How Many Oil Burners (Steamhead)

Steamhead

Now you get to see the other side of Pop, and a nice new indirect, and Pumping Away. And who's that funny-looking guy on the right? Pic was taken by a happy homeowner.

This little Weil-McLain heated the indirect in about seven minutes. I was impressed.

The old Lochinvar was beginning to leak as we arrived this morning. We got there just in time!

Yes, those oil lines on the floor will be rerouted.

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Steamhead

How Many Burners can you cram into one small boiler room?

Someone tried three in this one- all piped off the same underground tank. Owner says he has to reset them when they get starved for oil, which happens when they all run at the same time.

The big boiler in the foreground is a Burnham PF-37, feeding a hybrid Dunham/Webster/Hoffman (Differential Loop) Vapor system. For those of you who visit Oil Tech Talk, this is the boiler that I needed a Sunray Golden Cup retention head for a couple months ago- thanks to Ron Wheeler for coming up with one and to Glenn Stanton for sending the burner specs. Finally we have a clean, efficient flame in this boiler! And those of you who are into steam will note that it's piped wrong- that's the next project.

The little Weil-McLain boiler that Tom (a.k.a. Pop) is disconnecting currently feeds a hot-water baseboard loop in a large kitchen/family room addition.

The Lochinvar water heater in the middle is coming out. It will be replaced with a Phase 3 tank-in-tank indirect running off the W-M boiler and using priority zoning. And both zones coming off the W-M will now Pump Away.

I've already installed Gortons on the Vapor mains, and the indirect will cut standby losses dramatically. This family goes thru three 1500-gallon tankfuls a year- I think we can say they'll save 25% or more when everything's working properly.

BTW- there is no gas service to this house. More pics when we're done.

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David Sutton_3

Hey Steamhead...

Hey buddy, did i ever tell you that you make me proud to be a steam man. Keep up the good work!! cant wait till its done...David

kevin coppinger_4

4500 gal.?!!!!

how big is this house? Thats a lot of oil! Is the other boiler neccesary ? no condensate heating loop...?too much baseboard? What is that in the backround in the other room? Is that a hot air furnace? Hope all goes well, saving 25% on an oil bill is doing a great service. kpc

ed wallace

multiple oil boilers

there 2 many oil burners for 1 line try adding tiger loops to the burners

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techheat_2

You know what

would look nice in that old Burnham? A Riello!

Steamhead

We would have looked into that

if we hadn't found a new head for the Sunray. But since the Sunray is a flame-retention unit and we were able to get the part and the specs, and the rest of the unit appears to be in decent shape, we decided to fix the Sunray. It tuned right up with the new head and a proper nozzle.

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Big Ed

Phase III

Any known problems , likes or dislikes with the Smart tank ? About $550 ?

Steamhead

Looks very well made

this is the first time we've used one though. This was a Smart-40. I did notice there's no drain for the inner tank, but you can pull the T&P valve and stick a hose in and pump it out if you wish.

The T&P has to have at least an 8-inch probe in order to reach into the tank, and is not included with the tank like we're used to on direct-fired heaters.

The Smart tanks are supposed to be self-cleaning, and I doubt if liming will be a problem since they don't have a flame on one side of the heat exchanger and cold water on the other.

The owners have yet to run this thing out of hot water.

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Bob Boltz

Supply Pumper

Try a Sid Harvey Supply Pumper for your oil supply piping. It takes care of a most oil supply problems.

Steamhead

That was another option

but in this case the old water heater was failing and we were able to decrease the number of burners by installing the indirect. Both burners fire OK now, especially since the Sunray now has a check valve on the supply (the Beckett on the W-M already had one).

Thanks everyone for the kind words and opinions. It means a lot to us.

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kevin coppinger_4

whats the diff...

between the smart tank and the older model and a weil-Mclain gold plus? kpc

Steamhead

Not sure, Kevin

The older Phase 3 HL series was a tank-in-tank model also. It had a recovery rate marginally below the Smart. The W-M Gold indirects appear similar in construction and capacity to the HL units. I believe all would give essentially similar performance.

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