heating change

classicburner

I have a cast iron coal boiler for main heat with oil boiler backup plumbed in with it. The oil boiler gets used when away from home or when fire gets low. I want to change oil boiler out to a propane boiler either Lochinvar or htp to do the same thing. Suggestions? Planning on a separator and one circulating pump like oil boiler before loops. What about a heat exchanger?

leonz

Is your coal boiler a hand fed boiler or coal stoker making steam?

Why do you want to change to a propane fired boiler, is the oil boiler leaking?

The price of oil is dropping that last time I checked.

Are you burning Anthracite or Bituminous coal?

Have you given any thought to investing in a small coal stoker
and selling the hand fed coal boiler?

Do you have a coal bin/coal room in your basement?

A coal stoker is less work and you can have an oil burner in
the Alternate Heating Systems Coal Gun coal stoker boiler.

You can purchase a propane burner head to convert your oil
burner to propane if you want to.

classicburner

My coal boiler is manual fed and a good cheap heat . I dont mind feeding it , also burn wood in it. I'm removing the oil boiler for reason that its not as efficient as the new propane boilers, also has age on it. I'm just asking for suggestion from reliable installers if anything is necessary as I plumb it in the propane boiler in series with my coal boiler.

pecmsg

classicburner said:

My coal boiler is manual fed and a good cheap heat . I dont mind feeding it , also burn wood in it. I'm removing the oil boiler for reason that its not as efficient as the new propane boilers, also has age on it. I'm just asking for suggestion from reliable installers if anything is necessary as I plumb it in the propane boiler in series with my coal boiler.

You’d better run the #’s before making that decision!

hot_rod

Parallel piping may be a better option, some ideas here
This issue is about wood boiler piping, but same concepts apply for coal fired

https://www.caleffi.com/sites/default/files/coll_attach_file/idronics_10_0.pdf

classicburner

Thanks I'll check it out. Deciding on series or parallel, which is best

leonz

The only real time you should replace a boiler is when the boiler is leaking due to metal fatigue and it is leaking.

Did you plan on buy a 1,000+ gallons of propane storage to have a less costly fuel purchase by purchasing propane in bulk quantities?


If your oil burner is as old as the boiler you can always install a smaller oil nozzle or replace the existing burner with a more modern one to have a modern burner that is easier to maintain.

When I used my hand fed boiler wood and coal boiler for 33 years it was piped in parallel where one of the two circulators was used to balance the temperature between the 2 boilers to keep the water temperature the same until the fire went out.