A boiler heats water and delivers warmth through radiators, baseboards, or radiant floors. The heat comes from circulating hot water or steam.
We love hydronics. If you want to know what gets us excited, get yourself a copy of Dan Holohan’s Pump Away. This is the bible in our industry of how a boiler should be piped. There are a lot of companies out there that do “cut and slide” boilers. They cut the supply pipe, cut the return pipe and hook up the new boiler. It’s cheap in every sense of the word. What they miss is an incredible opportunity to improve the efficiency and longevity of your boiler and most importantly protect it from premature failure.
If we’re replacing your boiler, we’ll walk you through our unique pipe design that ensures the boiler is protected and up to modern code. If you have an existing boiler with deficient near boiler piping, we can fix that without replacing the boiler itself.
If you are thinking about a new boiler, the main things to consider are:
- Efficiency
- Space
- How it relates to your Domestic Hot Water
Efficiency is defined as how much you lose from burning gas or oil that is not heating your home. A standard efficient boiler has an efficiency rating of 84%. For every $1 you spend on gas, 84 cents heats your home and 16 cents goes up the chimney.
Standard efficient boilers are probably the ones you are most familiar with. The big metal box in the basement with the cast iron heat exchanger. They are, without meaning to disparage the boiler, dumb machines. They heat water. They pump water. They get the job done. They also cost more to operate.
A high efficiency boiler can be rated as high as 95%. That translates to a lot of savings in the long term for gas usage, especially in larger homes. High efficiency boilers vent through PVC pipe, not the chimney, so layout is something to consider when switching over. These boilers achieve their efficiency by being smarter. The gas valve is “modulating”. Much like a stove, the flame can go up and down to change the water temperature, whereas the traditional cast iron boiler always fires at 100%. On a milder day, the boiler will run the water temperature lower. This saves gas and it also creates more even temperatures. A win-win for sure.
In some cases, a high efficiency boiler can save space. There are wall-hung models that can be mounted off the floor. Even floor mounted high efficiency boilers are generally smaller than their standard efficient cast iron counterparts.
One thing to keep in mind is that a high efficiency boiler itself does not get very hot. If you have an older cast iron boiler and it’s under the living room, the heat that comes off that boiler is traveling up and helping to heat the living room above it. If you switch to high efficiency, you’ll lose that residual heat below.
When you look at planning around a new boiler, always consider the hot water element. If you’re going to go with high efficiency, consider a “Combi” boiler, which heats your home AND provides domestic hot water on demand.
What is Orphaning the Water Heater?
If you’re looking at just the high efficiency furnace and your water heater is a chimney vented, you’ll be “Orphaning” your water heater. Remember, your boiler would now be venting through PVC, not the old chimney. So, though not the kindest way to put it, it’s understood: The water heater is orphaned when it’s the only mechanical device venting up the chimney. It’s lost the parent (the old boiler) that helped keep the chimney warm in the winter so flue gas can escape. Without the additional heat of the boiler, the flue gas from the water heater can condense in cold weather, causing moisture to come back down the chimney and rot the interior part of the chimney.
There are remedies, such as lining the chimney with a smaller stainless steel channel appropriate for the water heater.
Switching to an electric, indirect tank or hot water on demand are also options.
Overall, Boilers require a different level of expertise and not every HVAC company handles them. At the same time, many plumbers aren’t very familiar with all types of boilers, particularly more advanced high efficiency boilers.
We provide full boiler installation, repair, and annual servicing.
- Renovating your kitchen and thinking about a heated floor? We can install a radiant floor panel to efficiently heat the space and keep your toes warm in the winter.
- Looking to save on gas and thinking about a high efficiency boiler? We will walk you through the options and help outline the ROI timeline for you as well.
We’re passionate about boilers and hydronics so give us a call and we’re happy to partner with you on your boiler project.
