As the price of a barrel of oil steadily climbs into the future, so does the cost to heat, cool and power your residential or commercial building. This article deals with how you can prepare yourself to do your part in keeping your overall costs to the absolute minimum. This is the real deal from a 30-year HVACR master technician, installer, system designer and sales engineer.

“In virtually all states, public utility commissions set electric utility rates. The basic principle of utility rate regulation is to allow a fair return on investment, taking into account costs and risk levels.” - Duke Energy. How is electricity generated? Coil, Oil, Gas, Hydroelectric, Solar Photovoltaics, Wind, Nuclear and … fill in the blank. Most power is generated from the non-green on the list. Whether you heat and cool your building with electricity or fossil fuels is immaterial – you will pay more to heat, cool, or ventilate your building, or refrigerate product inside it, as the price of a barrel of oil rises. Ironically, though, oil has always been the greatest value, meaning that you get the greatest number of BTUs per dollar spent on energy to heat your building and potable water. The reason for this is the oil lobby has the greatest influence in Washington over all other industry lobby groups. This amounts to a subsidy on oil, and is precisely why “Green” energy never really gets off the ground.

There has been so much emphasis on development of equipment for the fossil fuel industry, but proportionally very little on all other energy sources. Take gas-burning equipment for example. Since I began my career in the HVACR business some 30 years ago, gas-fired heating equipment has gone from atmospheric combustion with high carbon steel and cast iron equipment, to stainless steel and cast aluminum systems. Though these new systems are appreciably more “fuel-efficient” they lack the longevity that their relatives enjoy, many of which are still around to this day. Really, none of the new systems equate in value what the older technology has achieved, in terms of life cycle cost. This is because the more we push the envelope, the more is likely to go wrong and shorten the life of, and increase the service cost of HVACR systems. I know what you may be thinking: “But what about all the hullabaloo of tax credits for LEED certified systems and the tax credits by the IRS?” Frankly, it’s all a bunch of hype that has mostly been propagated by the construction industry trying to overcome the economic blows dealt it in the last round of man-made financial destruction to the building trades. Yes, it’s a good idea to upgrade windows and doors and improve insulation – the primary source of infiltration – but all of these products consume energy to be mined, manufactured, transported, installed and serviced. What’s more is the hard fact that when a building is “tightened up” the higher indoor air pollution levels rise. This is why indoor ventilation systems – HRVs and ERVs – have become popular over the years. HRVs run on electricity, require energy to manufacture, distribute, install and service. The moral is there is a point of diminishing returns and there is no such thing as free energy or a perpetual motion machine – there’s no free lunch!

Until lobbies for the solar industry exceed the power of the oil industry and others that promote false economic hope, there will be no end to expensive energy costs, no matter what type of fuel you use. The only limitless supply of clean energy that we have available to us is that which comes from the sun. In the opinion of one who has never installed a single solar system, our only hope of ever getting a grip on energy costs is that which accompanies the development of solar technology – to me it’s a no-brainer. Ever wonder why China is the largest solar energy developer in the world? They know what’s coming down the pike with rising energy costs due to increasingly scarce fossil fuels.

That said, until solar energy liberates our species from higher and higher energy costs, destruction to the planet, cultures and society, the best you can do is properly maintain your existing equipment, or if it’s really the end of the road for your HVACR equipment, then acquire new equipment sensibly and don’t fall for the 90% of high-tech gadgetry that will ultimately cost you more in cradle-to-grave dollars. I’ve seen enough new technology to know that most of it is a ruse as compared to the stuff we used to build as a great manufacturing nation – built to last used to be the credo in this country, now it’s built to be replaced, usually in China and other 3rd World nations.

So how can you stem the rising costs to the best of your ability? With the 3 Es:

1. Evaluation – You need a competent evaluation of the Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVACR) systems that you own. This evaluation will reveal ways that can increase efficiency and decrease fuel/electricity consumption.
2. Eradication – Once obstacles to efficiency are found, they can then be replaced with steps to maximize efficiency for the long haul.
3. Efficiency – It’s all about efficiency, but there are different paths to reach it, and they should be identified and considered.

Actually, minimizing fuel and electricity consumption has to do with one thing that you may have already noticed – efficiency. Many things affect efficiency in HVAC, which deals with the transfer of heat from one mass (primarily water, air or refrigerant) to another mass, water, air or refrigerant. When anything blocks that heat transfer, like soot, sulfur, dirt, impurities, atmosphere and other contaminants, that is when efficiency becomes reduced. Let’s see some examples.

In summation, it takes an unmistakably qualified technician, designer, installer and consultant to effectively assure that your HVACR equipment and systems are designed, installed and serviced correctly to ensure that maximum efficiency is achieved and your energy/fuel costs are at a minimum. As previously stated and not overly so, energy costs are not just related to fuel usage, but also belong to mining, manufacturing, distributing, installing, servicing and operating. It’s all about Life-Cycle costs – that’s the big picture and if you are to end up with a masterpiece, then you’ll want a true creative thinker to paint your All-around HVACR picture.

Here are the symptoms.

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The black semi-hard goo (from improperly atomized fuel that was purported to be 95% #2 fuel oil and 5% “bio fuel”) made a mess of the ignition electrodes, blast (air) tube and retention head.

I assure you #2 fuel will not create this hardened, oily, burned sugar-like mass in the burner blast tube, on the retention head and across the electrode gap.

The next set of pictures depict the actions I took to start things over with an absolutely clean slate. All pictures may not view in order of dis-assembly, so you’ll need to use a little imagination.

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The literal representation is as follows:

1. I knew the oil-fired furnace needed to be thoroughly cleaned. I also knew there was an anomaly with some aspect of the combustion process, which caused the cruddy buildup. The rest of the nozzle assembly, which the electrodes are part of, was quite clean.
2. I disconnected the 3/16″ nozzle line on the outside of the burner chassis and removed the nozzle assembly, which, as predicted, had the candy-like bridge across the electrode gap – this shorted the 14,000 volt spark and lead to no ignition upon a call for heat. The primary control locked out.
3. I removed the burner chassis from the blast tube that was flanged to the burner combustion chamber access cover.
4. To clean this furnace, it needed to be disassembled to the point where all flue gas passageways could be accessed, so accumulated combustion byproducts could be brushed and vacuumed away.
5. Once the burner, top and bottom chamber access panels and the chamber are removed, then the “soot vac” hose can get in there and, with the help of a soot brush, draw out and bag the multi-colored build-up.
6. The oil line runs beneath the concrete floor, and I flushed it out with a hand-held “Firomatic” pump. The oil came clear and in high volume with each pull of the pump plunger handle – no problems at all with fuel supply.

The cleaned components and re-assembly:

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1. The picture line-up does not include the final re-assembled burner and furnace – coming soon. The new pump pressure gauge is visible, though there is no picture of the vacuum gauge I installed on the spin-on fuel filter, at the tank, 30 feet from the burner. These gauges will help to identify issues that could be related to the supply of oil to the burner pump and oil supply to the nozzle.
2. I replaced every moving part on the burner to isolate the root mechanical cause(s), that is if the root was mechanical. If the same buildup problem persisted, then this would affirmatively point to a fuel-related problem. Obviously, I couldn’t change my customer’s 275-gallon tank of fuel.
3. Once the furnace/burner were back together, I cleaned the entire 20-foot smoke pipe that has perfect draft up the 60-foot chimney.
4. Next, I make rudimentary settings on the air band and air gate and fire up the burner. But, the furnace chokes and coughs smoke into the room. I change the pump pressure from 100 PSI (the default setting for the new Suntec pump) to 140 PSI (per Hallmark’s required settings, as read from the specifications tag on the top front of the furnace). I hit the burner service switch and the fire roars and is picture-perfect for this burner and furnace combination. You couldn’t ask for a nicer fuel oil fire. Of course, you’d need to like fire to appreciate that.

Now, we wait to see if the problem re-occurs. Stay tuned for the result in an upcoming blog post. If the culprit is bio fuel, then we will find out, eventually.

These days there’s much ado about wall-hung, cast aluminum, high-efficiency, condensing, gas-fired boilers. The awareness of the technology has reached the buying public, the HVAC consumer. The majority of boiler manufacturers have added these high-tech models to their list of product offerings. It’s well known that these installation friendly, often esthetically pleasing, appliances have replaced their asbestos slathered ancestry.

Well, what about that ancestry?

Cast iron has historically been used for quality boilers, rather than steel that less quality and less efficient boilers have been made from. The thing that makes cast iron more flexible as a construction material is the fact that it is “cast” that is to mean molten gray iron can be poured into molds of indefinite shapes. The shapes of these molds allow for designs that can extract a greater amount of heat from the burned fuel than a steel boiler design can. Innumerable small finger-like projections protrude into the flue gas stream, absorbing the heat and transferring it into the boiler water on the other side of the casting.

Here is a picture of cast iron boiler sections that were made in the 1970s. Notice the fingers that catch the heat from the flue gas as it flows between the sections. (This boiler was being demolished to make way for a newer model of similar design.)

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This is the new boiler by the same manufacturer – Weil McLain. I turned the boiler around 180 degrees and moved it back to better fit the space, the existing piping and line up better with the all important chimney thimble.

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Steel boilers have steel spiral shaped baffles that insert into vertical or horizontal tubes to slow the passage of flue gas (and heat) so the steel water jacket can absorb the heat and transfer it to the unsuspecting water on the other side of the steel.

At this time I do not have a picture of a steel boiler.

While cast iron boilers of yesterday were a better value in the long run than steel, because they transferred a greater amount of heat into the water and typically lasted far longer, these designs were of single pass technology – meaning the flue gas travelled once through the boiler before exiting out the smokepipe, or flue. Terribly, for the environment and for the boiler’s owner, much heat still went up the chimney. A typical cast iron boiler design from yesteryear had a stack temperature of between 400 and 600 degrees. This means that amount of heat went up the chimney, which is to say that if you put your gas oven outside in the winter, set it for 500 degrees and opened its door the same heat loss would result.

Steel boilers were even worse! The stack temperature of a steel boiler was even higher due to its inability to efficiently restrain the heat in the flue gas long enough to put that heat into the heating system water. Instead, it would go up the chimney.

Fortunately, a Scottish mariner invented a boiler design that is known as a scotch marine boiler. These cast iron boilers force the flue gas to travel forward, then backward, then forward again before exiting out the smoke pipe. This design is also called triple pass. Buderus, a German manufacturer, has been making cast iron heaters and boilers since the early 1700s and still operate in the same foundry. Their North American headquarters is in Londonderry, New Hampshire. This company only makes hot water boiler, no steam boilers, which is what is in the above pictures.

Why would the oldest continually operating manufacturer of the finest cast iron boilers in the world not make steam boilers as well as hot water boilers? The answer is simple: there are virtually no steam heating systems in Germany, or Europe as a whole. Why? Steam heating is terribly inefficient. One must heat water to at least 212 degrees to produce steam and that is with perfectly clean boiler water. As steam boiler water becomes dirtier, and it does as a rule, the impurities make the water harder to heat to the point of steam production and require the water to be heated to as high as 230 degrees. On the other hand, hot water boilers typically heat their water to between 100 degrees and 180 degrees. Europeans have long been more energy conscientious than Americans. Americas are consumers, while Europeans think of themselves in a more conservative light, at least when it comes to fuel consumption. This is why not a single American boiler manufacturer makes a triple pass boiler, at least none that I am aware of and that are available through the suppliers in my area. Perhaps there is also a special relationship between American boiler manufacturers and the fuel industries.

This is a single pass boiler that I replaced with a triple pass boiler.

(coming soon)

This is the triple pass Buderus boiler replacement that I installed in December, 2009.

(coming soon)

Here is the Buderus boiler block with swing-out door and insulation only. Notice this boiler also has baffles – the best of both worlds for heat capture!

(coming soon)

So what about cast aluminum boilers? Now that’s a horse of a different color altogether! It was necessary to explain cast iron versus steel, so you can begin to understand why cast aluminum came about.

The Weil McLain boiler above is a single pass natural gas-fired, atmospheric-type steam boiler and is about as inefficient as a ‘modern’ boiler can be. The next boiler (with the smoke pipe rising from the top then turning horizontal) is an oil-fired, gun-type burner that fires a single-pass forced hot water boiler. This is about the least efficient cast iron hot water boiler that exists.

The (blue) Buderus forced hot water boiler is a triple pass, oil-fired with gun-type burner – about the most efficient oil-fired forced hot water boiler available today, and the only brand of oil-fired forced hot water boiler I install.

Here is what a gas-fired, sealed combustion, high efficiency forced hot water boiler looks like.

(coming soon)

This boiler (the 3rd high efficiency boiler in this house in 7-1/2 years!), a Buderus GB142/24 is so efficient – 94.5% – that it can be packaged in a plastic box. These boiler types are so light, due to the cast aluminum, which is much lighter than cast iron, that they can be mounted on a wall, virtually anywhere. This boiler is referred to as low mass and holds about a gallon of water. It is so quiet that it is barely audible when it runs. It is computer controlled, as it needs to be in order to modulate the size of the flame within. As the water returns from the heating elements – baseboard, radiant floor tubing, fan convectors, etc. – the computer monitors its temperature and raises the supply temperature going out as the return water temperature drops. It does this by increasing the size of the flame, accordingly.

Unfortunately, there are so many bells and whistles with high efficiency gas boilers (they are not compatible with oil burners, by the way) that they have a far shorter lifespan than cast iron. A cast iron boiler, when properly maintained, can outlive you and me. A cast aluminum boiler on the other hand has a relatively short life expectancy – around 15-20 years. So much efficiency is demanded of their design that their envelope is pushed to near maximum. Anything that pushes its limits tends to be short-lived. Look at Dale Earnhardt, Jim Morrison, the Space Shuttle. You get the idea.

I would guess that you would need to buy at least 3 cast aluminum boilers for every cast iron boiler. Plus, parts for a cast aluminum boiler will cost much more. While cast aluminum boilers don’t require cleaning on an annual basis like cast iron oil-fired boilers do, they still require a routine ‘check-up’. Many cast aluminum boiler owners don’t realize this, and what often happens is leaks develop and if are allowed to perpetuate can ruin parts, if not the boiler itself. Another important thing to consider with cast aluminum is it is highly susceptible to the affects of incorrect water PH. Therefore, the PH that the manufacture recommends should be adhered to, unwaveringly. Poor system water PH can ruin a cast aluminum boiler within a very short period and void the warranty.

A nice thing about cast aluminum boilers is they can generally be vented through inexpensive PVC plastic pipe, through the wall or roof. They can also be installed in a closet or out in the open, they are that compact, safe and elegant, all things being equal.

A downside with cast aluminum boilers is they are typically twice the cost of a cast iron boiler. Therefore, one needs to evaluate not only the purchase price of the boiler, but the operating cost (fuel), the service costs, the replacement cost and weigh them against its cast iron cousin. These costs are (loosely) defined as life cycle cost. The lifecycle cost of a cast aluminum boiler, I suspect, is higher than that of cast iron, but bear in mind I am using the Buderus cast iron versus the Buderus sealed combustion gas as an example.

Another very important thing to consider when deciding what type of boiler to purchase is that of serviceability. I’m talking about the available talent in your area. Not all service personnel are professional and qualified and some will not properly set up or service a sealed combustion gas-fired boiler correctly. These boilers are not plug-and-play! The manufactures instructions need to be followed to a T, otherwise, your investment will be sacrificed.

An oil-fired cast iron boiler can always be converted to any type of gas, while a cast aluminum gas-fired boiler cannot be converted to oil, and some can’t even be converted to another gas type.

So what would I buy if I needed a new boiler for my home or business? The answer depends on several factors:

1. The available fuel source
2. The available flue venting options
3. The cost of various fuels in my area
4. The application (the space needing heat)
5. The available talent in my area to install and service the boiler
6. The available space to install the boiler in
7. Perhaps, other considerations

I really like the Buderus boilers and prefer their cast iron ones. I ascribe to the KISS principal: Keep It Simple Stupid! Just like too-many-cooks-spoil-the-soup, too many bells and whistles on a boiler (like on the cast aluminum ones) make installation, service and operation failures more likely. Cast iron has my vote, all things being equal.