Energy Kinetics System 2000 - thoughts after 6 months in use

Greening

In June 2022, we installed the Energy Kinetics System 2000 EK1. We wanted to post preliminary thoughts. Overall, we are very happy with the system.
House: Cape-style house with 2 floors
Old boiler: Original 70+ year old American-Standard with a "newer" Beckett burner and a small "on-demand" hot-water tank.
System 2000 improvements:
- Winter oil consumption reduced by ~50%.
- Summer energy saving was much more significant:
1. Summer oil consumption was nearly unperceptable for hot water
2. Basement was much cooler, reducing demand for AC. That significantly reduced electricity consumption. Also, house temperature felt more comfortable in the summer.
** In the spring, we will ask tech for his savings estimate based on degree days.
- Quieter. Particularly in the lower frequencies as house does not rumble anymore. Boiler operation basically is imperceptable outside of the basement.
- House is much less drafty as boiler air intake seems lower. Fresh air intake should further reduce drafts (which should reduce noise & increase efficiency too).
- Unheated/unfinished basement stays stable around 60F year round. On the rare extremely hot or cold day, basement temp might vary +/- 5F. This is great in the summer. We wear sweaters in the basement in the winter, so that is may be a downside for some.
We have a gym, home shop, laundry in the basement so in the summer more comfortable; in the winter, the gym is more comfortable but the home shop and laundry sometimes a bit cool.
Basic specs:
- Display Manager
- Riello oil burner
- Plate heater exchanger
- 40 gallon ss tank
- 4 zone hydronic (there are 4 Schneider zone actuators)
- FYI - we added 2 zones upstairs with Ecobee3 lite thermostats and keep those rooms much cooler, so that accounts for some of the energy savings. Changing the downstairs to smart thermostats will be easy
https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1707147#Comment_1707147

Next steps:
- Finalize fresh air intake (which should reduce noise and boost efficiency a bit too)
- Improve house insulation and sealing

Roger

Thank you for your post, @Greening - it's great to see such impressive results!
Another reason the draft in your home is lower is because the System 2000 Frontier is UL listed for use without a draft regulator and one should not be installed. In addition to the air required for the burner, a draft regulator (especially on a "maintain temperature" boiler) will pull in air from windows, doors, and wherever else it's easiest to get it from. Eliminating the draft regulator on a cold start/cold finish boiler saves energy and makes your home less drafty and more comfortable.
Just a thought: If you want to have more comfortable temperatures in your home shop and laundry, your heating professional could add a small baseboard or other zone.
We look forward to you having many more years of "happy heating"!
Best,
Roger

Greening

We added the fresh air intake. This was a fantastic upgrade.
- Reduced noise even further. I'll see if we can find the simple noise measurements we did before to compare.
- Burner no longer sucks cold outside air into the house or sends conditioned air out the chimney. Consequently, house is much less drafty and more comfortable.

- No idea if oil consumption dropped further