Indirect water heaters

Lou Miller

We just moved into an older home. The heating and domestic hot water are horrible and I'm going to upgrade them both. I've been talking to anyone who will listen to me and am considering either a Buderus, Crown, or Weil-Mclain oil fired system. Probably end up with a 145K BTU boiler and an indirect water heater between 50-60 gallons. Does anyone have a comment or two as to which system I should go with, or not go with for that matter? I'd like to hear any comments, no matter what they are. Also, if you're a plumbing/heating contractor around Montgomeryville, PA and you'd like to bid the work, send me an e-mail.

Weezbo

of the boilers for my dollar,

id be very happy with a boiler properly sized for the application,with apiping arrangement bolted to the wall, the boiler off the ground with a riello burner, tiger loop combo ,pumping away with a spirovent,a little extra on the emmiters and an eye to efficientcy (out door reset) installed in a easily approachable line of attack for a service worker,with a recptacale,light switch,straight wiring and an in direct.........my preference would be leaning to the buder US every ones a critic of course,however it is rather well configured for that type of installation.

oil-2-4-6-gas

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i would go with Buderus boiler stacked on the Buderus indirect make support provision for future replacement of the indirect ,piping as stated by Weezbo --with the Carlin ez-1 elite get the flue silencer --the 3-pass boilers (Buderus & Crown ) are little noisy --definetly outdoor reset -sized right with some extra baseboard --shoot for 160* design temp oh yeah forget the Weil-Mclain or any other "pin style boiler"

Lou Miller

Indirect water heaters

The more I read about the Buderus, the more I'm interested in it. I'm just curious as to how much I'm looking at for the job versus, crown or WM. I'm not looking to nickel and dime the job, but I also have a budget to work with. I can exceed the budget if the money spent is really going to make a difference long term. Roughly, how much more are we talking with a Buderus system versus a Crown? 10% more? 20% more? 50% more?

Lou Miller

Indirect water heaters

2-4-6,

I'm just curious as to why you say the WM is something to stay away from??? Most of the people I've spoken to really seem to push the WM pretty hard. Now, I don't know if that's just a matter of them being familiar with those systems, they can get them at the right price (thus make more profit), or it's simply a matter of little to no experience with other systems. A couple of guys who bid the job said they wouldn't touch the job unless I went with WM.

Darin Cook_3

Lou

Many times equipment is very regional. Meaning that if the local supply house is a Weil-Mclain dealer and they are one of the few supply houses in the area, that is what everyone sells. That being said I prefer the Buderus oil equipment. They have a special silicone injected cast iron process which will make that boiler last many,many years. The boiler is cleaned totally from the swing-open door in the front. No worries of damaging boiler refractory. You can get them with a Riello, Carlin, or Beckett. I prefer the Riello, very easy to work on and with their service kit there is almost no problem that cannot be fixed to restore heat on a cold winters night. But I would go with what your contractor is comfortable working on. The Buderus indirect water heaters are excellent tanks also. They will give you many years of great service.

Now remember the boiler engineering ended at the factory. The installing contractor must install this equipment properly or you will have problems. I see you mentioned 145K boiler. Did someone do a heatloss calculation or was this a guess? Needlessly oversizing equipment will only waste energy and your hard earned dollars. You said your house was older, maybe some insulating and air sealing is in order. That will decrease the size heating equipment you need and further your energy savings. Money spent in that arena will handsomely reward you down the road. Fuel will only increase in price. Oh, you asked the price difference between the equipment. Lets just say it is not enough to be the deciding factor. Good Luck in your decision.








Darin

Lou Miller

Darin,

I'm guessing on the 145K. It's tough to do a heat loss at the moment. The house is older and currently has issues with windows and poor insulation. However, these problems will be corrected over the next couple of years. I'm a carpenter, so I'll be doing whatever needs to be done to get the house in the best shape it can be. It's not going to happen overnight though. There's also going to be an addition that's built down the road as well. I want to allow for all these changes now, rather than possibly replacing the boiler again. When all is said and done (might take 5 years though), there will be 3K SF to heat and it will be done through 4 zones. The house will eventually be pretty tight in terms of insulation and windows. It's far from it now.

So what's best? Sizing the boiler based on what we currently have, or trying to make an educated guess as to what we will have? I've only recieved two quotes thus far. Both contractors claim to have sized the boiler based on the info I gave them. However, their prices were dramatically different. One quote was for $7K and the other was for $15K. My initial reaction to the 15 was that it was ridiculously overpriced. To be fair, he hasn't elaborated on what equipment he's using (which I thought was a very odd way to quote a job). The other guy (the 7K) wants to use a WM 145K (WGO-4 to be precise) unit with a 40 gallon Indirect water heater. His price sounds too good to be true, so I'm skeptical.

I'm hoping to get a few more quotes before I make any decisions. My decision won't be made strictly on price though. I want to make sure I get someone that knows what they are doing, and I want the best system that I can get for the money I have available. Problem is, most of the guys who've looked at the work, aren't sending me proposals. They come in, talk to me about everything, ask a lot of questions and then never get back to me. I'm actually considering doing the work myself at this point. If it weren't for my concerns about sizing it correctly, I probably would have started the project already.

Bottom line is I have $10K set aside for it. If it's needed, I can dig up another 5 or so. However, I don't want to spend all of that if the system isn't going to pay for itself over the long run. I'll pay double if I know what I'm getting is worth it. I just don't know enough about it. Everything I've read about the Buderus sounds really good to me. If what you're saying is true about the price not being high enough to be an issue, than that might be the route I go. I've only had one guy talk to me about Buderus, but he hasn't got a quote over to me yet.

oil-2-4-6-gas

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the reasons i knock the Wgo Weil Mclains is that most of the leakers i see at supply house are the gold series -(now i have no idea if these failures were thermal shock or other piping,emitter,control issues as the cause)and i have put in a few go's 78's and 88's --a lot of problems with the supply chain,management,distribution-to the point 1 of the supply houses who pushed them hard for years- actually stopped dealing with them --anyway that budget of yours should be enough for a Buderus w/tank a good control set-up -- --it isn't worth it to push an installer to install equipment they are not familiar with //if they are giving you a quote over the phone you need to look somewhere else you need a contractor come in the house evaluate the "system" listen to your concerns, expectations and go over different options ---change any and all pumps,controls, emergency shutoff switches -and add a service recepticle at the boiler or close to it w/good lighting --this makes us service guys all fuzzy and warm -

Uni R

Food for thought...

Have you thought about just adding an indirect and getting some new windows first? I would be more tempted to replace the boiler only after you have the envelope all tightened up. Then you would have a a better chance of sizing the boiler correctly. Maybe get an outdoor reset with DHW priority as part of the indirect install.

Lou Miller

The boiler that we currently have is a 50 year old Bethlehem Dyna-Therm. I understand that this was considered top of the line equipment back in the 50's, but it just doesn't get it done today. We bought the house on 12/17 and we've gone through almost 400 gallons of oil so far with it. Everything on it is working like it should (according to the oil company's service people), it's just really ineffecient. The domestic hot water on it is a summer winter hookup. It works on gravity and does not have a circulator. The hot water is so bad it's ridiculous.

The same oil company has been servicing the unit since it was installed. All the service records are hanging up in the heater room. The old owner maintained it quite well. The oil compnay told me they've been trying to get him to replace it for years because it was so ineffecient. He wouldn't spend the money though. Given the way everything works right now, I don't want to wait. My old house had plenty of hot water and the bills for gas were only between $100-150 a month. Adjusting to this thing is going to be murder on the wallet if I leave it in. Besides, I have the money put aside and I'd like to spend it on the heating system before it burns a hole in my pocket and I spend it on something else.

Steve Garson

You'll get a faster ROI by sealing up your house. How's the wall and attic insulation? Do you have storm windows?

You can make an old window remarkaby tight by installing v-strip or bras spring weatherstripping in each window. It might cost $10 - $15 a window for materials, versus $400 for a new window. Thing seriously about insulation.

Constantin

I would think hard about the boiler...

... the combination of the hot water boiler and indirect DWH is hard to beat. Here is what I would consider doing:

1) Examine the tickets that the oil company left behind. Post their results here. Stack temperature and CO₂ is going to give us a good idea about the thermal efficiency of the boiler.

2) Hire an environmental consultancy to do a blower-door test on your property. You can find them via Energystar.gov, and you'll get a great deal on the test (it's subsidized regardless of home fuel used). The application is usually $75. Then use your carpentry skills to fix windows, doors, etc.

3) Take a look at windowrepair.com... David Liberty gives a lot of great tips on how to repair old windows, and teaches classes too.

4) Reduce infiltration around casings, doorways, etc. as much as possible using "Great Stuff", Handi-Foam, whatever.

5) Retrofit an expanding foam or dense-pack cellulose into the exterior walls and the attic space. In the basement, parge all exterior walls, foam all ceiling penetrations shut. In the attic, foam all the floor penetrations, chases, etc.

6) Once the house has a semblance of being tight, your fuel bills will plummet. After a lot of work, our construction project has a design day loss (-15°F) of 18 BTU/sq foot... your boiler also should be sized to be perfect for the house with the addition, etc. Go through the trouble of a heat loss calculation to better understand what you need!

EBEBRATT-Ed

I agree with the others. Sealing the house windows and insulation will be the first priority. Get agood independent oil guy to evaluate your boiler. It could possibly be down fired and with a good burner and a Indirect for dhw. Change boiler down the road when you know your heat loss and added zone. This will save $$$ and you will get a better job. A quality installation with good equipment is probably more important than a particular brand of equipment--That being said don't buy junk. I dont think anyone could do the right job for 7K

Uni R

Lou, your oil company has a conflict of interest here. Has it been cleaned recently and did they do an actual combustion test? My Hoffman boiler is at least 50 years old as well. The riello F3 burner on it is fairly new (15 years old). I've been wanting to replace it since I moved in 12 years ago. I have done a lot of work on the envelope. I finally had my windows replaced this past year and now have only two more places in the house to redo and re-insulate and then a new heating system is going in. In the past 12 years my boiler hasn't required a single thing except replacement of a leaky PRV this spring. Had I bought a new boiler when I first moved in, I would probably be thinking about scrapping it already.


I heartly encourage you to get a good heating pro in and see what can be done as a quick win to get it running its best, adding in a new indirect, maybe a new burner and then replacing it with a properly sized boiler once your insulation and renos are all finished. Who knows what will be on the market in 3 to 5 years?


In my case, I'm going to go from an oil fired dinosaur to most likely a condensing gas boiler. Gas is actually quite a bit cheaper than oil here per BTU and even with that, I don't really expect to see the new unit pay itself back in fuel savings in much less than 20 years and by then it will be junk.


Good luck with whatever you do Lou.