Thanks & Buderus Install Pics

MassDave

For the benefit of any homeowners I wanted to recap some of my experience and decisions through my boiler replacement.

My original situation: I had an 80 yr old oil fired, asbestos covered boiler serving a hot water standing cast iron radiator heat system on an progammable thermostat. Aside from using a crapload of oil, we would see huge temp swings in the house (10 deg). The temp would drop, hit the t-stat on trigger, the boiler would start, the house continued to cool before the heat would make the temp start shooting up. By the time the t-stat reached off temp, and shut the boiler off, we were on our way to overshooting our set temp (too hot) before the house started to cool again. Did I mention the downstairs was too hot and the upstairs was not warm enough. Oh...and did I mention we didn't have any insulation in our walls?

Project:
(1) 1st, insulated our old house w. Icynene foam injected into the walls & had boiler asbestos removed before the project
(2) Looked at gas conversion, decided to stay oil (won't go into that decision here)(3) Shopped for boilers, a G.C. friend recommended Viessmann (4) I came to the Wall, learned about heat loss calcs & sizing, constant circulation, outdoor reset, "real" efficiency topics, etc. (5) used HVAC-Calc (at a friend's house), talked to lots of contractors, figured out which ones did things right (by calc not thumbs, yikes some of those quotes are oversized!), really researched a lot of equipment (6) Decided I wanted a Viessmann Vitola...and I rethought that after a couple quotes (If money was not a factor, I would have definitely gotten one, but hey I'm a young new homeowner).

The decision & what I did: (1)Went with an installer who knew Viessmann and Buderus (also my new oil supplier), they recommended the Buderus for my situation (2) Decided on Buderus G115 28 & 2107 control with outdoor reset, room sensor feedback, Riello, constant circulation, and a neat-o Roth oil tank. Overall, the Buderus didn't feel like a huge compromise over the Vitola, and it was much more affordable [40% less!]. I was convinced it wasn't a quality compromise and it seemed to give me most of the same benefits (efficiency of lower op temps), at much less cost and a bit less efficiency. I accepted that I'm using pump logic and a slightly higher operating temps (The Vitola can run at really low temps and is a money saver in the shoulder seasons, but the $$ just didn't add up for me). Also, looked at the Vitorond but it was also more $$ than the Buderus and essentially the same technology.

The result:
Wow! I've gone through Dec 1 on 1/3 the oil compared to last year (maybe it is warmer I don't know). The house temp is even, nice and cozy no crazy swings. The rads now run warm, not hot like before. The new boiler is quiet and tiny, I no longer have to think about it.

See attached for some pictures of my old Thatcher before and after asbestos removal. Notice the insulation blanket (basement was HOT when it ran). Finally look at my new Buderus!

I wanted to say thank you for all the advice and information provided to me by the people here at the Wall for my project (especially to Gary Wallace who spent time on a call with me even though he was busy on the other side of the state and couldn't do my job).

RonPR

old boiler

Hey the old one still looked good did you keep it ? Na just kidding post the change to there fuel bills if you can I got a call from some one who found a 40% difference in the fuel consumption from the old one I find that hard to believe but the old one was oversized too

D Logan Ireland Oil Co Inc

You made the right decision in my view and to take it one step further adding a Buderus s-120 Indirect water heater to your install would be icing on the cake. We know from our experience with our customers that it can only add to the savings. Not to mention tons of hot water. You are surely a smart homeowner.Enjoy your comfort.

Ted_9

Thank you for making an intelligent, informed decision.
Enjoy.

PATRIOT HEATING & COOLING, INC.

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dconnors

Very nice.....

And dont worry about any difference in savings. I have yet to find any boiler that will save you more. Very nice job.

Constantin

Great Post!

I was in similar shoes... old house, old oil-fired Williamson heating appliance, and many, many heating options.

At first, I seriously considered a geothermal heat pump... then, when the ECR representative decided he had better things to do than call me back, that fell through. With a GSHP, a simple gas-fired boiler would have been ideal to provide 2nd-stage heat.

So I started to gravitate to the condensing gas side, attracted by the possibility of avoiding a chimney replacement (sidewall vent), high efficiency, and relatively little maintenance. Conversely, I also discovered that condensing oil appliances are fraught with trouble considering the high allowable sulfur contamination levels.

Then I took a closer look at oil vs. gas prices in Boston, and decided that our gas supply is tight as a drum, and if gas prices were 40% higher than those of oil historically, nothing had changed to shift that market dynamic. In fact, more and more gas-fired assets like electrical plants are going in... while gas companies also continue to poach oil customers from inept oil dealers.

Like you look forward to a warm home with even room temperatures and no swings (fingers are crossed!) The radiant floor heating is already doing an amazing job of keeping the house warm, despite the lack of interior walls, numerous wall openings, and no wall/ceiling insulation. Come Monday, the house cavities will be filled with Icynene and closed-cell polyurethane foam... then Ms. Vitola should have an easier time keeping up with demand.

Nonetheless, it is pretty amazing what can be done with modern control logic, burner designs, and whatnot. A 30% reduction in fuel usage is a big deal... I don't know how much fuel the previous owners went through, but the Williamson was rated for 200kBTU and I doubt it kept the place that warm. Considering that the Vitola is rated for 116kBTU, I should realize some savings...

I also love my Roth tanks, I think they are the way of the future when it comes to storing flammable liquids. However, what I enjoyed most about your post was discovering a fellow homeowner that is as passionate and knowledgable about their heating system, as I hope to be. I have only taken one Viessmann course to date, but hope to do the later ones as well (controls and service), not because I want to get into the heating system business, but because I enjoy acquiring the knowledge... it must be the engineer in me.

So kudos to you for your inspirational project and to Gary Wallace and your installer. Everyone came together on this project to make you comfortable at a price that you could afford.

Joe@buderus

Install

The install looks great. Nice job. Question if I may, where is the air scoop?

MassDave

Air Scoop

I asked that question to my installer too and he assured me that air in my system will not be an issue due to the standing cast iron radiator setup (with lots of cavities for air to settle out) and lots of water volume (3" diam return & supply mains). I am told that any air that collects can be bled out at the radiators at the end of the season.

Is that a true answer? One thing I can say is that some of the major system burps and bangs I used to have during operation just aren't there anymore, so I don't really know what to look for as far as symptoms of too much air in the system.

Ron Schroeder_2

Well, you could call a big 3" pipe an air separator sort of. It would need an automatic air vent at the high spot. I would not consider manual venting enough.

Ron

[Deleted User]

buderus

looks like a very good job...if i might ask how quiet is the boiler when running..thanks mike

Mark Eatherton

It'll work just fine...

We have numerous jobs done just like that, and have had ZERO problems.

ME

Unknown

Mass Dave

Dave,

Looks like you got the job done:)

I don't quite understand why you would not utilize the efficiency and recovery rate of an indirect DHW tank. Tank type water heaters are awfully inefficient and Oh so obsolescent.

There is no good reason for not using some sort of an air elimination device. Catching the air up in the radiation above is not acceptable IMO. A properly placed removal device will automatically vent all oxygen and never have you bleeding the radiators above. Ever. Simply put; the installer cut a corner and probably thinks it was not needed. Simply read Dan's Pumping Away book and this will all be quite clear to any reasonable person. I disagree with the venerable ME on this issue. Every hydronic system deserves some oxygen removal device. No callbacks to remove air.

BTW; Thanks for the kind words.


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Mark Eatherton1

Gary...

Thanks for the venerabalism. It's better than a bottle in front of me, or was that a frontal labotomy... ANyway, I am THE CHAMPION of air scoop seperators, WHERE APPROPRIATE, and I can tell you that on an old gravity conversion like this one, where you can NOT power purge the system, and you MUST do a bottom fill, top manual bleed, air scoops are a waste of money.

Are you going to tell me that the power of an air seperator is so powerful that it will suck air from the tops of the radiators and bring it back down the 3" mains to the air seperator where it will "aglomulate" and be disacharged? I may have been born yesterday, but it wasn't in the back of a turnip truck?

Provided that the circulator is sending water away from the PONPC, in THIS application, save the $20.00 you'd spend on a scoop and spend it on water treatment. The minimum recommended velocity of water in a 3" pipe to guarantee air sweep back to the air seperator is 55 GPM. I don't (hope not anyway) think you'll be seeing those kind of flow rates on this system.

Now, knowing me the way you do, do you think I'd steer you or anybody else in the wrong direction...

Trust me on this one, if the boiler is in the basement, and provided that all the radiators are the old style columnar type,and all the radiators are bottom tapped and theres no small bore low mass convectors on line (BBR), an air scoop is a waste of time and money.

Now, if theres ONE circuit of base board radiaton thrown into the mix, i WILL install an air seperator, but NEVER a microbubble resorber type. They're an even BIGGER waste of money IMPO.

ME

ScottMP

Right On

Mark,

I total agree, but have never done the math on a 3" peice of pipe. Thats pretty definative.

What do you think about those who say that a mirco bubble absorber, or " Scavenger " as I have them refered to, will remove so much air that the system will absorb air from other places ?

My first spirovent kept flooding the old steel tank and that was given as the reason to switch to a bladder tank. Changed the tank and no problems ? If this could be true would it absorb air from a cast iron rad. ?

My opinion is a properly designed system will not need one. It does a Great job, but not needed.

Scott

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Wayco Wayne_2

Nice story

I like a happy ending. ...and they lived warmly and efficiently ever after. The Buderus investment will pay you back for years with reliability and economy. What's better than that? I want to know about the icelyne foam you're talking about. I own a house in Upstate NY that has no wall insulation. How do they blow it into wall cavities? How much damage to the walls? What kind of cost to do it? Thanks for any info. WW

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LIBOB

Roth Tank

Nice work. Looks great! Just curious what size is that fill & vent?

LIBOB

Roth Tank

Nice work. Looks great! Just curious what size is that fill & vent?

Mark Eatherton1

Personal MBR experience

Scott, I've been told by numerous represenatives of these devices that they can suck the oxygen off the nearest planet... I have one installed on my own simple 1 pipe system, and for the first two years of operation, there was a bubble working its way around the system. I could hear it coming and going and coming back around. Continuously and forever. I tried manual bleeding, power purging and all to no avail. I finally got tired of listening to it and injected about a 1/2 a cup of liquid dish detergent into the system, and the bubble disappeared immediately.

Some of my technical compatriots in the GY case studied MBR's and found that they do indeed lower the O2 content of the water to the point that the water is in fact O2 starved. But mother nature being the purist that she is, DESPISES any imbalances in ANYTHING, including oxygen content in water. What they determined, was that unless the water was kept moving 100% OF THE TIME, OXYGEN LEVELS IN THE WATER WOULD EVENTUALLY EQUALIZE TO THEIR INITIAL LEVELS.

Are they efficient at removing free air from a closed loop? You betcha. Too efficient in my estimate. But not efficient enough to warrant a 4 to 5 fold price...

In my 30 plus years, other than my own home, and only because I got that one for FREE, I've never applied an MBR in the field, only conventional scoops, and I've NEVER had an air problem. But of course, I also always pump away from the PONPC, and THAT in and of itself, makes all the difference in the world.

To each is own, so long as the customer is happy with the end results.

Happy Holidays!

ME

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MassDave

DHW Option

So...a couple questions were posted on why no DHW. When we bought the house 1 yr ago, the owners had just put in a new gas hot water tank (we have gas cooking and hot water now). So...it is brand new and I don't want to rip it out for the sake of it. When we do need one, I'll consider a DHW.

Thanks again Gary.

MassDave

DHW Option

So...a couple questions were posted on why no DHW. When we bought the house 1 yr ago, the owners had just put in a new gas hot water tank (we have gas cooking and hot water now). So...it is brand new and I don't want to rip it out for the sake of it. When we do need one, I'll consider DHW.

Thanks again Gary.

MassDave

Icynene

We have a 2 story colonial with cedar shingle siding. They removed individual exterior shingles (1 course upper and lower wall from each floor), drilled 1/4" holes through the sheathing, injected the foam, and nailed back the shingles. Apparently they can do this from the inside too, but that means a wall patch. Best benefit: no more air blowing through my sockets or cold walls. I'd find your local icynene dealer and get a quote, it was 3/4 of the cost of a new boiler for us...but more of a comfort decision. Also it eliminated the basement mice issue we saw as it got cold last year (filled their access I guess).

MassDave

boiler noise level

Well...you can hear it, but our old Thatcher boiler roared. Comparatively the Buderus is much quieter.

John Ruhnke

Air elimination..................

Mark,

I have done a bit of experimentation in this field. 1/2 a cup of dishwasher detergent? Neat!! I'm going to have to try that one.

About oxygen starvation in the water, Yes it does happen. Yes oxygen starved water will suck remote air pockets dry and the air pockets won't come back either. You need to have a good air eliminater and the right conditions. The bigger the pressure differential the better it works. My first Autopurger with a 009 would suck the air out of anything in just a few minutes. The thing was simply amazing. I had ran clear plastic pipe with four long loops so you could see the bubbles. In minutes flat you could watch the bubbles shrink away to nothing. I would shoot the air in with an air compressor. Once all the air was gone, I would shoot more air in. It was incedible to watch.

I have installed spirovents on many jobs with steel tanks. On a couple of installations, after the spirovent the air would be gone in 1 week. These steel tanks held air for one or two years before the spirovent. I received a call back that water was all over the floor. The relief valve blew because the spirovent emptied the expansion tank. Yes a spirovent in the right conditions will most definately suck the air out of the radiators and eliminate any left over pockets. It won't be strong enough to empty an entire radiator of air but if you manually bleed the radiators and miss a couple of air pockets the spirovent will easily remove them.

JR



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Unknown

cast Iron above & air removal.

I'd feel a whole lot more comfortable spending the $15-20 bucks more on an air scoop or an - MBAR . (spirovent) I'm sure that air will never be removed without such a device within a system as dscribed without manual bleeding. The hydronics market is convinced that a MBAR is best. The fact is that they surely do remove oxygen. Why would you want to leave a job knowing that air will accumulate in the radiators above when you can put this device on for less than - ($20.00) and just walk away? I've seen a radiator on the 3rd floor full of air that was self purged within two days it was full of beautifull H20 circulating all because of "Pumping Away".

Microbubble Air Resorbers work. They "suck" oxygen out of water. Why would you not want one on a modern hydronic system?

I believe the dish soap trick may be the solution to all of our air problems;-) I'll remember that trick. Cool tip!

Respectfully, Gary

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Mark Hunt

Considering

that no gravity system ever had air elimination as we know it, AND they lasted 100 years, I would say that ME is 100% correct.

You absolutely cannot power purge a cast rad system, so you will have to bleed every radiator on the initial fill.

Even if an air pocket did form at the top of a radiator, it would probably take a millenium for enough air to be collected to cause an issue.

There were gravity systems that used those air pockets in the radiators as the expansion absorber. I have seen them.
At first you think that the expansion tank is hidden somewhere, but you NEVER find it. Not even in the attic.

My part of NY is chock-full of gravity systems and I have thought about this for some time and have come to the conclusion that air scoops and other such devices are not necessary on radiator systems. While sitting dormant during the summer months, the system will absorb O2 and CO2 from the atmosphere. It wil pocket where ever it can. An air scoop or MBAR would take some time to remove it all, and the homeowner would never even know it was there. You certainly would never hear it traveling through the system because it won't. It just sits there.

A few of the boilers made here in the USA have "built-in air eliminators", while I don't think they work worth a piece of you-know-what, in this instance they would be just fine.

Old systems require a bit more hands-on from the owner and going around once a year to "bleed" the rads is part of the nostalgia. But I guess that with todays "drive-thru" mentality, that effortless task would be a burden to great to bare. Like blowing down a float-type LWCO. Slap a probe-type in and be done with it.

Gary, there is a line from a classic movie where our characters are floating on a chunck of ice. A fog bank moves in and one character says, "This fog is as thick as peanut butter!" One of the others on the ice raft says, "You mean pea soup." To which the other replies "YOU EAT WHAT YOU LIKE, I'LL EAT WHAT I LIKE!"

If you would like to see the whole ice raft scene, rent "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Yukon Cornelius is a genius.

Mark H



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Unknown

Mark,,,

It's been my experience that ME is rarely wrong.

This is an interesting educational experience for me. I have certainly been wrong before. It just seems to me that there is no excuse for not using an air scoop after the PONPC on this job or any for that matter. It seems I still have much to learn as I see fog as thick as peanut butter. Perhaps the oxygen permiates through pea soup better.

Cool link:


http://www.dailywav.com/1299/mush.wav





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Mark Hunt

Become one


with the Reindeer!

Let go and let Rudolph!

Seriously, Gary I can tell you that in my area of New York, which includes Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga, etc....there are countless gravity and steam system.

Albany tends to have more gravity, while Schenectady has more steam (Home of GE). Troy has a mix as does Saratoga. Saratoga seems to lean toward steam though. Old houses of course.

Now how do we as heating "professionals" make the quantum leap adapting "new" technology to systems that were not designed around the "new" technology??? If we listen to the brochures, those old systems should have disintegrated YEARS ago, yet they did not. Did old gravity systems operate around a 20 degree delta T? Did they deliver 10k btu's per gpm? What will happen if I put a pump on here and I do not reduce the pipe size? And why were those pipes so big anyway???

So now we "know" that we MUST remove air from the system. Fine. But the dead men that went before us seemed unconcerned with that issue. The Dead Men weren't all steam guys. Old gravity systems were an art as well.

IMHO, Dan's 2nd best book is "How Come?" That book really opened my eyes to things that I had never even wondered about. (Dan, if you read this, I guess this is a review of one of your books)

As was stated earlier, if you place a MBAR on a system with a steel compression tank, it will be water-logged in no time. Why? Because steel tanks were never designed around the "new" technology. We know know that air comes out of solution when pressure is low and tempreature is high. What is the pressure at the top of a cast rad on the second floor of a home? We know that water will re-absorb gas when the temp drops. So where are the temps lower? Obviously a rad is designed to give up btu's and is cooler than the boiler. We all know that if we send 180 degree water out of a boiler that it will not be 180 degrees when it hits the first heat emitter. So the process of resorbtion begins when the liquid leaves the heat source, yes?









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Mark Hunt

Become one


with the Reindeer!

Let go and let Rudolph!

Seriously, Gary I can tell you that in my area of New York, which includes Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga, etc....there are countless gravity and steam system.

Albany tends to have more gravity, while Schenectady has more steam (Home of GE). Troy has a mix as does Saratoga. Saratoga seems to lean toward steam though. Old houses of course.

Now how do we as heating "professionals" make the quantum leap adapting "new" technology to systems that were not designed around the "new" technology??? If we listen to the brochures, those old systems should have disintegrated YEARS ago, yet they did not. Did old gravity systems operate around a 20 degree delta T? Did they deliver 10k btu's per gpm? What will happen if I put a pump on here and I do not reduce the pipe size? And why were those pipes so big anyway???

So now we "know" that we MUST remove air from the system. Fine. But the dead men that went before us seemed unconcerned with that issue. The Dead Men weren't all steam guys. Old gravity systems were an art as well.

IMHO, Dan's 2nd best book is "How Come?" That book really opened my eyes to things that I had never even wondered about. (Dan, if you read this, I guess this is a review of one of your books)

As was stated earlier, if you place a MBAR on a system with a steel compression tank, it will be water-logged in no time. Why? Because steel tanks were never designed around the "new" technology.We know that air comes out of solution when pressure is low and tempreature is high. What is the pressure at the top of a cast rad on the second floor of a home? We know that water will re-absorb gas when the temp drops. So where are the temps lower? Obviously a rad is designed to give up btu's and is cooler than the boiler. We all know that if we send 180 degree water out of a boiler that it will not be 180 degrees when it hits the first heat emitter. So the process of resorbtion begins when the liquid leaves the heat source, yes? So why did those old gravity systems last this long?

Air scoops or MBAR are like pacifiers. They make you comfortable. It's all about "psychological comfort". Sorta' like the "Peanuts" character Linus and his blanket.

There is life after the micro-bubble air resorber!

Now go have a peanut-butter sandwich and a bowl of pea soup!

Mark H









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John Ruhnke

Bleeding radiators............

Mark,

I have lots of two pipe jobs in my area with cast iron radiators. These systems originally had pumps on them, mostly the old series 100 from B & G. We do have a few gravity or gravity conversion systems but they are rare. I can only remember two in the last five years that I worked on. We also have lots of steam both one pipe and two pipe. I like to leave the gravity systems gravity or repipe with pex from the radiators to manifolds. When I put a pump on a gravity system I always seem to have problems with flow paths. The water flows a lot in certain areas and less in others causing unbalenced heat. Big pain in the ........

On the two pipe radiator systems that originally had the B & G pumps, the air eliminators work great. You purge once and never again. Hey where do you put your air eliminator? Maybe that is the problem. An air eliminator works best when you put it inbetween the expansion tank and the circulator. Most people tap the expansion tank off the air seperator. This can reduce its effectiveness.

JR

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John Ruhnke

No call backs..............

On old two pipe radiator systems, originally circulator driven, the biggest reason to put an air eliminator before the circulator is that you will have no call backs. Once you bleed all the radiators in the house they never have to be bled again. Never!! If you don't put in the air eliminator you will be bleeding radiators every year. Its your choice.

JR

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MassDave

Insulation Installation

How long did it take to insulate the house?

Constantin

Depends on the house, no?

On their first day, our Icynene and closed-cell foam crews finished about 40% of all the exterior walls and ceilings in a a 5,000 sq foot house.

However, we have open cavities, i.e. no need to drill holes or to work through plaster walls. Plus, there were two crews working at the same time. My understanding is that closed-cavities require more time to complete and hence are more expensive.

Icynene seems quicker to apply, as there was a lot more Icynene installed than closed-cell polyurethane. However, closed-cell polyurethane also requires a lot more vigilance as the stuff can bust walls, distort frames, etc. and cannot be applied thicker than 4" per pass (it'll fry itself otherwise).

Bruce M.

Mark, a question about MBAR

Is the Taco Vortech Air Separator an MBAR? Factory literature states:
"...that it utilizes a tangential design to create a chamber of swirling water and air in which a low pressure area forms in the center. Combined with the Bubble Breaker cartridge and a downward direction change in the flow of water before exiting, air is quickly and effectively released upward and out...".
And yes, I used to live in a house with an old gravity sytem that had been converted to a circulator system and it worked fine without an air scoop.

Mark Eatherton1

What my associates found...

was that a conventional air scoop versus an MBAR unit BOTH took the air down to a certain point. The MBR did it quicker, but they BOTH took it down to a certain threshold, and that threshold was identical for a given temperature etc...

I'm really not sure if ther is an actual definition by which a person could claim their device to fit into that category. I think its a marketing term. The Vortec does work well as an air seperator, but for me and my money, I'll stick with the scoop.

ME

Ron Schroeder_3

Hi Mark,

Do you think that an air scoop without 18" of pipe before it will still take the air down to that same level (but even slower)?

I guess I need to find a disolved oxygen sensor.

Ron

Mark Eatherton1

The universal hydronic answer applies...

It depends!! If the system is multi zoned, the chances of reaching and keeping maximum velocity are small.

The only time I'd consider applying the 18" rule would be if it were on a primary loop that always ran at a constant velocity. Otherwise, it's really not necessary.

I've had to do jobs before where we had a street el going into the scoop, and a street el coming out, and they worked just fine, but they were multi zoned, with varying velocities depending on the number of zones calling.

Interestingly enough, the only place I've actually seen the 18" rule is on the manufacturer engineering data sheet, and NOT in the installation manuals that are used to install the devices. I've not seen every one made, so it is possible that one of the manufacturers DOES include those instruction as a part of their installation instructions. If it were really that critical, you'd think they'd have it in ALL of their installation instructions...

ME

todd s

air scoop manuals

must be an oxymoron. The least expensive, most misunderstood component in most hydronic systems. They should show a typical "pumping away" type setup to compete with the B&G EAS setup.