Recommend your favorite commercial mod-con (would love to hear from a rep).

JohnNY

I've got to replace these two boilers in this home's mechanical-room-turned-storage-closet. I install a lot of steam, but as far as high efficiency, hot water systems in the past ~5 years I've installed 4 Aerco boilers, 10 Viessmann, 12 Lochinvar, 12 Weil-McLain, and a handful of others. I can speak with great admiration for each of these products and all for their unique reasons. I'd like to hear from experienced installers and service personnel about their preferences.

GGross

What size are these Lochinvars?

JohnNY

GGross said:

What size are these Lochinvars?

2 x 399

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Tempting to go with Lochinvar’s again. All the connections would be the same. Good boilers. 

Is that PVC on the vent and make-up?  I don’t think they want it on the vent anymore.  

Nice boiler room. It must be a monster of a house. 

GGross

I am about the biggest Viessmann fan you might ever find and I think I would still put Lochinvar back in place. You would definitely have to change to Polypropylene vent if you went Viessmann.

I could likely give a myriad of reasons I like Viessmann over Lochinvar but none of those reasons are going to put the connections in the same place

Big Taco pumps have me more interested to be honest. What's going on at that place to use those big suckers?

hot_rod

They don't look that old??

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

I see the large pump (Taco?) mounted vertically. Isn't that a no-no?

EBEBRATT-Ed

The large Taco pump is fine mounted that way. As far as the PVC venting MA allows it on a replacement......I don't think that exception will last forever

JohnNY

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Is that PVC on the vent and make-up?  I don’t think they want it on the vent anymore.  

Nice boiler room. It must be a monster of a house. 

Correct and it's part of the reason we're updating the boiler room. Yeah, it's a monster alright. The house's footprint is 100' x 70' x 3 stories. These boilers provide radiant floor and stage-1 perimeter convection heating for mild days only.

@GGross I want to love Viessmann but the representation in NYC is nearly non-existent. We've had big problems in the past until I've gotten to higher level people. Then, yeah, they're a great company with fantastic products. I can't play that game in this house.

@hot_rod They're a hard 12 years old. They never stop working and they run at full fire 90% of the time. The RFH is 12 months as is the DHW. The owner lets celebrities like Jay-Z and Elton John hold parties here. A lot of these large Manhattan homes run A/C and RFH all year long to control humidity and keep the bathroom floors warm. The regular rules go out the window when money isn't a consideration.

SteveSan

KV series pumps can be mounted vertically, link is below to the IOM for KV series. Page 5 of the IOM shows that our KV series only can be mounted horizontal as long as the motor is 15HP or less. Hope this helps.

https://www.tacocomfort.com/documents/FileLibrary/KV_Vertical_In-Line_Pump_IOM_302-031_.pdf

hot_rod

JohnNY said:

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Is that PVC on the vent and make-up?  I don’t think they want it on the vent anymore.  

Nice boiler room. It must be a monster of a house. 

Correct and it's part of the reason we're updating the boiler room. Yeah, it's a monster alright. The house's footprint is 100' x 70' x 3 stories. These boilers provide radiant floor and stage-1 perimeter convection heating for mild days only.

@GGross I want to love Viessmann but the representation in NYC is nearly non-existent. We've had big problems in the past until I've gotten to higher level people. Then, yeah, they're a great company with fantastic products. I can't play that game in this house.

@hot_rod They're a hard 12 years old. They never stop working and they run at full fire 90% of the time. The RFH is 12 months as is the DHW. The owner lets celebrities like Jay-Z and Elton John hold parties here. A lot of these large Manhattan homes run A/C and RFH all year long to control humidity and keep the bathroom floors warm. The regular rules go out the window when money isn't a consideration.



Lochinvar would be my choice also. Easiest switch, and the track record of the ones they have. Check the hour meter if you go back, just for grins.

Paul Pollets

I've used Viessmann exclusively for the past 25 years. They're well repped in Seattle and several wholesalers sell them. Spare parts are (usually) stocked and there have been minimal issues with the boilers or water tanks. That multiple temps can be obtained without having to buy other controls or mixing stations is a primary reason. The control is easy to set up and check for faults. The service from Viessmann has somewhat declined over the years as the original staff I dealt with retired or left the company. I could never understand why Viessmann didn't promote other markets, like NYC or the Hudson Valley.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

They should move all those paper products closer to the boiler.

Why are there two X-Pump blocks? Separation for some reason?

JohnNY

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

They should move all those paper products closer to the boiler.

Why are there two X-Pump blocks? Separation for some reason?

I have it in my contract to add some oil-soaked rags to the area. That oughta do it.

We're sending multiple water temperatures out to various floor surfaces. The mixing blocks give us a wood temperature and a masonry temperature and yet another block just controls the Master Bath floor temps.

The red vertical Everhot heat exchanger in the center foreground is filled with 35% glycol to provide snow melting.

mattmia2

@JohnNY did you build the original system?

JohnNY

mattmia2 said:

@JohnNY did you build the original system?

To engineer's spec, yes. The only thing I did was to send submittals to swap out all the pumps and mixing stations for Taco products because Mr. Taco is my buddy. All were approved.