fuel has increased by factor of about one hundred in seventy years while houses in Toronto have increased by about the same.
>>I think a ton of washed anthracite contains about 300 therms. So bagged fuel retailed at less than a nickel per therm?<<

Robert_25

Jamie Hall said:

A ton of coal has -- very roughly, depending on the coal -- as many BTUs as 150 gallons of fuel oil (21 million). Take it from there...

Anthracite is on the high side of the btu range for coal, the last analysis report I looked at was about 12,000 btus per lb. We have a few houses in the family that have been heated by both. In practice it has worked out to about 175 gallons of No. 2 fuel to 1 ton of anthracite as a rough average. If using hand-fired boilers your ratio of 150:1 is probably pretty good.

A real rough estimate is that a monthly bill of $1350 for NG today was probably 7-8 tons worth of coal in terms of btus. Use $4 per ton for coal delivered in 1893...what is $32 from 1893 worth today?

Food for thought - in 1893 the price of coal did not include any $$ for environmental remediation, labor was cheap (child labor was common in the coal industry), and the owner would not have paid any tax on their income.

ChrisJ

Robert_25 said:

A ton of coal has -- very roughly, depending on the coal -- as many BTUs as 150 gallons of fuel oil (21 million). Take it from there...

Anthracite is on the high side of the btu range for coal, the last analysis report I looked at was about 12,000 btus per lb. We have a few houses in the family that have been heated by both. In practice it has worked out to about 175 gallons of No. 2 fuel to 1 ton of anthracite as a rough average. If using hand-fired boilers your ratio of 150:1 is probably pretty good. A real rough estimate is that a monthly bill of $1350 for NG today was probably 7-8 tons worth of coal in terms of btus. Use $4 per ton for coal delivered in 1893...what is $32 from 1893 worth today? Food for thought - in 1893 the price of coal did not include any $$ for environmental remediation, labor was cheap (child labor was common in the coal industry), and the owner would not have paid any tax on their income.

$922

PC7060

Hahaha. I love watching these threads run off the rails. 

Any way you cut it, that is a big-old-house and it has always cost a lot to heat it. 

Hey, a least the old timers never had to worry about air conditioning.  The just opened a window! Or transome.  

GW

You could always clock the gas meter and convert that time into actual BTU. Time how long it takes for the “2 cu ft” dial to make a full revolution. There’s easy to find calculators on the net or just post the amount of time here. 

I have a good customer that once had us build a small high efficiency system to heat and cool a small potion of their first floor living and kitchen. Just an idea 

jumper

My point is that cost for heating big buildings is not so painful. Relatively speaking. Some of the ideas to reduce gas bill in this thread are easy and inexpensive.

Jamie Hall

jumper said:

My point is that cost for heating big buildings is not so painful. Relatively speaking. Some of the ideas to reduce gas bill in this thread are easy and inexpensive.

Quite true -- particularly in any of the northeastern states, where property tax is going to be your biggest single bill by quite a stretch.

BobC

I was buying oil, just south of Boston, for 13.9 cents a gallon in 1970 after getting out of the army. i can remember gasoline at 25.9 cents a gallon in the 50's.

i worked as a stock boy nights and weekends when I was in HS. On Saturday you could go up to Johns hot dogs on Washington St in downtown Boston and buy hot dogs for a dime, a classmate and I ate there every Saturday for lunch. I just got back from shopping and paid $12.99 for 2 pounds if Kayem natural casing hot dogs.

Back then inflation was tame and now they tell you it's low but looking in the stores you know their lying. The bank will give you 0.07% interest on your savings and charge you 16-25% on any balance you carry on your credit card.

Bob