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QUESTION:The house we bought in rural Central New York six years ago has an
ancient oil-fired boiler, probably 45-50 years old (the pump is
probably newer, but not too much). We currenly have five zones on
four zone pumps having just converted two rooms from electric heat now
that we have a baby and need to head them. We also have an LP hot
water heater.
This summer (hopefully!), we're planning on replacing the boiler and
spliting rooms up into 8-9 zones, plus one for an indirect hot water
heater. I'm fairly set on continuing to fire with oil as it seems to
usually be cheaper than LP (natural gas is not available). The last I
looked into it (4-5 years ago), a high-efficiency unit is probably
worth the extra money since I'm upgrading anyway.
I'd be interested in hearing experiences with the different brands of
boilers, how well they work, how easy they are to get fixed, etc..
Are there any good resources, both on-line and off for researching
these issues?
ANSWER: I would suggest ditching the LP water heater and installing an
"indirect"
tank fed by the boiler instead. You shouldn't be venting an oil burner
and gas water heater in the same flue (if you are) anyway.
I'd shoot for something in the 80-82% efficiency range. They would use
standard technology and you wouldn't run into complicated controls.
Since
oil isn't common around here (nor are boilers) I'm not familiar with
some
of the specialty products. We usually use Weil-McLain or Burnham, good
and solid products with standard burners. In the NE where boilers & oil
are common, there are some imported brands which are well respected
although
finding parts & techs trained on them may be more difficult.
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