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Downsizing nozzle on wtgo-4 and riello f5
Swilson08
Member Posts: 34
in Oil Heating
I have my service tech scheduled for a annual maintenance in two weeks and looking for some advice. I currently have a 2005 well-mcclain wtgo-4 without a tankless coil and a riello 40 f5 burner.
I have a 2800square foot house with a attached unheated garage. This is a split level/raised range style. 2 floors. 1st floor sits on a slab. Garage may get heated one day after it's insulated. The square footage is from wall to wall I did not measure each room individual.
I have three zones. Two for heating and one for a well-mcclain 29 gallon indirect water heater. One zone is 74 feet of baseboard on 2nd floor and the other is 52 feet of baseboard on first floor. This give me roughly 63,000 btu of baseboard. Currently the wtgo-4 is speced out to have a 1.20 nozzel. The btu rating seems to be a lot more then we need. Do you think it's possible to bring it down to the wgo-4 spec of 1.0 nozzel or even smaller.
Figured I would ask the pros on this matter. Thank you in advance for the help.
I have a 2800square foot house with a attached unheated garage. This is a split level/raised range style. 2 floors. 1st floor sits on a slab. Garage may get heated one day after it's insulated. The square footage is from wall to wall I did not measure each room individual.
I have three zones. Two for heating and one for a well-mcclain 29 gallon indirect water heater. One zone is 74 feet of baseboard on 2nd floor and the other is 52 feet of baseboard on first floor. This give me roughly 63,000 btu of baseboard. Currently the wtgo-4 is speced out to have a 1.20 nozzel. The btu rating seems to be a lot more then we need. Do you think it's possible to bring it down to the wgo-4 spec of 1.0 nozzel or even smaller.
Figured I would ask the pros on this matter. Thank you in advance for the help.
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Comments
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
The burner is almost always the most efficient based on manufacturer testing and recommendation.
A smaller nozzle might be unstable in an F5. Lower flame temperature can cause too low a flue temperature causing condensing...which causes a number of problems.
Any money you think you’ll save will be wasted via poorer efficiency.
Your boiler is very oversized. Only a properly sized boiler based on a proper heat loss will provide the best opportunity for savings.
I never really understood the 3 and 4 section WGO. They are basically the same boiler, dimension wise. The 3 section has a wide middle section that's substituted for two sections to make 4. The 3 actually holds 1.5 gallons more water than the 4 section.
Which is still a better set up and recommended over the 1.20 and 100psi setting.
Just note the change in the pump pressure, air shutter and turbulator. If you don't change all 3 (check, verify with gauges, smoke gun and analyzer) you'll have problems.
Nozzle, not nozzel. Doesn't your spell check let you know?
Thanks again for all your help.
800 gallons for the year? What's your city/state? I could give you a pretty fast/accurate heatloss.
The smallest boiler will still be too big, and downfiring won't help your situation, nor save you any money, but it may create problems like I mentioned above.
Save your money for an EK or smallest triple pass.
However you won't find much smaller than 60k in oil, maybe add a buffer tank.
Another option is to go with an Energy Kinetics, which isn't smaller but different technology.
Right now my 2nd floor zone is 74 feet of basboard with a total 3/4 copper run of 124 feet. My issue currently is the flow hits the bedrooms first and hits the living room last which results in hot bedrooms and cool living room. My plan was to reverse the flow so it hits the living room first then the bedrooms. But then I thought of just splitting it into two zones. One for living room dinning room and one for the bedroom and bathroom. But since my boiler is way oversized this might be an issue.
> @HVACNUT so even though the wtgo-3 and 4 are almost identical would you say downsizing to the wtgo-3 spec would be out of the question?
The firing rate on the 3 is .95 GPH. Only .05 less than the downfire 4 section. Yes, out the the question.
Rick
> Personally I would buy a WGO 2 for a lot of the jobs I have. I have only seen one in the state, which I put it in my neighbors house. It runs great, but is still oversized, but at least it is not way oversized like anything else I can buy. I was told they won't sell it in Alaska because we won't buy it because it is too small. I haven't found an oil boiler yet that is small enough for 95% of the jobs around here.
> Rick
You are right of course. But pin HX boilers in general are not on my list of recommendations. I would go with something like a Buderus G115-3 piped P/S. This coming from a guy who has a WGO- 3 in the basement.
It ran for a few days then had trouble starting so I had them come out again and they had to make a air adjust on the riello and then it fired normally again.