Maintenance Plan for New EK System

WalnutFarmer

We are entering our 4th heating season with our Energy Kinetics System 2000 Resolute oil fired boiler (with indirect EK 40 gal water heater). After a few minor kinks in the early years, everything seems to be running smoothly.

I am now debating whether to sign up for an annual maintenance plan, vs paying for preventive tune-up and any unplanned service out of pocket. I had no problem paying for this with my prior 30 year-old boiler, but it feels like it might not be as necessary now. Of course the options range from silver, gold, platinum, etc….

This group is never short of opinions…. Any thoughts on a smart approach?

Robert O'Brien

By maintenance plan, you mean service contract? There is a difference

WalnutFarmer

Yes, sorry…. Service Contract.

As in (depending on the level of plan):

• Annual Tune-Up

• Free or Discounted parts and labor

• Priority service in "no heat" situations

• Ultrasonic tank inspection.

EdTheHeaterMan

I am never a fan of service agreements. on refrigerators, on electronics, on just about anything out there. When you buy something that costs more than $50.00 now a days, there is always an offer to purchase some sort of service plan.

Oil burner service contracts were the exception. Back in 1958, My family offered a service contract that included the annual burner maintenance and free service calls and parts for only $14.95 a year, as long as you signed up for automatic fuel oil delivery.

As I ventured into business myself in the 1990s that contract was $79.00 and I feel that it was still a bargain. As oil burner service technicians started to become harder to find, their pay went up so the cost of the contract needed to go up. Parts were becoming less standardized with Riello Oil Burners and different oddball controls costing more and more, those full coverage agreements started to be as high as $200.00 or more. At that point I started the Silver Gold and Platinum plans. Silver was maintenance only, Gold was 20% discounted parts and labor with no service call fee (Diagnostic charge or Trip Fee). and Platinum was the full coverage.

In order to get my cost for a full coverage service contract, I would take 100 random customers, and found that 80% of those customers never needed service calls after the maintenance was completed. Out of the other 20% I would find that some only needed minor service or repair and others needed more than one part replaced. Out of those 20 customers, I would send myself a full price bill for those repairs. I would pay for those repairs invoices with an accounting adjustment from the service contract account to the invoices for those repairs.

At the end of a year, I would tally up how much "service contract income" I collected, and tally up how much the "Free or Covered repairs" were billed to myself. If the number was a positive number, then the service contracts stayed the same price as the year before. If the number was a negative number, then the price of the service contract needed to increase. The amount of the negative difference for the 20 customers was shared by 100 customers. That way the increase was averaged over all the service contracts.

Eventually I started to push the Silver as the best value, since the customers of moderate income were more likely to purchase that option and there was a substantial discount if a service call was required.

So If your service provider is offering a maintenance agreement with a discount for additional service calls, I would go for that one. Especially since you have fairly new equipment and you are probably out of the original installation warranty.

If your service provider is offering you a service agreement that they call a "Club Membership", then you are paying a premium for their affiliation with a national organization that teaches contractors how to be more profitable. Those national affiliations offer the contractors different employee training programs to better serviec your equipment and for their employees to be better customer service representatives. All that cost more money so they have a higher cost

WalnutFarmer

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809938#Comment_1809938

THANK YOU ED!

EdTheHeaterMan

Look at my last paragraph EDIT

HVACNUT

As long as you know it still needs a yearly maintenance. Preferably by an EK Dealer who knows about back flushing the HX, take care with the chamber, tool for over fire combustion readings, WHERE to take combustion readings, etc. And of course you always need to ask yourself, who do you call on a Saturday night in February when there's no heat?

WalnutFarmer

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809977#Comment_1809977

You raise a good point on some of the specifics like the HX backflush. Service contract defaults to boiler only, which I bet does not include the HX. I'll look into adding the indirect, at least for the yearly.

I'll make a checklist of the other items you mentioned to ask about. This is my oil supplier who only became an EK dealer last year. I had the install done by someone else before that.

Does EK publish a checklist/procedures for annual tune ups?

WalnutFarmer

Thx. No concerns about the "club". This is a local shop that has been my oil supplier for 20+ years. Good people with reasonable pricing on service contracts…. like yours.

HVACNUT

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809984#Comment_1809984

Their maintenance procedures are in the service manual. They even have pictures for guys like me. They don't provide crayons though.

Roger

Thank you for your questions, @WalnutFarmer . Annual tune ups for Energy Kinetics boilers and all others are the right way to go. We publish tune up guides here and information in our installation manuals.

Best,

Roger

Greening

Thanks Roger. Just printed a copy of the EK tune up guide and hung it next to our boiler.

Always nice to have a factory reference nearby.

WalnutFarmer

Thanks everyone. Helpful comments as always from this group. And I will post a copy of the tune-up guide for reference!