Replacement for Boiler American Standard G-404 4B-J3

patpat

Hi guys,
I need some help trying to find info and a quality replacement for a house (4600 sqf) boiler

Brand: American Standard
Boiler Number: G-404
Series Number: 4B-J3
Steam: 563
Water: 156.5



I think made in the late 60s or early 70s.

I'm an EE but a complete newbie on this topic.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks

Steamhead

Depends on the capacity of your radiators. We size steam boilers to the radiation load. You'll need to determine this.

Do not simply use the existing boiler size- many are oversized.

Where are you located?

retiredguy

You did not say why you are replacing the boiler or what type system, steam or hot water, you have. Is it too old, leaking, the wrong color, what and why?

patpat

Hi Guys,
I'm in Denver, pretty cold here in the winter.
At this point I'm not concerned about a potential oversize of the current unit.
I'd like to know brand/model of a good replacement for the current boiler and an idea of the costs involved in order to plan ahead. It seems the current unit leaks.
How do I know the type of system (water/steam) I thought that was defined by the boiler unit.
Please bear with my ignorance, this is not my field ;-)

thanks

ethicalpaul

patpat said:

Hi Guys,
I'm in Denver, pretty cold here in the winter.
At this point I'm not concerned about a potential oversize of the current unit.

If you send some pictures of the near-boiler area we can tell you if it's water or steam, but you really should have that level of knowledge before you think about thinking about what to replace it with.

patpat

Thank you ethicalpaul,

I'm just evaluating the options and costs of an eventual replacement, I'm not planing to do the thing myself if needed.

mattmia2

It has some sort of a rollout/draft issue that needs to be sorted out.

ethicalpaul

Those pictures don't show much (a shot showing the controls would be good) but it appears to be a steam boiler (the same boiler model can sometimes be steam or hot water which is why we asked). Usually a homeowner would know if they had steam or hot water in their radiators but I can understand it's sometimes not obvious.

Regarding my response, I meant that you need to be concerned about proper sizing, because all too often, even professional contractors are not nearly concerned enough with it, and will fail to do even rudimentary investigation into finding out the correct size. If you read through the old threads here you'll see the horror stories pretty quickly.

Not only do people all-too-often pay for a larger boiler than they need, but in fact a too-large boiler will nearly always result in actual bad performance that makes people unfairly hate steam as a heating technology.

We don't discuss job pricing in this forum but you can't possibly start to have a conversation with a contractor about cost until he knows what size boiler he's going to be buying, and measuring the radiation currently installed in the house is the only way to find the correct size.

I recommend you buy the book We Got Steam Heat from the store on this web site to get you started.

mattmia2

I think it is gravity hot water, but we need more pictures of what is happening at the sides and back.

A good picture of a radiator and its piping and trim would clear it up quickly,

patpat

@ mattmia2
You are right, it is a gravity hot water system.
You mention the rollout /draft issue because of indication of flames coming out of the firebox right?

Is this type of boiler easy to replace? w/o changing pipes?

mattmia2

I say it looks like it has a rollout issue or had one because of the scorch marks on the front of the boiler above the burner. If it is burning and drafting properly that won't happen.

It can easily be replaced with a conventional or mod con boiler with a small circulator and some magnetic debris removal in the case of a mod con. If it is currently set up with a millivolt valve, the current boiler has the advantage that it will work in a power outage. A replacement might be a bit more efficient but not enough to cover the cost of the replacement.