Need advice on converting from oil to natural gas.....combis?

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Dana

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Thanks for the kind words Don.

My freshman roommate back in the day told me that I had...

"A mind like a steel... garbage can!"

...and needed to write an encylopedia of trivia.

Guess I've yet to be cured of that, affliction eh? ;-)
 

Charlie P

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Thanks Dana , Jim
I was to nervous about returning the155 and getting an 80k.Was actually going to go with the 105 just to be safe.
After reading your last post I had NO FEAR of ordering the 80
With the help the Internet and your knowledge I have placed my order for the 80k. And am confident in the choice. Should be here by Monday.
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH
 

Handymaner

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Most of my contractors are insisting on the TT110 rather that the TT60.

"The 110k will not Short Cycle it is designed to modulate, these boilers run on low fire 80% of the time. You will need 110k BTU with your hot water demand setting the tank high will causing scaling and other problems. We have been designing systems for years and are good at it, we also see a lot of poor designs."

"We don't set up the boiler with priority, as you may now, when the hot water demand is calling the boiler will not produce heat for the home. I also seen in the past in the event the hot water heater malfunctions for example, if the pump fails the demand for hot water will never be satisfied therefore the boiler will not switch over to heat. The same goes true if the aqua stat fails on the water heater the boiler will never switch over to producing heat. Having siad that if you insist and you want the TT60 I will quote it for you. I feel very comfortable and confident with the 110, it will not short cycle due to the turn down ration, but I want to make sure you are happy. I will email you over the quote for the 60 on Monday."

Dana and this board saved me from a 110 to 150k boiler when that was what everyone recommended. I installed a Lochinvar Knight 85K and it's worked terrifically this winter, and I live in Anchorage AK! I'm just working on tweaking my delta t to get the return water as low as possible for max condensing efficiency. It's already cut my bills by 50-70%!

By the way, I don't know about the other brands but the Lochinvar has a max time for DHW heating-if something happens (as is suggested above) it automatically switches back to space heating after a certain amount of time, even if the DHW demand is not satisfied. It's one of the programmable parameters, if I recall the default setting is 30 min. So there are no worries of it getting "stuck" on DHW and the house going without heat.
 

Charlie P

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Dana,Jad and everyone else that shares their knowledge
I just wanted to thank everyone for all the knowledge that you so willingly share.
Without you I would have been running a WM ultra 155 instead of the 80.
I'm quite happy with the results of the 80

Heres the $$ bottom line
OIL
On 11-28-12 125 gallons of oil for $457
On 1-4-2013 I took 208 gallons for $736
to 3-13-2013 I took 100 gallons for $398
By the time the new boiler was up and running the tank had may 10-20 gallons left in it
As everyone knows, this has been a brutal cold winter.
GAS
11-29-13 I paid $64
1-7-14 = $126
1-24-14 + $159
3-4-14 + $158
:D:D:D
With these numbers, This boiler will pay for itself in 2 years or less

THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU
 

DonL

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Dana,Jad and everyone else that shares their knowledge
I just wanted to thank everyone for all the knowledge that you so willingly share.
Without you I would have been running a WM ultra 155 instead of the 80.
I'm quite happy with the results of the 80

Heres the $$ bottom line
OIL
On 11-28-12 125 gallons of oil for $457
On 1-4-2013 I took 208 gallons for $736
to 3-13-2013 I took 100 gallons for $398
By the time the new boiler was up and running the tank had may 10-20 gallons left in it
As everyone knows, this has been a brutal cold winter.
GAS
11-29-13 I paid $64
1-7-14 = $126
1-24-14 + $159
3-4-14 + $158
:D:D:D
With these numbers, This boiler will pay for itself in 2 years or less

THANK YOU,THANK YOU,THANK YOU


That is great.


Enjoy.
 

Dana

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But... but... but...


... aren't you concerned that the -80 is still too big? :rolleyes:

Getting off the oil habit is definitely worth it. There's no credible scenario where heating oil will be cheaper than natural gas for any sustained period in the next 20 years.

Heating oil tracks the crude price fairly proportionally:

gas-crude-prices-20081231.gif


The current ~$100/bbl trading price for crude translates into $3.50-$4 at the truck backed up to your house. The price floor for crude is about $75/bbl, the price at which they they can't cook oil-sand or frack shale profitably, and all of that new-oil supply dries up. At $75/bbl crude retail heating oil would be in the $2.75-$3 gallon range. The source-fuel heat equivalent of $2.75 oil is the same as $2/therm or $20/MMBTU gas- a price more than 1.5-2x what most of the US is paying, and more than 3x the residential retail price in some gas-producing states.

The current spot market near term futures wholesale price for gas at the well head is $5/MMBTU. The residential retail cost includes the distribution/pipelining charges, which are roughly half the cost of the gas bill, and doesn't change with the wholesale cost of gas. It would take a sustained well head price well north of $10/MMBTU (2x current spot-market, and 2.5x typical long-term contract rates) for retail natural gas to reach the absolute price floor for heating oil.

At the gas-price bottom of $2/MMBTU at the well head the gas drillers were going bust, but at $4/MMBTU there's plenty of margin to keep on drillin' & frackin' for gas. I don't see a sustained $8/MMBTU well head price let alone $12-15/MMBTU price. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I don't quite see how it would. If & when it does, how likely is it that crude oil would be hanging around $75/bbl at that time?

In the mean time, a right-sized modulating gas-burner is going to absolutely slay heating with oil on price, no matter what efficiency you can get out of the oil burner. So it looks like you did the right thing! (And you're welcome!)

By the time the -80 is toast it may be significantly cheaper to go with a heat-pump solution- we'll see how much downward pressure the boom in cheap distributed renewables has on rates by then, and heat pump efficiencies are still seeing year on year gains. Right now modulating heat pumps are at parity with condensing gas for operating and lifecycle costs in much of the northeast, but with flat or even falling electricity prices, increasing heat pump efficiency, and any kind of gas-price volatility it wouldn't take much to develop some separation.
 
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