Spencer Heater

Mike Norgan_3

Steamhead,

Here is a picture of the Spencer Heater 275W, I clocked the gas meter today and come up with 300,000 to 315,000 Btu's. The EDR I come with was 1240, The customer complained that the last heating season they couldn't keep the house above 60 to 65, We had a pretty cold winter this year in Michigan, so that could explain why. I know that the boiler was coal fired and was probably 500,000 btu's at one time. My question would be should I over size this system just a little.

Mike Norgan

DanHolohan

Thanks for the photo, Mike

It looks just like the pen-and-ink sketch in their catalog. And as we talked about, the coal-fired rating was a half-mil.

Amazing how long it's lasted, isn't it?

J.C.A.

I believe...

You JUST may be able to get a smaller boiler to do the job ! I guess the original owner/builder REALLY didn't want to get up and stoke that puppy in the sleeping hours , eh ?

Can't imagine the cost of running something that monsterous for this heating season . OUCH . I guess that's why you got the call. Best of luck , and may I recommend a dimantling service before trying to extricate the old beast and hurting yourself ? Chris

Mike Norgan_3

Dan

Dan,
If that dead man could talk, You know when I was looking at this job one of the last things I said to the owner was that a dead man install this system and if this system could talk you would hear some stories and the owner said, I never thought of it that way but you are right.

Mike Norgan

DanHolohan

In their ad,

they superimpose a heart around the boiler (check out its shape). The caption reads, "The heart of the system."

Steamhead

Well said, Mike

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. Had some real late nights this week.........

Have you checked the size of the circulator against that of the radiation? With 1240 square feet, you only need 30 gallons per minute to get proper circulation- which is very gentle compared to a system built for forced circulation. If that Spencer has anything bigger than a Taco #111 on it, it's overpumped, so the heat doesn't leave the boiler or radiators as it should. Go to

http://www.heatinghelp.com/newsletter.cfm?Id=125

to see the chart.

To see how overpumping affected a Spencer #2-5, go to

http://www.heatinghelp.com/newsletter.cfm?Id=119

which was about the same size as your job, and ended up with a Taco #111.

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