H.B. Smith bb14 boiler - replace?

oldhousehelp

We are buying an old house with an H.B. Smith bb-14 oil steam boiler that looks like it is from 1984 according to the serial number. Working fine from what inspector said, but he said likely near end of life merely due to age. Looked at some posts here - the consensus seems to be if it ain't broke, don't fix it. How long of a life do you think it has left? Is this very inefficient - would we save a lot by replacing with a new efficient one? Murphy's law says it will die on the coldest day of the year which I would like to avoid.

Big Ed_4

I wouldn't worry about it if it holds water .. The burner part gives you a good 20 years before it starts wearing out , maybe replace the gun…. Not much gain in efficiency since 1985 boilers in steam boilers .. Home insulation and repairing all steam leaks is your best bang for the buck for saving fuel …

Good Luck on the new home

Jamie Hall

Very much what @Big Ed_4 just said. To which I will add: you might gain a small amount of efficiency with a replacement boiler, but nowhere near enough to return the investment. And don't worry too much about it failing on the coldest night of the year (with a blizzard blowing, no less). Get someone competent to come and clean and adjust the oil burner — that's worth the cost — and keep in mind that that the only really it's dead failure point on a steam system is the burner, and that, if you have a relationship with a service person, is a matter of a few hours at worst. Boilers can and do leak, after years of service, but they will give you ample warning.

JUGHNE

Anything of today you replace it with will not last these 42 years.

EBEBRATT-Ed

The BB-14 were very good boilers. One of the better boilers HB Smith made. it is a bit long in the tooth and impossible to say how long it will last. somewhere between 20 days and 20 years. 1984 sounds about right for that boiler.

Can you post some pictures?

What i would do is do a heat loss of the house along with a radiation survey. This is the first step in replacing a boiler anyhow.

Then you will have the information on hand for when the boiler fails. When the time comes to replace the boiler the last thing you need is to wonder what size you need.

The good news is boiler usually don't fail catastrophically. Can they? . They can but they usually start to seep, and you will see water on the floor or steam from the chimney.

Once you have the correct size nailed down get a couple of quotes.

Then budget for replacement when the time comes.

EdTheHeaterMan

 @oldhousehelp said: "that looks like it is from 1984 !"

Be very careful. Big Brother is Watching You. You may not want to replace the boiler…. the past is not what you may think it is.

oldhousehelp

Thanks so much, everyone! That was some great advice. Seller is having it serviced and flushed before closing so hopefully we'll get some more years out of it so we can focus on other things first (insulation will definitely be one). I appreciate hearing that it will likely be a slow fail and so will keep an eye out for signs of water.