Steamer efficiency?

adambuild

Just looked at a '88 Utica 400S with an Economite Conversion Burner E320A with no pipe insulation to be found anywhere! Customer complaining of very high bills. Could anyone guess the best case efficiency of this unit?

Thanks, Adam

Al Letellier_9

efficiency

Obviously, two efficiencies are involved, thermal and combustion. This boiler/system has two big strikes against it....no insulation and an inefficient burner. I have no use for the Economite conversions (just my opinion) and you can do a lot better with a Riello power gas burner and some insulation.
A 1988 Utica is a nice little boiler and should give some more good years.

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adambuild

Bump

Thank you Al, anyone else with soem approximate % numbers?

Steamhead (in transit)

As far as I can tell

the Economite really isn't a flame-retention burner like the Riello or Carlin EZ-Gas. I just worked on a smaller Economite today that was way overfired, had to really down-fire it to make it burn clean and even then it didn't produce a compact retention-headed flame. This was in a Burnham V-34 and it tested out to a combustion efficiency (NOT AFUE) of 79.6% on the Testo.

Tim McElwain, gas trainer extraordinaire, has a LOT of experience with Economites- maybe you could get in touch with him at gastc@cox.net. Tell him we sent you.

Have you done a combustion test on your Economite yet?

I would say you also need to get the pipes insulated, and also add or upgrade the main vents.

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