This weeks video, Why boilers are still great.

RayWohlfarth

Due to consuming excess turkey yesterday, I am delayed posting this weeks video. Hope you enjoy it.

Why boilers are still great.

jesmed1

Thanks for that video, Ray. We have two oil boilers heating our 4-unit condo building, with the original cast iron gravity-converted hot water system. We burn about 1200 gallons of oil per year, so that is a major expense. I've been looking at various options for reducing our heating costs, including heat pumps.

As you say, heat pumps wouldn't last as long as our cast iron boilers, and then there are the mechanical problems associated with conversion. We'd need two large air-to-water heat pumps and a large buffer tank. I called a few local heating companies who do heat pump conversions, and their ballpark cost estimate was comparable to a mid-range Tesla. Which we as a small condo association cannot afford.

So when the time comes to replace these boilers, we'll be installing boilers again. Probably basic cast iron ones, though I would love to be able to afford an Energy Kinetics.

Revenant

On new construction in the USA, no gas service, all electric home, air to air heat pump is the lowest cost solution. Total Cost of Ownership. Lifetime of home.

That said, If a new home builder wants hydronics and or gas/oil, who am I to tell them what to do with their home?

On many existing homes, the payback period to electrify is infinite. You can never justify the cost. You can never pay it back.

Your discussion of heat pump electricity coming from fossil fuels is a little biased. You are cherry picking coal and its efficiency numbers. A modern gas co generation turbine plant is about double the coal efficiency quoted in the video. It ends up being a wash burning gas at a co gen turbine plant vs burning it in the home. @Hot_water_fan has covered this before. The COP of the HP is what makes the case. Also, many more gas losses (methane is a greenhouse gas) getting the gas to the home.

Nuke plants still use oil fired boilers (need steam for the steam seals on startup) and oil fired backup generators (what has 12 cylinders and 24 pistons?). I had a tour of one this summer. It was awesome!. 😎 We should build more Nuclear electric generation. They work 24x7x 23 1/2 months. No going dark when the sun goes down and the wind don't blow.

Nuke plants have a tremendous amount of waste heat that could be utilized for all kinds of nifty things. Just got to think outside the 50 year old box.

I'm not an environmentalist, and I have no plans to get rid of my boiler. I like my old house just the way it is. If I ever built new construction though………….

RayWohlfarth

@jesmed1 Thanks for the feedback. What if you looked at hybrid system with one condensing boiler and one standard. You would get the efficiency of the condensing system at a much lower costs. I think Peerless has condensing oil boilers.

@Revenant You have some good points. I read on one of the government studies that gas powered utility plants are only slightly higher efficiency, 38 versus 32% I was just trying to show the lifetime costs of one system versus another. We are seeing rooftop units and heat pumps now failing after 10 years. I believe in using as little energy as possible. I guess that's from my father yelling whenever he found a light on or is we spent too much time looking in a refrigerator. Thanks

jesmed1

@RayWohlfarth Thanks for that tip about the Peerless condensing oil boiler. I was not aware of those. That could be a good option for us.

RayWohlfarth

@jesmed1 very welcomes