99-year-old reliable (?) boiler - what would you do?
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I happen to live in South Carolina. The weather here is milder than New Jersey / Pennsylvania where I worked on many oil and gas boilers for customers, from over 100 years old to the new ones that I installed myself, and everything else in between. If that 100 years old description confused you, I meant the boilers were over 100 years, but I also had a customer that was 99 years old, She never made it to 100 though!
Since everyone else is hi-jacking this discussion to tell their story about some other heating system that has nothing to do with the original post, perhaps I can bore you with my heating system. I live in a one story ranch style home that was built on a slab. It has no basement. It is over 50 years old and is heated by a heat pump that has been replaced about 2 years before I moved in. I have lived here for about 2 years now. That would make the heat pump about 4 years old now.
Except for the outdoor unit, all the duct work, air handler and auxiliary parts of the system are in the attic. There is about 5" of blown in insulation on the attic floor which is laying on the first floor ceiling. all the ductwork was replaced when the new heat pump was installed, but the registers in the ceiling look like the original. To be crystal clear, there are two parts that extend from the attic to the outdoor unit. That would be the lineset and low voltage control wire. And the thermostat is actually located in the hallway between the kitchen and the bathroom. So I guess not everything is in the attic.
I am not a fan of this system because I need to put the temperature way up to 72° to get close to anything comfortable and that drives the electric bill well over $80.00 in February. Since the house is built on a slab, the floors are made of concrete, and even with the temperature set at 72° the floors still feel cold. Does anyone have a suggestion for making this home comfortable? By the way, I don't want to spend any money of your suggestions, but I thought I would just put it out there.
Not really looking for an answer to this. I just wanted to show how ridiculous it is to hi-jack a post when it is so easy to create your own.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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If i'm not mistaken the combustion efficiency percent is how much of the carbon and hydrogen in the fuel becomes heat, not how much of that heat is transferred to the water.
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DISAGREE Matt
Actually the combustion efficiency is considered to be that of a complete combustion of all the hydrogen and carbon burning in the flame. Not the part of the fuel that did not make heat.
The combustion efficiency is the difference between the actual flame temperature and the exhaust temperature. So it is "how much of that heat is transferred to the water". That number is presented as a percentage of the total heat of the flame that stays in the building by way of the water in the boiler or the heat exchanger in the furnace.
For example: if your flame temperature is 1000° and your stack temperature is 500° the 50% of the total flame heat is absorbed by the heat exchanger and 50% goes out the vent.
If your flame is 2500° and your stack temperature is 400° then only 16% goes out the vent. 84% is absorbed by the heat exchanger. there are other factors that determine how efficiently the heat exchanger moves that heat from the flame to the living space, but that is not considered in Combustion efficiency.
The CO2 reading is used to determine the actual flame temperature. Since thermometers that could accurately measure flame temperature were very expensive and very delicate, it was not practical to put those instruments in a service truck that was bouncing around the highway and back roads to customers' homes. Somewhere in Brookhaven a government scientist with a really expensive thermometer discovered that in the lab you can burn oil and get a flame temperature over 3000° with complete combustion and no excess air, no soot, and over 15% CO2. But that was in a laboratory. Then by testing the amount of excess air that was added to the fuel oil flame, and using that really cool thermometer (it was actually a very hot thermometer) they determined that the CO2 would get lower and the flame temperature would get lower. So they made this chart
Well not that chart exactly, but a chart like this one. Since the CO2 bottle was helpful in setting up the proper air/oil ratio with the smoke spot tester a well trained technician could make an oil burner burn clean and determine the flame temperature with this chart. now add a thermometer to the exhaust pipe and Viola! the efficiency is known.
If the carbon, for some reason, does not burn completely and leaves soot (unburned carbon) behind, you will get a smoke spot on your smoke test paper. When I was taught how to use the Bacharach wet kit over 40 years ago, I was told to deduct 1% from the CO2 bottle reading for each number on the smoke spot scale. This was not by any means accurate to the scientific measure of efficiency, just a rule of thumb.
So combustion efficiency equipment determines the amount of excess air that is added to the fuel by the CO2 or O2 content of the flue gas. If you add more excess air, you will get a lower flame temperature. If you don't add enough excess air, then you won't burn all the carbon. If you don't burn all the carbon, then you don't have complete combustion and your % of CO2 or O2 will not accurately tell you the flame temperature.
PAGE 2 THRU PAGE 6 of this manual explains this information in more detail
I hope you find this information enlightening @mattmia2
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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@EdTheHeaterMan the combustion efficiency is only the efficiency of transference of the heat into the boiler. It is not the efficiency of the boiler to the system. Due to the thermal Mass of this boiler and the surface area both interior and exterior there's a huge system loss. That means that even if you could get this to burn at 70% efficiency in all likelihood you would only have between 50 and 60% efficiency to the building envelope. There is also a huge loss up the chimney whether the boiler is running or not.
Cost is what you spend , value is what you get.
cell # 413-841-6726
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/charles-garrity-plumbing-and-heating
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@Charlie from wmass said: "@EdTheHeaterMan the combustion efficiency is only the efficiency of transference of the heat into the boiler"
@EdTheHeaterMan said" there are other factors that determine how efficiently the heat exchanger moves that heat from the flame to the living space, but that is not considered in Combustion efficiency.
so I couldn't agree with you more Charlie. Looks like we are both on the same page. Check out the illustrations!
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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This is where everyone waving their arms and saying that combustion analysis is something that can't be explained is a problem. Since no one explains the convention used I have no way of knowing what that is. In reality it is missing the chemical efficiency and only has the thermal efficiency, I assumed from it being combustion analysis it was analyzing the combustion process rather than the mechanical process.
You have to work in rankin or kelvin for your 1000 and 500 example to work out to 50% because at 0f and 0c there is still a significant amount of energy in a material.
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@mattmia2 we measure the available oxygen and the CO, CO², delta T from combustion air to flue temperature. It is both physical and chemical efficiency. But only through the combustion chamber.
Cost is what you spend , value is what you get.
cell # 413-841-6726
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/charles-garrity-plumbing-and-heating0 -
Still No Feedback from OP on "Charley from Mass" post asking whether heating cost is $500 a month vs $500 a year? Would like to know state ie. is it Arizona?
Regards,
RTW
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Yep, $500 a year. We live in Montana. Here is my work:
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Thank you for the advice, Tim, it is much appreciated. I am attaching the pictures you requested.
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have you flushed it? Does it knock? Is it electronic pilot ? I would give it a coat of paint 😄
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Nice, what do you pay for a therm of natural gas out there?
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Edit: double post, deleted
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As of last month, it was $0.85/therm ($0.25 for supply and $0.61 for delivery).
@leaking We haven't flushed it. I am not confident in my ability to do the work and I haven't found someone in town willing to work with this boiler (yet). It does not knock. It does have an electronic pilot. Haha, yes, I think some little flames painted on the side would spiff it up quite nicely.1 -
Our cost per therm in Virginia is same; our delivery fee is much higher, $1.020 per therm which puts us 50% higher total per therm. Adjusting for gas delivery costs, our overall costs are similar.
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Curious as to square footage of house thats heated by this boiler for $500 year? Is this steam boiler in Montana the only heating source for the home or is it complimented with another ie. wood stove etc.? I appreciate the pricing clarification. My boiler is circa 1964 single pipe steam so I appreciate older reliable boilers that last
Regards,
RTW
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@RTW The boiler is gravity hot water not steam.
Cost is what you spend , value is what you get.
cell # 413-841-6726
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/charles-garrity-plumbing-and-heating0 -
one thing I would like to see on it is a safety relief valve, don’t see one in photos!
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As pointed out above confirming OP question concerns a gravity hot water boiler
Here is an older post LINK on this site on consideration to replace a vintaged gravity hot water boiler
Replacing gravity heat boiler. — Heating Help: The Wall
Regards,
RTW
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The open expansion tank allows for water expansion, at most the boiler needs a low water cut off tapped in the system.
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