Looking for a 25K BTU boiler, Upstate NY

stuartf

The original boiler served both sides of a duplex, the neighbors have gone to ASHP and it is time ti replace the Munchkin (80K BTU) for our side The Manual J I had performed tells me I need a peak of 25K BTU (it is a tight house, constructed with SIPS) and I can't find North American availabilty of a small enough unit.

I understand that high turn down rates can be my friend but for much of the heating season I will need only 10K BTUs or so (and haven't been abe to find local installers who can ID a smaller unit). My trusted installer says that if I can find something he will install it, but am wary of being the test of his skills on a new unit. I have always thought that while the product is important, the expertise of the installer and their familiarity with a product is key.

Hot_water_fan

Maybe not a 25kbtu boiler, but 28k-32kbtu cast iron gas and propane boilers are available from most manufacturers. And a modcon can usually go to 8kbtu on the low end. 

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/catsy.782/Series+2+Submittal+Form.pdf This one’s 32kbtu. 

dko

What kind of heat emitters are being used

hot_rod

with a 55k mod con, you can turn down  to 8 k, plus you could run lower SWT on mild days. With outdoor reset you can get close to constant circulation.
Is it a zoned system?

stuartf

There are hydronics buried in the basement slab and fin tube on the two upper floors, each a separate zone. The Munchkin is setup with an outdoor reset. My rough calculations show that I have more emitters than required for what that is worth.

Any Upstate (Ithaca) reccomendations for an installer??

WMno57

Any interest in going all electric? This Stiebel Eltron is 24,573 BTUs. 700 bucks at Menards.
https://www.menards.com/main/plumbing/hydronic-radiant-heat/radiant-heat-boilers/stiebel-eltron-hydro-shark-reg-electric-microboiler/sh3-07/p-1444433731813-c-8519.htm
All electric would probably be higher fuel costs, but you might save a lot of money up front. Maybe more than enough to offset the higher fuel costs.

Mad Dog_2

Not Sure of an Ithaca Installer, but LeonZ
Would know. He lives there. Mad Dog 🐕 

WMno57

Simple math to estimate how many more kWh you will buy if you switch to all electric. How many therms did you use last year? Convert that to BTUS. Figure the Muncher was 90% efficient. So Multiply gas BTUs by 0.9. Then convert BTUs to kWh.
That is how many kWh an electric boiler will consume.

KarlW

WMno57 said:

All electric would probably be higher fuel costs, but you might save a lot of money up front. Maybe more than enough to offset the higher fuel costs.

Natural Gas is cheaper and it isn't close.

I assume @stuartf is a NYSEG customer, I'm a customer of their technically, but not practically separate sister company RG&E - both are owned by Iberdrola.

In December I paid around $0.15 for a kwh and around $0.75 for a therm.

1 therm is 100,000 BTU, 1 kwh is 3412.14 BTU, 100,000 BTU is 29.3kwh while 90,000 BTU (90% efficiency) is 26.4 kwh.

26.4kwh is about $3.96 at $0.15/kwh. That's over 5 times more expensive than a therm at $0.75

Incidentally, this is why heat pumps are having trouble making inroads, even at 2-3x efficiency, they are still more expensive than natural gas.

WMno57

Also have to figure in the value of dropping the monthly gas customer charge.

KarlW

IWMno57 said:

Also have to figure in the value of dropping the monthly gas customer charge.

I’m an EV driver who has been dissecting my RGE Bill now for over five years. My cost for delivery was about $.35, my cost for Transmission is also about $.30, and the service charge was $20. Add a couple of the other miscellaneous charges and I’m sure I overestimated to get $.75 per therm.

WMno57

Because I bought an old farmhouse with a huge gas meter for the grain dryer, I pay $66 every month before I use the first therm. I don't use any therms all summer.
Gas co wants thousands of $$$$ to remove the monster meter and put a regular meter on the side of my house.
Maybe I will switch to coal

Hot_water_fan

@KarlW Looks like you paid $.82/ therm and $20.30/month for that period.

Not for everyone, but losing a highly monthly fixed fee is appealing for some. I'm on my last gas appliance (stove) and also pay about $20/month fixed, which quickly covers the cost of a new stove. Now, just have to call an electrician

EdTheHeaterMan

This whole monthly fee thing for months that you do not use the service is the reason that you should take the total annual cost and divide it by the total annual usage to get your actual cost per BTU or Therm.

I used to use a summer time gas bill to illustrate how expensive gas heating was compared to oil heating. The summer gas bill might have only the cooking and water heater in therms usage. When dividing the therms used by the total of the bill, gas looked more expensive that it really was. But I was able to talk the customer into a new oil burner. That is equal to keeping an oil customer account for another 10+ years. Selfish? Yea. But I feel that my customers get better, personal service from my company, then the would get from a big utility. So it was a Win/Win!

KarlW

$20.30 a month is quite low comparatively, and I think when I ran the numbers it jumped it up to about $1.50/therm in the summer months (I have a gas water heater and dryer, but not a range).

Another way to think of it is that my 12 month gas fee is equivalent to another warm month (April or October).

It’s still much cheaper to heat my house with gas than electricity. And I’ll bet my $0.15-$0.20 kWh cost is a cheaper than many folks on here pay.

WMno57

EdTheHeaterMan said:

This whole monthly fee thing for months that you do not use the service is the reason that you should take the total annual cost and divide it by the total annual usage to get your actual cost per BTU or Therm.

Yes, if the analysis is to change fuels. Like Gas v Oil.
If the analysis is to determine savings a gas mod-con would deliver over gas CI, and whether that is worth the cost of shorter life and more expensive parts, then use the incremental cost of just a therm.
The hidden cost of efficiency.

KarlW

For the record, I’ll correct my December numbers including taxes: $0.17/kwh and $0.89/therm.

At 90% efficiency (26.4kwh), gas is 5 times cheaper.

My steam boiler is closer to 80% more efficient (23.44kwh) but is still 4.5 times cheaper than 100% electric baseboard heat (100% efficient).