Converting from Oil to Natural Gas Heat

reguires

It may require 180 degree's for design temp, but on warmer day's the zone may satisfy with 140 or even lower water temps. With a condensing boiler and outdoor reset you can see very good savings over an 85% system that runs to high temp no matter what. As far as parts, that depends on your area. I can get most parts over night, worst case, you may have to go a weekend.

I have a mod-con with outdoor reset.

In winter it can get 10 or more degrees colder outside at night than in the daytime. I cannot think of anything I would hate more than to change the supply water temperature twice a day. Similarly, my boiler delivers 112F water to one zone when it is design temperature, and 130F water to the other. So I would have to switch that whenever a different zone were calling for heat. I prefer modulating with outdoor reset for this.



As far as maintenance is concerned, I do not know how to compare it with my numbers. I can find out what an annual service contract from my oil dealer cost when I had an old oil burner. I know what the annual service contract for my new gas mod-con is, and it is considerably less. That is for the routine maintenance. I have not had enough failures on the new boiler to know what those cost.



And I cannot show those prices here anyway. I very much doubt that posting them would make any reasonable conclusions possible because we are dealing with different contractors and different types of boiler. I.e., apples to potatoes comparison.



My current contractor charges significantly more for a maintenance contract for oil boilers than for gas,

thoughts

I would suggest you look for references for different companies in your area. Contact a number of different companies and ask for a quote on a system. You should be looking for someone to come in and do a heatloss, inspect all close piping and check for any codes that could come into play for a new system. Ask for references from them and call those people. See if they've had issue's with service. As far as the unit of choice, that would be something you and an installer your comfortable should discuss. Look at all options and dont be hurried into signing anything. As far as a stand alone HW heater, how often have you had an issue with loss of power? The cost increase from having this type of water heater compared to an indirect is substantial. And if loss of power is the bigger concern, adding a generator may be a better option then you can have your boiler plus and still save product over the years...

SEASONALLY. Works fine here.

It would not work fine here. Perhaps in Seattle or even SanFrancisco, but not here in New Jersey near the shore.



Here I might need 112F water at night and 102F water in the daytime for downstairs and 130F at night and 125F in the daytime for upstairs. And the next day I might need 120F at night and 106 in the daytime. That is a lot of running out to the garage (where my boiler is) to adjust things. And the temperatures are a lot more important with my at grade radiant slab because too much heat causes great overshoot and undershoot of temperatures in the rooms there, and too little heat makes it cold..

I would recommend

Either Viessmann or Triangle Tube and would install either in my LI home,if only gas were available!

The Burnham ES2 is not a condensing boiler

for the information of those who are looking to go that way.



It has a higher efficiency however than most mid efficiency packages I believe it has an AFUE of 85.1 %. It does however have electronic controls which are equally as complex as any mod/con so that should be considered. In the context of that however no matter what mid or high efficiency package you choose they all pretty much have electronics of some sort or at least a vent damper.

lchmb and Tim

Are absolutely correct .The ES2 is a nice boiler but it is single input and can't compare to the efffciency of a modulating unit. Gas is cheap relative to oil right now but it hasn't always been and may not to continue to be. Investing the the highest eff possible is always the way to go even if that turns out to be an ES2. BTW an outdoor reset control is available for the ES2,it's standard on mod/cons

If Bob did it

we know it was done right!