R.I.P., Slant/Fin

Steamhead

We were working on an older Slant/Fin Liberty-II today , so I thought I'd give them a call. For at least the past couple weeks, their website's home page has featured a banner that says "Thanks For Your Support".

The lady who answered their customer-service line says the U.S. Boiler deal fell through, and as a result they are closing down.

I am seriously bummed out. The Intrepid, Galaxy and Sentry were three of our go-to boilers. There are, of course, other choices, but we liked these models.

Parts will still be available through two suppliers, listed on the site.

Moment of silence.................

EBEBRATT-Ed

Maybe Peerless will pick them up but I doubt it they have plenty of different models already.

Too bad. But where I am in western, MA we never see any slant finn here. Must be a regional thing or some poor factory reps

mattmia2

Doesn't slant/fin make most of the residential baseboard in existence?

Labenaqui

We use Slant/Fin Baseboard exclusively (NH) and were told some years ago that most of the baseboard in New England was made by a manufacturer in Westfield, MA. We'll know soon .....

DanHolohan

https://heatinghelp.com/dead-men-tales/remembering-mel-dubin/

Steamhead

Labenaqui said:

We use Slant/Fin Baseboard exclusively (NH) and were told some years ago that most of the baseboard in New England was made by a manufacturer in Westfield, MA. We'll know soon .....

Mestek bought their baseboard line.

Steamhead

DanHolohan said:

https://heatinghelp.com/dead-men-tales/remembering-mel-dubin/

Mel must be spinning in his grave.

ChrisJ

Steamhead said:

We were working on an older Slant/Fin Liberty-II today , so I thought I'd give them a call. For at least the past couple weeks, their website's home page has featured a banner that says "Thanks For Your Support".

The lady who answered their customer-service line says the U.S. Boiler deal fell through, and as a result they are closing down.

I am seriously bummed out. The Intrepid, Galaxy and Sentry were three of our go-to boilers. There are, of course, other choices, but we liked these models.

Parts will still be available through two suppliers, listed on the site.

Moment of silence.................

I'll be honest Frank.
You and Gordo retiring is going to be far more harmful than Slant Fin going under.


There's less choices in good steam contractors than there are in decent boilers.

Canucker

ChrisJ said:

We were working on an older Slant/Fin Liberty-II today , so I thought I'd give them a call. For at least the past couple weeks, their website's home page has featured a banner that says "Thanks For Your Support". The lady who answered their customer-service line says the U.S. Boiler deal fell through, and as a result they are closing down. I am seriously bummed out. The Intrepid, Galaxy and Sentry were three of our go-to boilers. There are, of course, other choices, but we liked these models. Parts will still be available through two suppliers, listed on the site. Moment of silence.................

I'll be honest Frank. You and Gordo retiring is going to be far more harmful than Slant Fin going under. There's less choices in good steam contractors than there are in decent boilers.

That can't be right. The last I saw, @Steamhead retirement application was rejected by the Wall. I believe there's a 1 year waiting period before he can reapply. Unless it's an emergency, then it will be discussed at a future Wetstock. 

JakeCK

Steamhead said:

We use Slant/Fin Baseboard exclusively (NH) and were told some years ago that most of the baseboard in New England was made by a manufacturer in Westfield, MA. We'll know soon .....

Mestek bought their baseboard line.

Mestek owns spacepak don't they?

EBEBRATT-Ed

Mestek owns most everything except they seam to be getting away from boilers as the Smith boilers are now Peerless. I guess they still have hydrotherm

GGross

Wow, I am a slant fin distributor and this is the first I am hearing about the US boiler deal falling through. That is really unfortunate. Luckily we bought so many of them when we heard what was happening we should be good until we can find a new cast iron line. Mestek did buy the baseboard line and have been providing good support and product availability, like nothing ever changed.

EdTheHeaterMan

mattmia2 said:

Doesn't slant/fin make most of the residential baseboard in existence?

I have always used Haydon

ChrisJ

EdTheHeaterMan said:

mattmia2 said:

Doesn't slant/fin make most of the residential baseboard in existence?

I have always used Haydon

Ed's the cause!!!

EdTheHeaterMan

GGross said:

Wow, I am a slant fin distributor and this is the first I am hearing about the US boiler deal falling through. That is really unfortunate. Luckily we bought so many of them when we heard what was happening we should be good until we can find a new cast iron line. Mestek did buy the baseboard line and have been providing good support and product availability, like nothing ever changed.

I have always found Crown a good product. They are called Velocity Boiler Works now. I will tell Yale you are looking!

BDR529

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

Maybe Peerless will pick them up but I doubt it they have plenty of different models already.

Too bad. But where I am in western, MA we never see any slant finn here. Must be a regional thing or some poor factory reps

Thinking Peerless is going under as well. In 30yrs never had a claim for a Peerless,till August. Denied.
WBV Hot water, Bad casting.

Robert O'Brien

End of an era, too bad it went this way.

ChrisJ

Robert O'Brien said:

End of an era, too bad it went this way.

Unfortunately it seems many don't want to spend extra on HVAC. Even small amounts of extra.
Granite counter tops? Sure.
Extra for 10-12' tall ceilings of completely unusable space that you get to pay to heat and cool. Absolutely!
$100K SUV? Yep

Extra for a boiler etc for an actual comfortable quiet home, nope, no dice.

mattmia2

ChrisJ said:

Extra for a boiler etc for an actual comfortable quiet home, nope, no dice.

The homeowner would in most cases if given the choice but they aren't the one making the decision unless sometimes if it is a custom home. The decisions are mostly made by a developer building lots of houses where what brings people in the door is of value to them.

ChrisJ

mattmia2 said:

ChrisJ said:

Extra for a boiler etc for an actual comfortable quiet home, nope, no dice.

The homeowner would in most cases if given the choice but they aren't the one making the decision unless sometimes if it is a custom home. The decisions are mostly made by a developer building lots of houses where what brings people in the door is of value to them.

I've watched multiple people build new homes and install forced air even after I tried to get them to change their minds.

I think the homeowner may in some cases, but I'd say few, not most.

There's many guys on this forum who deal with their customers. I'm curious on their experiences on this topic.

The Steam Whisperer

BDR529 said:

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

Maybe Peerless will pick them up but I doubt it they have plenty of different models already.

Too bad. But where I am in western, MA we never see any slant finn here. Must be a regional thing or some poor factory reps

Thinking Peerless is going under as well. In 30yrs never had a claim for a Peerless,till August. Denied.
WBV Hot water, Bad casting.

I've had a number of either bad castings or bad machining from Peerless on installs over the past 5 to 6 years. No problem getting the replacement casting, but who would ever even think that the manufacturer that allowed the defective equipment out of the plant should pay for the hundreds to thousands in labor that thier poor quality control is costing the contractor.

Slant Fin was the only company I have worked with that actually fully backed thier product.... paying full labor on replacement of defective parts. It is really sad to see them go... the last privately held boiler manufacturer. Peerless was sold a year or 2 ago and had already gone to the typical corporate run around for defects in. They all seem to be pretty much the same now, so I no longer have an real brand loyalty anymore. Just to the few really good wholesalers that are around now.

GGross

@mattmia2 @ChrisJ
I was just at a customers house, multi-million dollar 4 levels around 10k sq ft right on lake Michigan, with a mechanical room that is a little bigger than the closet in my bedroom. The owner was complaining that "architects never account for enough mechanical space" Thing is I have looked at the prints for this house every step along the way and when it started half of the basement level was mechanical space. The finished prints for construction came along with revised mechanical space, noting the building owner's request for additional space in the basement for his home theater. The number of times I have seen people cut out the budget for mechanical in one way or another and then offer nothing but complaints about the system they ended up with just gets tiring after a while. I am still amazed how the installers were able to fit everything in that space and still keep it all looking highly professional.

SuperTech

This entire thread makes me sad. We are witnessing the slow death hydronic and steam heating. It doesn't matter how much more comfortable the hydronic/steam system is, the cost of operation is the determining factor.  I see countless people getting cheap, crappy mini splits installed and ripping out their furnace and boilers. 

I'm in the same boat as these customers.  I'm planning on installing a Mitsubishi Hyper Heat ducted system in an attempt to offset the price of heating my home with the boiler.  I will never, ever rip out my hydronic system and cast iron baseboards.  

EBEBRATT-Ed

@SuperTech don't know about the hydronic part but the steam seems to be going that way. There are millions steam boiler in NYC alone. Don't know where this is going

fentonc

My personal experiences with steam and hydronic heating have not, in practice, been very comfortable or efficient (despite the theoretical advantages). Centralized steam heating in an apartment lead us to do crazy things like keep a window cracked open so our apartment wasn’t 90 degrees. An old house we rented with single pipe steam and a thermostat in the living room had crazy temperature imbalances because of mismatched radiation and heat loss in the rooms. Now I live in a house with baseboard around most of the perimeter and a CI boiler that runs for 90 seconds at a time (but it can keep up with the heat loss when it’s -230F out in a location with a 12F design temp!).

It wouldn’t surprise me if minisplits were more efficient and more comfortable than the experiences I’ve had.

Steamhead

@fentonc , obviously you have only experienced steam and hot-water systems that are NOT working properly. Your current situation is fixable- have you tried our Find a Contractor page to locate someone near you who can straighten it out?

STEAM DOCTOR

fentonc said:

My personal experiences with steam and hydronic heating have not, in practice, been very comfortable or efficient (despite the theoretical advantages). Centralized steam heating in an apartment lead us to do crazy things like keep a window cracked open so our apartment wasn’t 90 degrees. An old house we rented with single pipe steam and a thermostat in the living room had crazy temperature imbalances because of mismatched radiation and heat loss in the rooms. Now I live in a house with baseboard around most of the perimeter and a CI boiler that runs for 90 seconds at a time (but it can keep up with the heat loss when it’s -230F out in a location with a 12F design temp!).

It wouldn’t surprise me if minisplits were more efficient and more comfortable than the experiences I’ve had.

This is comparable to saying the marriage is bad just because your first two wives happened to be@#$_&-+ crazy. 

The Steam Whisperer

fentonc said:

My personal experiences with steam and hydronic heating have not, in practice, been very comfortable or efficient (despite the theoretical advantages). Centralized steam heating in an apartment lead us to do crazy things like keep a window cracked open so our apartment wasn’t 90 degrees. An old house we rented with single pipe steam and a thermostat in the living room had crazy temperature imbalances because of mismatched radiation and heat loss in the rooms. Now I live in a house with baseboard around most of the perimeter and a CI boiler that runs for 90 seconds at a time (but it can keep up with the heat loss when it’s -230F out in a location with a 12F design temp!).

It wouldn’t surprise me if minisplits were more efficient and more comfortable than the experiences I’ve had.

I would bet that the thermostat is set up for forced air heating and or the boiler is so oversized that it is running off the high limit. My neighbors heat was like that too for about 25 years. It took me about 5 minutes to correct the problem.... the set up of the thermostat.

Another comparable.... complaining that a particular car is terrible when nothing is done to properly maintain it or only bringing it to the cheapest person that call themselve a mechanic.

fentonc

Mine is just a very oversized CI boiler hitting the high temp limit (I have a thread on here from this spring where I analyzed the performance in detail all last winter with a custom monitoring setup I built). It takes about 90 seconds to raise the water temp 20F when only one zone is calling, and the rooms have 4-6x more radiation than their worst case heat loss.

I understand the theoretical (and interesting!) advantages of hydronic heating, I’m just pointing out that the systems are apparently difficult enough to design and implement correctly that a lot of those advantages are lost in practice. My system would likely work much better with a modcon boiler 1/3 the size or less of my CI boiler, but now I have a 6 year old boiler that will probably last another 20+ years. 

ChrisJ

fentonc said:

Mine is just a very oversized CI boiler hitting the high temp limit (I have a thread on here from this spring where I analyzed the performance in detail all last winter with a custom monitoring setup I built). It takes about 90 seconds to raise the water temp 20F when only one zone is calling, and the rooms have 4-6x more radiation than their worst case heat loss.

I understand the theoretical (and interesting!) advantages of hydronic heating, I’m just pointing out that the systems are apparently difficult enough to design and implement correctly that a lot of those advantages are lost in practice. My system would likely work much better with a modcon boiler 1/3 the size or less of my CI boiler, but now I have a 6 year old boiler that will probably last another 20+ years. 

They aren't difficult to design and implement. That's the sad part.

They really aren't.

TAG

ChrisJ said:

Robert O'Brien said:

End of an era, too bad it went this way.

Unfortunately it seems many don't want to spend extra on HVAC. Even small amounts of extra.
Granite counter tops? Sure.
Extra for 10-12' tall ceilings of completely unusable space that you get to pay to heat and cool. Absolutely!
$100K SUV? Yep

Extra for a boiler etc for an actual comfortable quiet home, nope, no dice.

Ask any builder and they will tell you that HVAC upgrades don't sell houses. The only people that "WANT" better systems are those who have lived in houses with them. On the forced air side how many times do you hear .... Variable Speed equipment is not worth it .... or don't zone. I have zoned all my projects for over 25 years and grew up in one done in the 50's way before I was born. Zoning and VS equipment is about comfort and most people (including those who install it) don't have experience with it.

Without doing all the calculations. The radiant added at least 80k to my current project. Factoring the Warmboard -- I'm at 100k. Few will spend that ... most will say "for what?". Percentage of project cost -- not a huge number. People see no value in it.

Mini-splits are great problem solvers. While I have done multi head system ...long term reliably and overall cost .. I'm not feeling it. Most people will be better served with a proper duct system (but --- who actually get that?) .... a proper duct system 13 years down the pike you toss in new equipment. With a complex mini system ... you are almost back to the starting line when it fails. My latest project had to have some mini splits and I went with single units ... cheaper to just replace.

I will add that with spray foam and good windows .... some thought with construction. Homes are vastly better today and in many climates can be made very comfortable with modern variable speed equipment. A friend of mine built a huge place near me in PA about 6 years ago .... about 2m to build not including the land. He is a designer and was sort of the GC .... mix of not pretty flex and metal ductwork (Goodman equipment) ... I was surprised how conformable the place was in the winter. I could hear the equipment .... that drives me nuts. Sold late last year for 5m after a divorce. People buying 5 million are expecting about the same as any other.