Boiler help

Users who are viewing this thread

Tom Sawyer

In the Trades
Messages
3,625
Reaction score
34
Points
48
Location
Maine
Damn auto correct, I meant to applaud your post. I agree, 150k is 2/3rds more boiler than required here and as he already has high mass radiation it is the perfect fit for almost any properly sized mod-con. My only caveat here would be the possible need to change some of the existing piping for zoning reasons or flow concerns.
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
Just as an example, I did install 120,000 Btu boiler in 6 apartment building, 220,000 btu in 18 apartment building, and there were no complains when weather hit 6F. This oversizing Buisiness is just ridiculous. Anybody of your contractors used manual J ?

Yeah.... RIIIIIGHT! :)

Even the worst implemented Man-J on an 1800' house with a design temp of +15F wouldn't come up with a 150K boiler with 125K of output, a whopping 70 BTU/hr per square foot of conditioned space- which would be the heat load of an 1800' tent @ 15F with a flap left open.

The lazy rule of thumb guys in my neighborhood use 25BTU/ft for an older home with at least some insulation and storm windows, 35BTU/ft for uninsulated houses with single pane glass (twice what the 150K boiler recommendation implied). Design temps around here are 0-5F, and these rules of thumb reliably oversize the units by a substantial margin. Applying the 25BTU ft to this house would still only be 45K, and barely-legal efficiency 55K-input boiler would cover it, but it would in fact be about 2x oversized, given how generous the fuel-use calculation was on boiler efficiency. (There's simply NO WAY a 1932 vintage 5-6x oversized boiler with a retrofit oil burner is hitting anywhere NEAR 85% efficiency!)

Typical heat loads @ +15F for 1930s houses in that area will be well under 15 BTU/ft, and many will be around 10. Odds are pretty good that the true heat load of this one between 20-25K, and cheap 2-plate atmospheric-drafted 50K cast iron boiler would handle his load down to inland-Alaska style design temperatures south of -25F. This worry about a 50K boiler being too small for the space heating is just nuts- most 1800' homes in northern Minnesota can be kept comfortable with a 50K boiler (but 60-70K wouldn't be an efficiency-disaster overkill, for those handful of days every 50-100 years when it hits the -50s.)
 

Steve Lanham

New Member
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Maryland
I have to find out what happens when Columbia tells me I need a 150k based on my cast rad size and I insist on a 50k boiler. I wonder if they will honor the limited life time warranty that comes with the boiler. I also wonder why boiler installers don't have to pass some sort of proper sizing certification so they're not selling units that cost the customer more dollars and waste energy to boot. With all the regulations in this country and the state of Md. I find it hard that the pols missed this one. I'm going to hunt down someone to do a Manual J. I have'nt been cheap when it comes to that. I did'nt have much luck on my casual search. Everything Dana and the others say makes perfect sense except for the talk of longer burns. Longer burns to me means longer time for your t-stat to be satisfied. Which means sitting there listening to your boiler run waiting for your room to warm to desired temp. Thanks for everyones response !!!
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
A longer burn time is only a "problem" if you're raising the room temp by a large step in temperature. The thermal mass of the water in the system is substantial, but not infinite, and it's emitting constantly, warming the house even if it's not fully up to temp. If the thermostat is set up with a 1F differential it'll take 2x as long as if it's set up with a 0.5F differential.

Only if you use deep overnight setbacks would you ever be left "waiting room to warm to the desired temp", and even then there are "smart" programmable setback T-stats that "learn" how long it takes to come up to temp based on recent cycle history, and would automatically start the warmup ramps earlier during colder weather.

Or you could just "set it and forget it", and still use less fuel than the oversized boiler, and adjust differential on the T-stat to 0.5F. Or, with a fancy T-stat that has a PID algorithm the room temps won't vary by more than 1/4 degree, but the radiator temperatures might vary within a 5F differential while the boiler cycles on/off 1-3 times in an hour.

You'd have to really listen carefully to hear a 50K burner, unless you're in the boiler room. (Have you ever heard the hot water heater firing in somebodies basement while you're on the first floor? You might be able to hear the pumping if you put your ear to the radiatior, but because the setpoint isn't being overshot, the radiators won't be tick-ticking away from metal expansion after having cooled too much with a room-temp undershoot. A 50K mod-con with an outdoor reset control would give you even steadier radiator & room temperatures than a 50K cast-iron, but with high mass radiation it would still deliver pretty even temperatures, even with a cheapo $20 T-stat.

Right sizing the boiler & getting longer burns reduces the under/overshoot problem- it's MORE comfortable than an oversized boiler that satisfies the T-stat in 2 minutes instead of 10, or 20, creating larger swings in room temp.
 

Jadnashua

Retired Defense Industry Engineer xxx
Messages
32,771
Reaction score
1,191
Points
113
Location
New England
Are you more comfortable out on a sunny day with constant radiation, or when a cloud covers the sun? Having the boiler run constantly at the proper output means the radiators are a relatively constant temperature rather than getting super hot for a few minutes, cooling down, then getting hot again. An oversized boiler just can't run constantly to MATCH the heat lost, it MUST cycle. A right-sized boiler runs at the design temp, and with smart controls, can adjust its output to match the need...just enough heat in to match that lost - i.e., constant temp, constant comfort. Gross example...take a blow torch, momentarily point it at something, then turn it away (simulating turning off)...you can achieve a reasonable average temp, but it won't be particularly comfortable. Just like a dimmer on an electric light can get just the right illumination, something like a mod-con can achieve just the right heat input to get things 'just right'. This only can happen when the size is matched to the load.

Not having enough radiation capability is a problem, but you have plenty. The only time a big boiler might be required is if you used a huge setback on the coldest night of the year. With today's better boilers, a small setback is okay, but your comfort level and fuel use is likely to be similar by just setting and forgetting, or a modest reduction if you like to sleep cooler. Personally, I just adjust what covers I use and leave the thermostat the same. Before I finished my remodeling, I used a hydro-air system...the boiler was and is more than adequate, but the heat exchanger I had was not able to provide enough heat to allow a big setback, but worked fine when using a modest one or keeping things constant. In this case, I was radiation limited. Then, I added in-floor radiation, and that problem went away. Constant temp allows it to be comfortable, regardless of the outside conditions. ANd, with the smaller boiler and running more efficiently, my fuel bills went down significantly.
 

gennady

New Member
Messages
46
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Website
www.highefficiencyboilersnyc.com
Yeah.... RIIIIIGHT! :)

Even the worst implemented Man-J on an 1800' house with a design temp of +15F wouldn't come up with a 150K boiler with 125K of output, a whopping 70 BTU/hr per square foot of conditioned space- which would be the heat load of an 1800' tent @ 15F with a flap left open.

The lazy rule of thumb guys in my neighborhood use 25BTU/ft for an older home with at least some insulation and storm windows, 35BTU/ft for uninsulated houses with single pane glass (twice what the 150K boiler recommendation implied). Design temps around here are 0-5F, and these rules of thumb reliably oversize the units by a substantial margin. Applying the 25BTU ft to this house would still only be 45K, and barely-legal efficiency 55K-input boiler would cover it, but it would in fact be about 2x oversized, given how generous the fuel-use calculation was on boiler efficiency. (There's simply NO WAY a 1932 vintage 5-6x oversized boiler with a retrofit oil burner is hitting anywhere NEAR 85% efficiency!)

Typical heat loads @ +15F for 1930s houses in that area will be well under 15 BTU/ft, and many will be around 10. Odds are pretty good that the true heat load of this one between 20-25K, and cheap 2-plate atmospheric-drafted 50K cast iron boiler would handle his load down to inland-Alaska style design temperatures south of -25F. This worry about a 50K boiler being too small for the space heating is just nuts- most 1800' homes in northern Minnesota can be kept comfortable with a 50K boiler (but 60-70K wouldn't be an efficiency-disaster overkill, for those handful of days every 50-100 years when it hits the -50s.)

I do not use rules of thumb, i do not use btu per square ft. I use manual J. Also i install mostly mod cons, and i do worry more about low firing rate than high. Mod cons properly set up can follow the load very closely.
 

gennady

New Member
Messages
46
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Website
www.highefficiencyboilersnyc.com
Longer burns to me means longer time for your t-stat to be satisfied. Which means sitting there listening to your boiler run waiting for your room to warm to desired temp.
you do not need thermostat with properly set up outdoor reset mod con. Anybody advising installation of thermostat or zoning with mod con installation does not understand principles of outdoor reset and constant flow systems, and mod con operation in general. None of my installations have a thermostat, some have TRVs to control temp room by room.
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
gennady: Just to be clear, that wasn't a knock on you or your methods- the saracasm was about very obvious LACK of the use of a Manual-J by his contractors, all of whom were recommending 100K+ burners for a sub-30K load.

That said, in a house where they are not going to be changing up the radiation and clear fuel-use history indicating a low/very-low load a Manual-J is a waste of time. The napkin-math on fuel use is more than adequate for sizing the boiler. In the US the availability of boilers with sub-30K (max) output is extremely limited- any mod-con installed in this place would have to be the smallest-of-the-line from most vendors. And with sub-25K heat load the low-fire output of most mod-con is still too high to get much modulation & load tracking out of them. Given his radiation type & size outdoor reset wouldn't have sufficient added value in either efficiency or comfort over a hot-water heater based fixed-temp system to be worth paying much for.
 

Steve Lanham

New Member
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Maryland
Dana.. I just set an appointment with someone to do a manual J for tomorrow . Now your saying its a waste of money. I was thinking everyone recommended a manual J. Well, this contractor is supposed to be a expert in steam and water systems. I'll question him tomorrow and see if he thinks its nessesary . I'm glad this isn't a rush job..Thanks again !!
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
A properly done Manual-J would more than likely just cement the case for a smallest-in-class boiler. If the sole purpose of the exercise is to size the boiler, it's a waste of time. Show him the napkin math on the fuel use.

But Manual-J can be useful for figuring out where envelope upgrades would add to comfort & efficiency too, if they're willing to run the numbers on the building as-is, and again with tighter air-leakage plus some insulation upgrades.

Air leakage is almost always worth reducing (and unless they're out there with a blower door their numbers will just be a boilerplate WAG), and fixing all the gaps in the insulation is usually worth it too, eg:

The biggest thermal gap in most pre-Y2K homes (as well as the biggest air leakage) is at the foundation walls, foundation sills, & band joists. A poured concrete foundation has an R-value of about R1, the band joists are about R2, and even if you let the basement run a 55F when it's 15F outside, that's a 40F delta on an R1/R2 surface area, losing 20-40BTU/hr per square foot. In an 1800' a 2-story house with a 900' footprint there's 120-150' of perimeter, and the band-joist alone is on the order of 1500-2000 BTU/hr of heat loss, and if you have ~18" of exposed foundation that'll be worth over 5000 BTU/hr when it's that cold out, making it well into double-digits as a percentage of the total heat loss, and that's with a less-than-cozy basement temp(!). Putting 1.5" of fire-rated rigid Thermax on the basement walls & band joist with edges taped & sealed reduces that part of the load by about 90%, and the basement would than run in the mid-to high 60s F, increasing the surface temp of the floor on the first-floor by a few degrees, with a noticeable improvement on barefoot comfort, and reducing the summertime relative humidity to boot.

Spray foam does a better job of air sealing the band joist & foundation sill, and goes in quicker than cutting & cobbling rigid foam, but at the very least spray foam would be used to seal the crack at between the sill & foundation, the sill & band joist & subfloor, as well as any cut rigid foam at the band joist & sill.

Air sealing floor/ceiling between the attic and conditioned space is the other biggie from an air infiltration point of view. Fixing the air leaks at at both the bottom & top of the house mitigates the stack effect pressures far more than any leakage that happens in-between, with a direct reduction of both heating and (primarily latent) cooling loads. Even a blower door test number doesn't tell you WHERE the air leaks are, and models that use a blower door number to come up with an infiltration rate are by nature extremely imprecise, if better than a WAG.
 

BadgerBoilerMN

Hydronic Heating Designer
Messages
485
Reaction score
10
Points
18
Location
Minneapolis
Website
www.badgerboilerservice.com
We do a lot of basement remodels, tear-outs, passive radon, insulation, radiant floors etc. But if they only have money for one HVAC improvement we use it to foam the rim "band joist and foundation sill" as it is the lowest part of the thermal "stack" and with all that Dana suggested including condensing warm humid air in and already wet basement.

Well done Dana.

PS Using the last fuel bill may tell you with certain accuracy what the heat load was for that particular month in that particular heating system but little else. The reason we do ACCA Manual 'J' is because the calculations predict the load over time, purposely ignoring mean extremes. Like blower door tests, fuel usage is just another tool.

Residential HVAC contractors that are willing and able to produce a Manual 'J' are a small and elite group among an admittedly backward group of technicians. This is particularly true of the small minority that specialize in hydronic heating.

As long as they do something to properly size the boiler, I am OK.
 

Steve Lanham

New Member
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Maryland
Well here's what it is ...had the manual J done..the napkin math and the J were identical...46k would keep the house warm no mater what...i mentioned that I was also putting in a 50 gal indirect in previous post..the spec. on the indirect states that a TriangleTube Smart 50 should have a boiler cap of 121 MBH. The manufact. said a 100K out put would do the job...Does anybody have any knowledge of the Solaia boilers...and would it be best to stay with 2ea. 40gal gas HWH and forget the indirect so that I could size the boiler more for the heat load of the house instead of the indirect..Thanks !!
 

Nukeman

Nuclear Engineer
Messages
707
Reaction score
1
Points
18
Location
VA
Generally, manual J also has some padding and tends to over predict the load by maybe 20% or so, so even at 46k, you would never have a problem heating the place. For the indirect, you normally don't include that in the load. You can set it as a priority zone and the boiler will heat the water (instead of the house) when needed. People worry about this, but you generally will never notice.

I think that I would go for a boiler in the 50-60k range (or smaller, depending on what you can find) and set up the indirect. I'll let the other recommend the brand, etc. I don't have much experience there. The only time that you may want more burner than that is if you had a large tub that you had to fill or wanted endless showers or something like that.
 

Steve Lanham

New Member
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Maryland
No large tub other then the clothes washer...everyone generally showers...I just feel like I should stay with the man. spec...also if the installer recommends this then thats the only way to get the warranty...I'm still waiting for some quotes so we'll see how it all ends soon enough...Thanks !!
 

Jadnashua

Retired Defense Industry Engineer xxx
Messages
32,771
Reaction score
1,191
Points
113
Location
New England
It's not that you can't use a smaller boiler to heat an indirect, it's that the amount of time it takes will be longer. If you look at the IWH spec sheet, it will have things like first hour delivery, and a few other things. To meet those values, you have to have the specified input heat. You have several choices...either get a bigger tank, or get a bigger boiler. A bigger boiler will cost you more upfront, and because it won't be used in its efficient mode 99% of the time, will cost more all of the time. A bigger indirect will cost a bit more upfront, but not cost any more runtime, and the boiler can then heat the house at its best efficiency forever, saving money all of the time. The downside is that it will take a bit longer to reheat all of that water in the tank. Probably not a big deal.

IOW, the indirect manufacturers want their tanks to look good in the amount of hot water they can supply, so to do that, they specify a significant boiler. FWIW, I've got a 60g indirect with a 60K BTU boiler, and I never run out of hot water or have the house cold. To meet the IWH specs about first hour delivery, I'd have to have a much bigger boiler. The tank is maybe bigger than I need (but I do have a 6' air tub that gets used at least daily), I've never run out of hot water, and the house is never cold as a result.
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
The right thing to think about with the indirect vs. the size of the boiler behind it when running the indirect as "priority" zone is to compare the boiler output with that of a standalone tank's burner. A 50 gallon gas-burner typically comes with a 35-45KBTU/hr 80% steady-state efficiency burner, and is delivering no more than 36,000BTU/hr to the water. A 50K mod-con will deliver 88-90% combustion efficiency (unless you're keeping the water at 150F+ storage temps) and about 10KBTU/hr MORE heat to the water than the standalone.

The 50 gallon standalone tank's performance doesn't suck- plenty of hot water for more then 90% of all households, but a 50 gallon indirect paired with a 50KBTU/hr mod-con running as the priority zone still beats it on raw hot water delivery performance.

If your primary hot water load is showers (not tubs), you'd get both more performance with much higher "apparent capacity" and much higher efficiency by adding a drainwater heat recovery heat exchanger.

power-pipe-dana-2.jpg


july17-p3.jpg


power-pipe_recovery.jpg


At a 2.5gpm shower flow adding a 50% efficiency unit (typically a 4" x 48" or a 3" x 60") like adding more than 25KBTU/hr of burner output, enough to turn a 50K mod-con + indirect into an "endless shower" situation.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

BadgerBoilerMN

Hydronic Heating Designer
Messages
485
Reaction score
10
Points
18
Location
Minneapolis
Website
www.badgerboilerservice.com
Dana;

A low efficiency tankless with recovery coil... I wouldn't believe the numbers even if they came from other than the manufacturer. Were it insulated, maybe.

Poor guy has all that fancy equipment and can't afford sheet rock?
 
Top
Hey, wait a minute.

This is awkward, but...

It looks like you're using an ad blocker. We get it, but (1) terrylove.com can't live without ads, and (2) ad blockers can cause issues with videos and comments. If you'd like to support the site, please allow ads.

If any particular ad is your REASON for blocking ads, please let us know. We might be able to do something about it. Thanks.
I've Disabled AdBlock    No Thanks