Why Inspectors, Builders & HVAC Installers Don’t Comply

By John Rocheleau

www.thehvacguru.com

I am writing to inform you of how builders and their subcontractors are circumnavigating New Hampshire Energy Codes and International Mechanical Codes, and why local code enforcement officials (building and mechanical inspectors) turn a blind eye. New Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems routinely are leaking carbon monoxide, LP and Natural gas and costing far more in fuel and electricity consumption. Builders and HVAC contractors’ code violations can pose a serious threat of injury, even death.

6-year old Luhrmann was killed in her home from a gas explosion, at the hands of an unqualified worker who left a gas line open, thinking turning off the LP gas tank valve would be sufficient. That night Amilia’s father unwittingly turned the gas back on so he could run the clothes dryer before going to bed. (See “Amilia’s Law”: www.amiliaslaw.org for the full story.)

Recently, I served as Expert Witness for the Plaintiffs in a civil case in Milford District Court. The Defendant was sued for not properly installing a wood pellet furnace, incorrectly connecting it to the existing gas-fired furnace. The Plaintiffs’ carbon monoxide (CO) detector went off and they called the Fire Department. The Chief identified the pellet furnace as the source of the CO. In my testimony I identified the reasons for the CO leak and asked the Defendant if he had the local inspector inspect the installation. He said no. The Plaintiff won a $4,000 judgment.

In 2008, I served as Expert Witness in Merrimack County Superior Court – a Jury trial – for the Plaintiffs of a case that involved too many code violations to mention. My job was to outline the HVAC violations. For one, the installers of a gas-fired furnace vented the flue gas into the sewer vent pipe, which protruded straight out the wall of the house. The 2-year old removed an improperly installed return air floor grille and crawled inside the duct work and got stuck. The driveway washed out after a rainstorm and cost $75,000 to repair!

There is a new condominium development in Portsmouth where the HVAC installers cut serious corners in the crawlspaces and attics of each unit, knowing full well the Local Inspector wouldn’t check their work because it bothered his hips (newly replaced) to go in those areas of the house. Meanwhile, the condo owners are paying far more in gas and electricity consumption and will for the entire life of the systems.

Prior to the passage of Amilia’s Law in 2007, there was no license requirement of any kind for installers of HVAC equipment. Today, only a license for gas equipment service and installation is required in New Hampshire, leaving out oil burner, coal and wood pellet heating equipment installers…and those who inspect their work – Local Inspectors.

In 2008 I mailed 2,000 letters to builders and carpenters in New Hampshire offering my HVAC inspection service, to ensure that their HVAC subcontractors were correctly installing the heating and cooling equipment. By, “correctly” I mean in compliance with the New Hampshire (Public Utilities Commission) Energy Codes, which follow the International Energy Conservation Codes (IECC), and International Mechanical Codes (IMC). The Public Utilities Commission does not have an enforce arm, so enforcement of their codes is left up to the “Local Inspector”. Only one builder responded to my letter and hired me, but then refused to pay me when I cited 13 code violations in one unit of the townhouse development he was constructing, in Hampton Falls.

The reluctance of the recipients of my letter to reply indicates to me how disinterested builders are in seeing that their HVAC subs’ work is in compliance with relevant energy and safety codes. Builders know homeowners don’t know the codes, or how to spot violations, so they are not concerned. In fact, many builders do not want to know what violations may exist, as this will hold up final payment to them when their job is done. They also know how much their Local Inspector will allow them to get away with, which is another way of saying they know how much the inspector does or doesn’t know about what he or she is inspecting.

Unfortunately, municipal building/mechanical inspectors allow numerous code violations to pass. Why would they do this when codes are there to protect the public? The truth is inspectors often know less than the installers of the systems he/she is charged with inspecting. Also, they can have physical conditions that make it difficult or impossible to crawl into tight spaces to view HVAC installations, so they don’t bother. They are human and possess the same traits as humans in other fields who cut corners to get the job done quicker…like a lot of HVAC installers. Remember, codes protect the public only if they are properly understood and enforced.

The New Hampshire Legislature shot down House Bill 763-FN, on March 3, 2008. That Bill sought legislation “establishing the licensure and regulation of residential and building inspectors”. Why would we need legislation for this when the license plate says it all, “Live Free Or Die”. The only problem with that is, you just might die!

(Non-fiction by John Rocheleau)

Ever the social planner and eager to make new friends in small town New Hampshire, my girlfriend arranged for us to meet a mix of other couples we knew and ones we didn’t. The only Indian restaurant in town would be the venue. One of the couples was friends with friends of ours and sat opposing us. Exchanging niceties included the cliché question of one another, “So what do you do for work?” I asked it first, maybe to stave off awkward silence. Tim worked for Liberty Mutual and Rachel worked somewhere out of the home. They enjoyed advancing career paths and were middle class with a regular baby sitter who watched their toddler. “And what do you do, John?” Tim countered. “I have a heating contracting business…”

But before I went into my 2^nd sentence, a look like something brewing and just was turned up to high to rapidly boil, seemed to lie beneath Tim’s surface.“We just had a boiler installed in our house by…” and before Tim could speak the name of the company I cut in with the name of who he hired – Ernie. In half step behind me, Tim echoed my words. Amazed I knew this, Tim asked, “How do you know?” I told him that Ernie was infamous and had quite a reputation around town for low prices and a lot of call-backs, many of which he would not go out on. I also explained that others who got trapped by Ernie in business often shared the same look of consternation as they told their story.

“Well, let me tell you our story!” Tim’s voice gained more emphasis and began to rise slightly above the tone of the couples at this white-clothed table of eight. Tim proceeded and I became riveted. “One day my secretary interrupted a high level meeting I was in. I told her not to interrupt, but she insisted. I, again, said no. Not now! Nonetheless, she reluctantly interfered. “There is a problem at your house.” Naturally like any good parent, I asked if our kid was okay. “Yes”, she said. Then please save it for after the meeting. “I’m sorry, Tim, but your heating man is fighting with your painter in your driveway!” Those present – high level insurance executives, mid-level Yuppie-types and their scribes – couldn’t help but take notice as Tim suddenly excused himself so he could deal with something more urgent than their meeting.

Tim went on to describe how Ernie Sawzall was hired to remove their existing gas-fired steam boiler in their home and replace it with a new Weil McLain. It was July and they wanted to get a jump on the heating season. He mentioned 2 other companies (I recognized) that he got bids from, but chose Ernie because his price was ‘better’ than the others.

The painting contractor arrived at their home on the same sunny morning, eager to be productive and start exterior painting. Instead, the painter’s progress was rudely interrupted when Ernie backed his oversized box van smack in the middle of his progress. The painter respectfully asked Ernie if he could pull forward enough to permit him to continue unloading his ladders from his truck. Something sparked Ernie’s uncontrollable rage and like a roadside brush fire, it soon burned out of control. Was his need to unload his own truck in this tight driveway of greater import than that of the painter? Apparently, Ernie thought it was. Something ensued. I imagine maybe a slight scuffle to something more noteworthy that you might find on YouTube. Perhaps clenched fists hit their opposition’s head, knocking all common sense clear and far. The exact details are unclear to me, so I won’t make fiction for sake of story-telling. One can reasonably imagine that the baby sitter was provoked into calling Tim at work because the contention outside his home was serious. Because I’d witnessed Ernie in action at the counter of the local plumbing and heating supply houses, I could picture him, in all his social roughness, starting a fight with the painter – trying to dominate his perceived adversary and his own run away imagination. After all, I’d been competing against Ernie for many years and heard other stories – real or otherwise, for some time.

Tim furthered his compelling story, but it veered in the direction of the performance of the new steam boiler the very first time Rachel turned up the thermostat, expecting heat on a chilly October day. In just a matter of weeks Rachel was to deliver her second child and one can imagine the need of physical comfort like from a new heating system in the middle of rainy autumn. She tag teamed the story-telling with Tim.

“Yeah, about 15 minutes after I turned up the thermostat a loud banging sound rang through the radiators then it got louder and sounded like hammers pounding on the pipes.” “What did you do?” I asked. “I called Ernie. His proposal did say we had a 5-year warranty with the installation.” “Hello, Ernie (she held her hand to her ear as if it was the telephone), I just turned the heating system on for the first time and the pipes are banging loudly! Is this normal? Can you come and look at it?” Ernie countered, “Oh, don’t worry, that will go away after it’s run a-while.”

“So, what did you say?” I quipped. “What could I say? I waited a while, but the banging got louder and wilder and I called him back.” She put the phone to her ear again. “Ernie! You really need to get over here. The pipes are banging even louder now!” Refusing to be swayed, Ernie stood his ground, determined to avoid a weekend service call, the very thing I could tell the heating system needed. “Really, you have to let it run longer.” He meagerly offered. “Whenever you start up a new steam boiler you have to wait a while for the banging to stop. Give it a while more.”

“Something told me to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the banging in the pipes and the boiler and radiators became so loud and constant, showing no signs of getting better, rather scary-loud, I called him right back and said, Ernie!! Furnace broke. You come fix now!” “Then I hung up and waited.” “So what did he do to fix it when he got there?” I anxiously wanted to know. “He never even showed up!” She continued to say that she resolved the frightening banging with an abusive slap off of the emergency switch at the top of the cellar stairs and that it felt like the passing of a tornado in that there was grim calm that followed. The reality that they had no heat, after paying thousands for a new boiler installation that doesn’t work, but instead got Ernie’s broken promises, was sobering. And they had to hire somebody else to fix his mess!

“No way! What did you do?” I exclaimed, my voice climbing sharply in pitch. I was sort of shocked. “I hired a coworker who had experience with heating and he moonlit one night, later that week.” Furrows gathered between her brows as the double-barreled anger of a ripped-off customer was fully loaded and set to fire within her.

[I knew Ernie routinely gave out 5-year warranties like candy, to beat the competition, but I didn’t consider he would be so brazen and stupid to not honor them. Didn’t he care about his reputation? Surely Ernie could be named defendant in a law suit someday, but who would know unless, of course, a story made the local newspaper. I was a news junkie and never saw any such articles. This was better than reading about it, rather hearing the true story firsthand by the unsatisfied customer. Stories like this could only bode well for his competitors in the middle of the recession of the early 90s.]

I was dying to ask her what the moonlighter did to resolve the banging problem, so grilled her for more troubleshooting details. “Did you happen to notice the water in the cylindrical glass tube on the front of the boiler, while the banging was going on?” “Yes, it was rising and falling in the glass.” “Surging is the technical term.”, I specified. I followed with “Did the relief valve blow off?” Of course she didn’t know what that safety device was, because Ernie didn’t tell them need-to-know information about the new boiler, and its normal operation, when he ‘finished’ the installation. Once I gave her an overview of a steam system’s proper operational sequence, she confirmed that the relief valve had not discharged into the open basement. I’d heard enough to conclude that Ernie probably did not pipe a “Hartford Loop” steam trap in the condensate return line. I’d worked on another boiler installation of Ernie’s that didn’t include the Hartford Loop and the symptoms were the same.

“Condensate” is what is produced after heat is transferred from steam (via cast iron radiators) to the space the radiator is in. The steam loses its heat to the room and condenses back to liquid and flows down the pitch of the return pipe, returning to the boiler to be re-boiled. But before the condensate can return to the boiler it must first go through an intersection of sorts – otherwise chaos will prevail and steam from the boiler will try to back up the return line, opposing the condensate flow. Unfortunately, steam and condensate do not like to travel in opposite directions in the same pipe. Like with water droplets in contact with boiling fat, a loud popping occurs inside a system pipe when steam and condensate collide head-on. Condensate less in temperature than boiling will clash with 240 degree-potential steam. This causes violent sound wave reverberations inside the hollow pipes that crash into the pipe walls – the result, banging – like playing the trombone with a ball peen hammer.

In Ernie’s installation some of the steam being generated sought to travel up the return line, with the majority of it climbing like an expedition inside the steam supply pipes – steadfast and turning at each cast iron elbow onward to the air vents on the radiators above.

I was glad Rachel’s coworker concluded the same thing as me in my off-site analysis and fixed it – good for my credibility. He installed a Hartford Loop trap that included an equalizer pipe rising from the top, at an intersection 2 inches below the boiler water line, and connected at the other end to the steam supply pipe. The bottom of the upstream side of the trap received the condensate from the return pipe from all radiators while the downstream side of the trap connected to the bottom of the boiler. Now condensate could drain by force of gravity back to the boiler unimpeded by steam.

Rachel went on to say that as she watched Mr. Moonlight cut the vertical copper steam pipe – all out of plumb and ridiculously looking as if it had been forced into compliance with the rest of the installation – it vibrated wildly back and forth like a wayward wind chime being violated by wind shear. As the rapid wobble became still, the pipe was misaligned from its severed counterpart by 6 inches. (Ernie actually saved from using 2 copper 90s and 6” of pipe by forcibly stretching one pipe to meet another and soldered them together with a straight coupling.) “What a hack job!” I thought.

In the end, just as Rachel and Tim chose to spend their time and money addressing the incorrectly piped boiler, opting not to hire a lawyer to go after Ernie Sawzall, the painter, too, had foregone legal action against his fist-clenched adversary. Ernie laid reality on heavy as if in a single brush stroke and slipped away never-to-return!

Next time you’re at my blog look for “Ernie’s Yellow Green Goo”

by John Rocheleau

Because his ‘favorite’ tool was a Sawzall and this tool was his solution for a range of repairs that demanded a gentler touch, the nickname stuck. Even Ernie’s coworkers at the plumbing and heating company that lacked a respectable reputation thought Ernie was a hack. The name is fitting and is in the brunt of many jokes about Ernie and in the retelling of “Ernie-isms” in the HVAC trade. In fact, this talk-of-the-trade, talk-of-the-town reputation became Ernie’s hallmark. Hence, I feel there is enough to say just about Ernie to warrant a category of blog posts.

Once upon a time, as an HVAC contractor/advertiser advertising in the Yellow Pages meant you could count on at least two things: your ad would attract every tire-kicker looking for the lowest bid and, you’d really get to know your competitors through the bidding process. I made it habit to know as much about my competition as possible. If you stayed in business long enough you would eventually run into the “lowest bid” installations that you once bid against. Before long the systems would be in need of rescue. This is how I discovered Ernie. I’d also come to understand the man behind the reckless trail that always seemed to lead to his misdeeds.

Ernie-stories abound in the trade and I know, and will tell, several. I will not disclose Ernie’s real identity or name any names. I don’t wish to hurt anyone by recanting astonishing tales of someone who can violate any rule in the HVAC’er book and still remain in business after 22 years. It’s the insight that I desire to leave the reader with, along with the reality of how much the HVAC consumer will take, wittingly or otherwise.

I’d meet new couples in town at social dinners and conversation inevitably turned to one’s profession. Inquiries like, “What do you do for a living?” and, “Yeah, I just had a new boiler put in by____!” I would fill in the blank with the name of Ernie’s company. “How did you know?” they would ask. Ernie-stories always seem to start with a look of extreme consternation on tellers’ faces that foretold of the identity of the only person who could cause looks of utter disbelief and the tales to come of mayhem and madness. Ernie’s reputation was regularly being perpetuated by word-of-mouth and I always seemed to be within earshot. I got good at seeing the arrival of an Ernie-story before the words were enunciated.

Ernie’s company started out as a partnership, but spun out into a hot-headed-run, recklessly operated, one man show that even his 8th grade teacher wouldn’t do business with. (I won that not-so-low bid and learned even more about Ernie from the teacher.) Sometimes I would bid low enough to take a job so I could get more dirt on Ernie, but really to save the unsuspecting HVAC consumer from Ernie’s assaults. At minimum, I needed to warn them about Ernie without appearing to stoop to some lowly sales tactic.

Ernie drove a big box van with a meaningless slogan emblazoned across the sides and back overhead door. On his sales pocket-folder the one seeking bids would see a bumper sticker with the same ridiculous tag line stretched diagonally down the front. The pocket-folder – a generic coop advertising benefit that Ernie employed to cut costs – had “Weil McLain” – a boiler manufacturer – in bold at the bottom. Speaking of cost-cutting, Ernie even instructed “Mikey” Ball, at the local scrap metal yard, to save used copper fittings for him to reuse on customer’s heating systems. Ernie’s time apparently wasn’t of much value; he would have expended much more time making used fittings work (and not leak) than new ones would require. He must have worked 14 hours a day to make enough money to stay in business, his prices were that low.

Ernie worked out of his home, so to speak. His rickety incongruent 1940s frame of a house clung to life and to the side of a steep gravel embankment. It looked like it had been moved there, but not properly set up on a believable foundation. The 900 square foot house-that-Jack-built teetered off the side of the main drag as it left town, headed south. Thorny brush and grass-less “bank run” gravel topped the jagged landscape that could have at one time been a throw-away zone. In fact, it looked as if the land was cleared and no finer treatment was to be expected or come to this 200-foot frontage that ran back a few hundred feet.

Formerly, a coal-gas manufacturing plant polluted the b’Jesus out of this section of town that nestled uncomfortably between a freight train yard and this main road in and out of town. This degraded patch of unattractive real estate was a mix of 1930s residential dwellings with vinyl siding and a radiator repair shop, an auto supply store and a health insurance company’s abandoned headquarters.

Ernie constructed 3 plastic draped hot houses at driveway and street level, above the shack that he made home and business. Parked out front were broke down vehicles that Ernie bought used and pushed well beyond their expected work life. Their purpose now was to confuse would-be onlookers that he was successful and had “many trucks on the road”, but in this case most were permanently off the road. Passersby would be accosted by eyesores paralleling the likes of his heating system installations – the only kind he did. Christmas decorations in May are likely to adorn the roof just above the front door, within reach of a tiny window dormer reaching out from the crooked single-pitch shed roof. Small people could sleep up there in tiny beds.

Ernie was a 6-foot Neanderthal, all 200 hundred pounds of Mastodon-fed bulk that could be thrown at anything that got in its way, come what may. And if a Saber Tooth Tiger (or anything else, for that matter) pissed him off there was no telling what he might resort to, to even the score. He had a crew cut – simple and cheap – much like his work. It often looked like his hair cut wasn’t working, he had a messy appearance, his hands were dirty and not what you would want touching your walls, door knobs, personal possessions and his finished heating system installation. Yet this is exactly where his hairy hands would end up. Ernie is usually not newly shaved and the dirt on his face is his hair color and the two are not so easily distinguishable. Like that of the tool that is his namesake, Ernie was a “rough cut”. So was the product of his labor and his social behavior.

If you feel like I am being mean in my preface of Ernie, then consider what he has done to those who he has encountered in the HVAC business.

Stay tuned for Ernie stories!

My objectives with telling these stories are three-fold, for starters, as other objectives will surely arise. The first is to give you, the reader, an eye-opening into this vastly misunderstood field of business in America. A field that affects everyone who lives, works, plays, eats, is entertained, or travels in a space that is heated, cooled, ventilated, refrigerated, or otherwise has its climate controlled in some fashion. Homes, commercial buildings, planes, trains and automobiles are climate controlled to a greater or lesser extent.

I’ve worked on HVAC systems in train cars, mushroom farms, a Budweiser bottle manufacturing plant – Saint Gobain Containers http://www.sgcontainers.com/index.nsf, a Saab 9000, a new restaurant…that failed http://chefmoz.org/United_States/NH/Concord/55_Degrees1149520411.html, old restaurants like The Libray Restaurant in Portsmouth, NH http://www.libraryrestaurant.com/, the oldest family-owned general store in America – Frisbees Market http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090423-NEWS-90423035, an antique farm house upgraded to include panel radiators for Jed Schwartz Productions http://www.jedschwartz.com/JSPhome/jsp01.html, the home of the developer of the cable modem, Rouzbeh Yassini, who demanded “museum quality” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouzbeh_Yassini, Motel 6 and so many others.

These stories will include themes such as, Vendor relations; “Fellow” tradesmen; Customer seeks sex service; Incompetent employee who lights home on fire; Fraudulent Licensee; Manufacturers who knocked off my inventions; Investor stories; Inventions development; Tools-of-the-trade; Whipping boy for Mrs. Gaines, the wife of the author of “Pumping Iron” featuring Arnold Shwarzenegger http://www.alabamaliterarymap.org/author.cfm?AuthorID=98; Taking non-paying customers to Court; Experiences as an Expert Witness in Court; They actually vented the furnace into the sewer pipe!; Cracking up the company service van, as a teenager, 3 times and still getting a raise; Satisfied customers; Dissatisfied customers; Important lessons that made me a better person and “HVACer”; “The death of the family-owned company”; Fuel company dirty tricks; “Flat-rate” company dirty tricks; “The plumber with the bloody hand”; The best and worst jobs I ever did; Stories about “Ernie Sawzall”: Ernie beats up his customer, Ernie beats up the painting contractor, Ernie’s 8th grade teacher won’t hire him; Oil delivery driver who overfills the truck…and it goes into the street drain; 7 job changes in one year; How I first got a herniated disc lifting an oil tank, and many more.

The second objective is to satisfy my desire to put these stories in words for the preservation of my own past experiences, as an “HVACer” (derived from HVACR) – the term I comically use to describe myself in my stories. Someday, maybe I’ll write a book if I have enough to say that others are interested in reading.

The third objective for telling my stories is to help potential and existing clients and customers understand the mind, perspectives, frustrations, feelings and attitudes of me, John Rocheleau, and HVACR professional of nearly 30 years.

Stay tuned and look for “A Day In The Life of an “HVACer” in the post heading! Please send a comment on any story you have feelings or thoughts of any sort about.

John Rocheleau

About Heating System Fuel Consumption

By John Rocheleau

www.thehvacguru.com

Do you want to learn exactly why your heating system burns more fuel than it should? Of course you do, or you wouldn’t have found this article. Following are answers to the questions you have, or ones you didn’t know you had. I will explain (in defined technical terms) how your heating system is likely to be costing more to heat your home or commercial building than it should and what you can do to reduce those costs.

Anyone who drives an automobile knows that certain cars use less gas than others. The same is true for heating equipment and like gas-guzzling SUVs, some heating systems consume enormous amounts of fuel. The difference between cars and heating systems is cars offer many benefits beyond the primary one of transportation. Cars have performance, comfort and visual appeal, as well as can be a status symbol. Heating systems are tucked away in a basement, attic or closet and their operation and performance are a mystery to most not in the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (HVAC) trade, and still a mystery to many in the trade – so-called, “professionals” (a term I use loosely throughout this article).

To clarify, I may interchange the acronym HVAC for heating, and vice versa, but this article is about heating systems, how they work and how they often burn excessive amounts of “fuel” – gas or oil.

Most building owners know how to set the thermostat, change air filters and check the fuel level on their heating fuel tank gauge, but that is about the extent of their heating system knowledge. Typically, building owners do not want to know how their heating system works; it seems too complicated and futile. They prefer to leave the technical aspects to the service personnel they have come to trust. Did I say “trust”? There are many reasons to examine your trust for your heating service company, fuel supplier and General Contractor if you are having a new building constructed – residential or commercial.

For starters, do not assume that the professional you hire to design, install, service or maintain your heating system is qualified to make all the right decisions in those respective aspects of the HVAC trade. Just as in most professions, heating professionals are often types who could care less about the quantity of fuel a heating system ends up consuming and costing its owner; their paycheck at the end of the week is more important to them. The majority of HVAC tradesmen have never been to school to learn the innumerable facets of the interrelated technologies. Moreover, many have never finished high school! But let’s not get personal. Mostly, tradesmen have gathered their knowledge through hands-on experience. Experience comes in two flavors: good and bad. If the on-the-job-training has been with lousy ‘teachers’, then the student will be a lousy apprentice and graduate to becoming a hopelessly old dog incapable of learning new tricks.

It’s not only ignorance and bad attitude that have a hand in your fuel-hungry heating appliance’s performance, though I wish it were. Deliberate sales of terribly inefficient heating equipment plays a huge role. Sadly to say, American made boilers and furnaces are among the least efficient in the world and continued sales of them guarantee that fuel companies will find you to be a better customer – you will buy more fuel! Greed will often lead to corruption, with most of the corrupt getting away with it. This is a significant reason for my writing this expose.

I have no specific desire to be confrontational with specific companies, though I know them well, but I can’t close my eyes any longer, knowing that we are all heading toward a dead-end with our consumption of natural resources. Fossil fuels are limited, they say the planet is heating up and polar bears’ extinction in 50 years is all but inevitable. But the more we consume the more we strip forever from the planet its resources and the little is left to meet the needs of its inhabitants in the future. Must we consume until we’ve proved that the human species is the most insidious parasite the planet has ever known? Do we only take and put nothing back? At least we can take less of the fuel we use to heat our homes, businesses and industries and save money as we do it.

As a precursor to understanding how your heating system works, it is essential to understand the basic terms used in the industry, so let’s start with the industry players, then we’ll move on to dispelling the mystery surrounding the more technical aspects.

Fuel Companies – “Fuel” is a general term I use to cover any fossil fuel type such as, fuel oil, kerosene, natural and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), methane, butane and any other petroleum-based gas types that I may not have listed here. Distributors of these fuels have one goal: to sell (“market”) as much fuel as they can, to whoever will buy it and for the highest price. Period! They do not have your best economic interests in mind. They are the well-known petroleum giants, names emblazoned on tractor trailer tanks barreling down highways; large publicly traded utilities and your local fuel company with warm ‘friendly’ ads in the media. Fuel companies have the most to gain by inefficiently designing, installing and servicing your heating equipment. They want to deliver as much fuel at each delivery stop as possible. I know, I used to deliver fuel when I worked for fuel companies in the early 1980s.

HVAC Contractors – “HVAC” is a general term that is often misused and misapplied. Businesses that go under this heading tend to get involved with the installation and service of many areas of the indoor climate control realm, and it is a broad one! Not only does HVAC mean heating, ventilation and air conditioning, but also humidity control, indoor air quality and refrigeration. This player in the trade is likely to be more incompetent than fraudulent when it comes to accurately designing, installing and servicing heating equipment.

Plumbing & Heating (P&H) Companies – Many heating consumers are groomed through the ages to believe that plumbers are the same as heating technicians – they are not. The only thing plumbing and heating have in common is in the way pipes are connected – threaded, soldered (sweated), welded, glued (cemented), and more recently, compressed together with company specific connection means. P & H types rarely have mastered heating technology. I can spot a plumber-installed heating system instantly. It’s one thing to be a master at piping, which many plumbers are, it’s another issue altogether to know how the piped heating system works.

Handyman – Knows a little bit more than a homeowner about heating systems.

Heating Technicians – This is who you want to work on your heating system, but not necessarily one from a fuel company. Heating technicians work for fuel companies and gas utilities/suppliers. “Buyer beware!” Only half of these guys are qualified to do a good job on your system. Still, only 10% are really good, master-types who are rarely stumped and who see the big picture – the original system design is clear to them, the service history pops out like forensic science and they can make your system work with little or nothing to work with.

The aforementioned list is comprised of the standard players in the trade, but only fuel companies sell fuel, design, install and service heating equipment, which is not to suggest that all fuel companies participate in all aspects of the heating trade, nor am I saying that all fuel companies defraud their customers, most do not.

The case for burning less fuel can be easily made if everyone went out on the ocean in a boat and saw the sickening depth of pollution in our atmosphere stretching across the water as far as the eye can see. I live on the Atlantic side of the States and the prevailing winds blow off the land, bringing with it the smog generated across the country. Otherwise, watch a sunset and marvel at the orange and red hues, for they are the result of pollutants and particulates in the atmosphere that taint the natural color of sunlight.

Let us examine what goes into our atmosphere and our lungs when we breathe, when fossil fuels are burned. The byproducts of combustion of gas types and fuel oil include, but are not limited to:

1. Flue Gas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flue_gas)

2. Carbon Dioxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide)

3. Nitrogen Oxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_oxide)

4. Nitrogen Dioxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_dioxide)

5. Sulphur Dioxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur_dioxide)

6. Soot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soot)

7. Carbon Monoxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide)

The exhausting of these compounds into the earth’s atmosphere occurs constantly across the globe and proportionately to the amount of fuel burned by heating equipment, internal combustion engines and industrial processes. The more fuel we burn, the more we contribute to the aggregate pollution of our home – Earth. Why, then, burn more fuel than necessary?

The following terms and definitions deal directly with heating system apparatus and components.

1. British Thermal Unit (BTU) – The amount of energy required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. British Thermal Units are expressed as a ratio to time -BTUs per hour (written btus/hr., or MBH, where M=the Roman numeral for 1,000; B=BTUs; H=Hour, so expressed as 1000s of btus/hr. All heating equipment is rated in BTU heating capacity. A typical residential furnace has a heating capacity of 100,000 BTUs and can heat a 3,000 square foot modern house. These are approximate numbers, of course. For an accurate BTU requirement to heat a building a Heat Loss Calculation must be conducted (see definition for Heat Loss Calculation).
2. Flue – The passageways that direct the byproducts of combustion out of a heating appliance.
3. Burner – These come in many types, but we will restrict our discussion to Gun-Type, Sealed Combustion and Atmospheric, as these are most likely the kind that are in residential and commercial buildings. Burners mix #2 fuel oil, kerosene, LPG or Natural gas with atmosphere (air), then ignite and control the combustion of their respective fuel types. Gun type burners can be seen protruding from the fronts of boilers and furnaces and burn gas and oil. Atmospheric gas burners are like the gas burner under a water pot on a kitchen stove – they are open to the atmosphere. Water heaters, Furnaces and Boilers utilize atmospheric and gun-type burners. Sealed Combustion burners are as their title implies, the combustion process is sealed tightly from the atmosphere in which they are installed, like a basement, attic or closet. Sealed combustion burners take their combustion air from the outdoors through a plastic pipe and vent their products of combustion to the outdoors through a second pipe, usually made of PVC (polyvinylchloride) or stainless steel. Gun-type and atmospheric burners generally vent to the outdoors through a chimney or mechanical venting means, called a “power-venter”. While Atmospheric burners are simple and inexpensive, Sealed Combustion burners are much more complex and expensive. Atmospheric burners are mid efficiency types, whereas Sealed Combustion burners are high efficiency types.
4. Combustion Chamber – A combustion chamber or, simply, a chamber is almost always part and parcel of heating appliances that utilize a gun-type burner, and is internal to a furnace or boiler. Inside the chamber is where the actual fire during combustion of fuels takes place. An observation door or window allows a technician partial view of the combustion process inside the chamber.
5. Boiler – A cast iron or steel heat-generating vessel that utilizes water as a heat transfer medium to warm a space to a desired temperature. Boilers incorporate a burner which facilitates the combustion of fuels. Boilers can include a chamber, but don’t always.
6. Furnace - A Furnace includes a burner, most likely a combustion chamber, a heat exchanger, a blower or fan and has ducts connected to it. The blower pulls “return air” from the conditioned space through a “return duct” and pushes it across the non-flue gas side of the heat exchanger. Once the relatively cold return air comes into contact with the very hot heat exchanger, the moving air picks up heat and is propelled toward the occupied space through the supply duct and out diffusers and registers placed in the rooms to be heated. For sake of reference, furnaces have replaceable air filters, boilers do not.
7. Heat Exchanger – A device that transfers heat from one medium (fire and flue gas) to that of another. Flue gas contains heat which is transferred through a steel, cast iron, aluminum or stainless steel barrier (prior to exiting the appliance and up the flue) into a heat transfer medium separated by the heat exchanger barrier. For sake of our discussion, air, water and steam are the heat transfer mediums relevant to this article that transfer the heat from combustion to space in the building to be heated.
8. Conditioned Space – The space within a building – residential or commercial – that is to be heated or air conditioned. We will deal with heating a conditioned space in this article.
9. Hydronics – Hot water or steam heating technology.
10. Forced Hot Water (FHW) – FHW heating systems include boilers (or sometimes water heaters) connected by pipes to heating “terminal units” like radiators, baseboard convectors, hot water coils in an airstream and radiant floor heating tubes embedded in floors. Forced hot water systems succeed gravity hot water (GHW) systems that were coal fired back in the day of their popular use. Water is heated in a boiler and is then circulated, or forced with a ‘pump’ through pipes connecting the boiler to the terminal units where heat is rejected to the space to be conditioned. The hot water temperature is lessened by the cooler room air that surrounds the terminal units and the water is returned to the boiler to be reheated and re-circulated in a continuous cycle that only stops when the room thermostat is satisfied by the increasingly heated air.
11. Forced Hot Air (FHA) – As in FHW, a heat exchanger inside a furnace takes the heat generated by the combustion of fuel and transfers it to the occupied space of a building, but through the passage of heated air inside supply and return ducts. Forced Hot Air implies the utilization of a furnace, whereas Forced Hot Water uses a boiler.
12. Steam – This system is the “Hydronic” cousin of forced hot water. Both transfer heat through water or water vapor – steam. Both include boilers that transfer heat from the fuel combustion process to the heat transfer medium – water or steam. Both include pipes and terminal units. Steam is created when water in the boiler boils and converts to steam if it is continually heated. Imagine a pot of water on a burner. The stove burner (gas or electric) heats the pot of water above it. Left long enough above the heat, the water boils and vaporizes upward. In the boiler the vapor rises up in voluminous pipes onward to cast iron radiators or baseboard. Steam seeks equilibrium with the atmosphere. Hot vapor has greater pressure than cooler air, so rushes for the nearest exit in a steam system into the lower pressure atmosphere in the conditioned space. Press the “Schrader” valve stem on your car tire and high pressure air rushes out into the lower pressure atmosphere – it’s the same with steam in a heating system. Strategically placed air vents on radiators and condensate return lines allow the air above the water line in a steam system to be forced out of the system through them, but stop as the steam comes into contact with their internal mechanisms. Steam is the least efficient heating type, as the water temperature must be raised above 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Whereas, hot water systems water temperature can be modulated based on the outdoor ambient air temperature. The warmer it is outside, the less temperature is needed in forced hot water system water.
13. Heat pumps, electrically heated boilers and baseboard element, wood and coal-fired boilers and furnaces, solar and any other system types not fired by petroleum products, are not included in this article.
14. Limit Control – This control is also referred to as an “aquastat” in FHW systems and a “Fan & Limit Control in FHA systems. Hybrid hydronic systems – a steam boiler with a FHW loop (zone) also incorporate Limit Controls. Limit controls can maintain low temperature and high temperature thresholds in a heating system. Limit Controls come in many different types and have a myriad of applications that require a specific type of Limit Control. Limit Controls are often the device that cause excessive fuel consumption and are selected for this reason by unethical fuel companies so your system burns the maximum amount of fuel your heating system can possibly burn. You will want to check the type of Limit Control on your heating system! Read on to find out why.
15. Nozzle – The device in an oil burner that meters a specific amount of fuel through it and converts the liquid fuel into a vapor that can be readily mixed with air and ignited. Nozzles have 3 means of categorization: the amount of fuel that passes through it in gallons per hour (GPH) @ 100 pounds per square inch (PSI) of fuel pump pressure; the angle of oil vapor spray that comes out of its orifice; and the spray pattern – solid, hollow, or somewhere in between. Those specifications are written as an example like 1.00-80-B. This means 1 gallon of oil will pass through the nozzle at 100 PSI, 80 degrees is the vapor spray angle and “B” is code for solid. Too high a GPH and your oil burner will over-fire your furnace or boiler and start and stop too often – “short-cycle”.
16. Burner Orifice – Like in oil burners, gas burners have metering devices and these are called burner orifices or burner “spud”. The wrong burner orifice in a gas system can be deadly, as gas is explosive and when it is not burned properly and in the correct proportion to air the outcome can be inefficient and downright dangerous. Gas burners have at least one orifice but can have many, sometime too many, as you will see later in this article.
17. Heat Loss Calculation – Software programs exist to accept data input relative to a building’s design characteristics like window and door types, sizes and U-values, structure insulation R-values, room sizes and internal heat gain like people and appliances. Once this information is entered into the program the software calculates how many BTUs are needed on the coldest day of the year to heat the building to a design temperature say, 68 degrees. There are no accurate short cuts to a heat loss calculation. Anytime a new heating system is designed it must first be preceded by an accurate heat loss calculation. For everything related to proper equipment and component sizing and selection is based on BTU generating and/or carrying capacity. Pipe diameters are limited in how many BTUs of energy they can transport with water as its heat transfer medium, just as duct sizes are limited in how many BTUs they can transport with air as the medium.

Let’s apply these technical terms. For starters, let’s create a scenario – you want to build a new house. The first thing you do is interview several building contractors who call themselves a General Contractor (GC). A competent GC will give you a package price for construction of all aspects and systems in the new house. He will hire and manage all subcontractors from the electrician, to the plumber to the roofer, and the HVAC contractor. These tradesmen are subcontractors to the GC. The residential building trade is an extremely competitive one and the profit margins are slim. The GC knows this, so hires the people he thinks will furnish acceptable quality at the lowest price. Unfortunately, most GCs are extremely unaware of the importance of proper heating system design and the information that needs to be considered to produce the most efficient design for the money. He is also unaware of the requisite steps involved with cranking out a professional design. It is the design that determines the cost. GCs often look at the cost only. As long as the heating system “works”, then the GC is happy, even though he will never know that the system will consume a lot more fuel than if it was competently designed in the first place. In fact, nobody will ever know that is, until a true competent professional figures it out, but then it is usually too late. Most would rather spend more money on fuel than replace the incorrectly designed system.

Here are the proper steps to designing an efficient and cost effective heating system:

1. Through in depth discussions with the GC and building owner, determine exactly what the building owner expects from the new heating system – what type of system will it be? There are numerous options for system types and the type of fuel it will utilize. What level of efficiency will the system be capable of? What level of equipment quality is expected? How many heating zones are desired? How will potable water will be heated – through the boiler and indirect-fired water heater, or a separate heating source like a direct-fired water heater – gas, electric, oil, or solar? In the case of an “indirect” water heater, I will be sure to add the requisite BTUs per hour for the domestic hot water as needed. Basically, all relevant information will need to be conveyed with person-to-person discussions, and the HVAC subcontractor should be able to drive the discussions to the point that all questions will be satisfactorily be answered so he can proceed to the next step.

2. The HVAC sub needs to obtain a complete set of working construction drawings that include all floor plans, elevations drawings, window, door and insulation schedules, and geographical orientation.

3. The HVAC designer will then interpret the drawings and harvest all of the necessary data from it to be used in the heat loss calculation software. The software will tell him how many BTUs/hour the building will require on the coldest day and will break the total down by individual room “loads”.

4. The designer will then select the proper equipment based on fuel type, “net” heating output capacity (in BTUs/hour) and how the heating appliance will be vented – through a chimney, sidewall-vented or power-vented out the side of the building or direct-vented through the roof. He will also account for quality and efficiency rating.

5. Then the heat distribution aspect of the design will be worked through. For FHW, he will determine pipe sizing and type, circulator (the ‘pump’ that moves hot water from the boiler to the terminal units) performance characteristics, flow control devices and terminal unit type(s) and sizes.

6. The designer will then choose the control systems based on number of zones, energy-savings and safety and code requirements.

7. The fuel storage type and capacity will be selected.

8. A total cost estimate will be generated and a proposal listing all of the major components will be drafted and submitted.

This is a basic list of steps. In reality, there are so many details to creating a competent design and estimate that delineating all of them goes beyond the scope of this article. The most important point is that the heat loss calculation must be competently performed before any other design step can be taken. The other important thing is that the proper equipment be selected that answers to the heat loss calculation. If the equipment heating capacity is guessed at, then the system will most likely be over-sized…for the life of the system. Next is as important – the efficiency of the equipment is crucial to future fuel consumption and a true professional HVAC system designer will promote the highest efficiency available. Spending a few hundred dollars initially is always more advantageous financially than forever burning more fuel due to poor efficiency. Consider higher efficiency equipment as an investment in future fuel savings.

If any of the steps outlined above are skipped, then greater operating and service costs will result. Some HVAC subs do not design the systems they install, their equipment/parts suppliers do the calculations for him and he automatically believes they did the calculations right. Often a lot of rounding up gets done in the HVAC design world, as nobody wants to be left holding the bag if too small a system is installed, then doesn’t sufficiently heat the house on the coldest days of the year. And that rounding can account for 25% of the system capacity – it will be too over-sized and cost the building owner more money to heat.

I can’t express enough how many HVAC systems are incorrectly sized and designed. I see them every week I am out in the field. It is more normal for systems to be designed incorrectly than to be designed correctly. Yes, I repeat: most heating systems are designed incorrectly and burn too much fuel!

While plumbers and HVAC companies are often incompetently designing and installing heating systems, fuel companies are more often intentionally designing systems to burn the greatest amount of fuel their systems can get away with. Again, not all fuel companies are doing this, only the unethical ones are. Still, there is a great amount of ignorance in heating system design. HVAC sales engineers (like myself – see my resume: http://www.protechhvac.com/john-rocheleaus-bio/) are few and far between. Companies will pay great money to acquire a competent sales engineer. Conversely, HVAC companies aren’t looking for them because they know it is a futile search.

Residential building owners are the most taken advantage of by companies through deliberate and unintended shoddy heating system design, installation and service. This is true because homeowners do not have the desire to learn about their heating system, nor the time to get over the learning curve. Therefore, they do not know the right questions to ask of a GC, HVAC or fuel company. They often are meticulous in scheduling the annual cleaning/inspection of their heating system, yet lack the important knowledge to determine if the cleaning was done right. They will never know if the system was designed and installed right and if the technicians who have worked on it through the years knew what they were doing. Any incompetence along the lifespan of the system, from design to the last service call before the system is replaced, will cost the homeowner more money. Mostly, homeowners are oblivious to the extent they are being ripped off!

Here’s a rip-off scenario of a different kind. People think they have to spend $30,000 to save a grand a year in fuel cost! They are lead to believe this routinely by energy auditing “professionals”. In a blog post to come I will explain how “energy auditing” firms are duping their clients into believing they need some kind of sophisticated analysis to determine how their client can save money on fuel, and that they need high tech HVAC equipment to save money on energy costs. This is a huge scam, considering the energy auditor will charge tens of thousands of dollars to evaluate their building before any energy efficiency measures are carried out. They fly under the flag of the monetary incentives for the building owner provided for in the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – The “Economic Stimulus Package”.

Recently, I was contacted (through a referring party who worked for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission) by a woman who had been a policymaker with the same state agency for 20 years. She inquired about converting 3 heating systems in 2 apartment buildings to higher efficiency gas-fired boilers, so she could do her part in reducing her carbon footprint and qualify for benefits under the U.S. “Stimulus Package”. I told her the ramifications of changing her chimney-vented boilers to direct-vented types would be a costly endeavor, approaching $10,000 apiece. I also told her that I could make her cast iron mid-efficiency FHW boilers burn as much as 15-30% less gas. Of course, she was all ears. She hired me for a couple of grand to install temperature modulation controls on the 3 boilers and make a few other modifications. The end result means she will spend about the same on fuel as the new technology high efficiency boilers would require, and she got these modifications for about $28,000 less!

Commercial building owners are generally more required by job description to know important things like, the benefits of heat loss calculations, proper equipment output capacity and the steps required of technicians doing maintenance. This is not to say that commercial building owners are not somewhat in the dark, too. Not all commercial buildings are managed by people who are wise to HVAC technologies and the tricks-of-the-trade, shall we say. Nevertheless, commercial systems naturally consume greater amounts of fuel – the space to be heated is bigger than homes – and when they burn inefficiently the wasted fuel is also greater than that wasted in residential applications. Therefore, it is more imperative for commercial building owners to make sure they are getting the correct answers from their HVAC professionals.

Like the fox that guards the hen house, your fuel company is not unlike the fox. The more fuel your heating system uses, the more money you pay your fuel supplier. It’s logical then to believe that the greatest amount of fuel they can sell you is what they endeavor to sell you. Like the fox scheming to eat the hens, fuel companies can and do design and service heating systems in ways that demand the burner burns more fuel than is otherwise necessary to heat your building. All they have to do is skip the heat loss calculation and pick an inefficient, oversized American-made boiler and sell it to you. You trust them and are confident that the new boiler will heat your house reliably. You hope you will save money on fuel, but at least it won’t break down soon. Unfortunately, the fuel company salesman didn’t tell you the new boiler is a single-pass flue design and has a gross stack temperature of 450 degrees. He also didn’t tell you that you could have bought a European boiler with a triple-pass heat exchanger and resulting 300 degree gross stack temperature. He also didn’t offer to sell you a temperature modulation control and an indirect-fired water heater. Instead, you got a boiler with a “tankless” coil (for domestic hot water) that requires the boiler maintain constant temperature 24/7 all year long. All the while, heat constantly escapes up the chimney into the atmosphere.

What if you are considering the purchase of a building? You walk-through the building and make note of as much detail as you are able to in a limited number of walk-throughs. You calculate the cost of things like paint, landscaping, obvious mechanical systems repairs and the like, but you most likely know very little about heating technology, but do you know how fuel efficient, or inefficient the heating system is? You can ask what the past fuel costs have been, but without knowing what the infiltration rate of the building is and how many BTUs are required to heat the building on the coldest day of the year, then you will not be able to make any educated conclusions about the heating system’s efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, you will not be able to accurately predict the cost to heat the building. If you buy the building you will find out in the first year what the heating system consumes in fuel, assuming the weather is typical winter weather.

Here are the mechanical reasons behind high fuel and electricity cost:

1. No one did a heat loss calculation before the heating system was installed and they guessed at the BTU capacity of the heating appliance (boiler or furnace) and/or the radiation (baseboard or duct and diffusers sizes) capacity was undersized. A boiler/furnace that is too big, as discussed, will short cycle and consume too much fuel like city driving. A boiler or furnace that is too small will not adequately heat the building, the conditioned space will not reach the desired temperature so the thermostat will never be satisfied and the boiler/furnace will never shut off – and burn too much fuel.
   
   
2. The boiler or furnace was installed incorrectly. The supply and return piping was the wrong diameter and/or the ducts and/or diffusers were the incorrect size.
3. The number of installed zones (each zone has a thermostat, so count tally them up and that’s the number of zones in your system) was either too many or, less likely to cause excessive fuel consumption, too few.
4. The installed zone(s) had too much radiation capacity connected to it/them. Too much baseboard radiation on a forced hot water zone will cause a heat imbalance in the building and hot and cold spots will ensue. The solution is to split the zone into more “loops”.
5. Ducts or pipes were not insulated in unconditioned spaces. You really don’t want to inadvertently heat basements, attics, crawl spaces and the like, therefore, the ducts or pipes need to be insulated. Ducts also need to be sealed to prevent air escape.
6. The installer did not set up the combustion process to achieve the carbon dioxide, oxygen, smoke, gross stack temperature and draft levels that the manufacturer intended. Too high a stack temperature (too much negative draft in the smoke pipe) means too much heat is escaping up the chimney. Too low a CO2 percentage of flue gas means the fuel isn’t being completely combusted (at least as much as is possible with the equipment). Too much smoke in a smoke test means the boiler or furnace will “soot up” quickly. An 1/8″ of soot is equivalent to an inch of fiberglass insulation. You don’t want insulation on the heat exchanger, otherwise the heat generated by combustion will not transfer into the heating medium – air or water – and the heat will go up the chimney in excessive stack temperature.
7. In the case of oil burners and power gas burners, if the burner output capacity in BTUs was not matched to the boiler/furnace “input capacity” then the burner will either short cycle (burner output too great), or the burner will never shut off (burner output too little).
   
   
8. The installing contractor selected a boiler with a temperature limit control that maintains temperature in the boiler that is too great for the application. The installer incorrectly set the temperature limits in the aquastat (boiler) or fan and limit control (furnace). Too much fuel and electricity will be consumed as a result.
   
   
9. The wrong flow capacity circulators were selected and installed in the forced hot water system. Not enough heat is transferred to the space (the burner will short cycle) or electric consumption will be too great.
   
   
10. The burner – gas or oil – metering device (orifices with gas; nozzle with oil) was incorrectly selected, which usually means the wrong boiler/furnace or burner was incorrectly selected and installed. Almost always, the manufacturer of the heating equipment charges their engineering department with the task of Research and Development to determine what nozzle of orifice(s) are correct and set up the burners to include the correct ones with their burner/boiler or furnace. Nevertheless, incompetence can get in the way and that is often messed up in the field.
11. The installer did not set the correct metering rate for the requisite gas input rate for the burner. This means that he did not adjust the “manifold pressure” for the gas after the gas valve on the gas burner. With today’s high efficiency, multi-stage firing burners, this is a very technical set up feature that absolutely must be done. In certain cases, a gas explosion can result if the manifold pressure in each firing stage is not set correctly. This must always be done in the field after complete system installation.
12. The installer did not follow the manufacturer’s installation and/or service instructions to the letter. Too much fuel or electricity will be consumed, too much or too little heat will be generated, and/or a safety issue will result.
13. Water through pipes and/or air through ducts was not properly balanced, causing heating imbalance in the conditioned space and excessive electrical consumption by circulators and blowers.

The bottom line is if the designer did not properly design the system, then:

1. Too much electricity and/or fuel will be consumed.
2. The system will most likely never work correctly.
3. The system can become a danger to people and property.
4. Consequential damage costs can result.
5. Civil litigation costs can be expected.
6. The installed cost of the system will not be accurately represented.
7. The environment will suffer.
8. The building owner will pay with his money, time and frustration level.

The bottom line is if the installer did not properly install the system, then:

1. Too much electricity and/or fuel will be consumed.
2. The system will most likely never work correctly.
3. The system can become a danger to people and property.
4. Consequential damage costs can result.
5. Civil litigation costs can be expected.
6. The installed cost of the system will not be accurately represented.
7. The environment will suffer.
8. The building owner will pay with his money, time and frustration level.

The bottom line is if the service technician did not properly service the system, then:

1. Too much electricity and/or fuel will be consumed.
2. The system will not work correctly until a technician who knows what he is doing fixes the problem(s).
3. The system can become a danger to people and property.
4. Consequential damage costs can result.
5. Civil litigation costs can be expected.
6. The service cost of the system will not be accurately represented and will always end up costing more.
7. The environment will suffer.
8. The building owner will pay with his money, time and frustration level.

The bottom, bottom line is any of the above bottom lines can be combined and the result will be a veritable nightmare for the building owner. I see the outcome on a regular basis and this is why people hire me – to fix these screw-ups. At least 90% of my work is generated from the screw-ups of other HVAC designers, installers and service technicians. This is not to say that we don’t all make mistakes. We do, I do. Some who make mistakes offer no solutions or apologies for their mistakes. I do.

So what can you do when you suspect that someone has made mistakes with the design, installation or service of your heating system, or any HVACR system in general? Contact me. This is why I offer design, installation, service, consulting and expert witness services in the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, Ventilation, Refrigeration, Humidity Control, Exhaust and other aspects of the “HVAC” realm. There’s a huge market for it.

Here’s what you need to do to prevent the mistakes from being made in the first place:

1. Research your prospective HVAC installing contractor’s background – ask for references, his training history, employment history, his website, his specialization(s), if any.
2. Ask your installing contractor, or general contractor, who is responsible for the design of your system. If they say their parts supplier, tell them you are not interested. You must hire an installer who does his own designs. That way, if things go wrong he is solely responsible for the system shortcomings. In the worst case scenario, you do not want to have to sue multiple companies/individuals, or your legal bills will preclude your success.
3. Make sure you get a copy of the heat loss calculations…in their entirety! If they can’t offer you a copy (this means they have not done the calculations in Wrightsoft, Elite, or an equipment manufacturer’s proprietary software), then fire them before you hire them!
4. Ask your installing contractor to see his portfolio of past installations and the names and contact information of his customers with those systems. If he can’t provide that information, then move on to the next installer who can.
5. Ensure that you speak directly with the installing contractor. If your general contractor/builder does not allow this…fire him before you hire him!
6. When you speak directly with the prospective installing HVAC contractor, make sure you discuss the type of fuel you intend to burn; the type of venting method you will be using (masonry chimney, high temperature metal chimney; sidewall/direct-vent, or “ventless”) and the efficiency range (mid-efficiency or high-efficiency) of the equipment that you desire. Also, do some research on heating system types, product types, brand names, furnace and boiler material construction types (cast iron, steel or cast aluminum) and the approximate costs for each versus what your return on investment (ROI) will be for each.
7. Pick your installing contractor’s brain for his reasons for selecting the types and brands of the equipment and materials who chooses to install. If his reasons don’t sound quite right, then there is a red flag. Get other installer’s opinions and recommendations and go with your gut feeling.
8. Tell your general contractor/builder that you want several alternate HVAC installer quotes…then go with your gut feeling on which one to select for your project.
9. Educate yourself as much as you can with all that you can stand to know about heating systems. “An Educated Consumer is Our Best Customer!” You’ve heard that slogan before. Be that educated consumer.
10. Never buy a system because it was the low bid! You virtually always get what you pay for. “Pay Now or Pay Later!” You’ve heard those cliché’s as well.
11. Let me design your heating/HVACR system(s). Then you will know you covered all the important bases. I will provide you with a heat loss analysis, Bill Of Materials (estimate for every single part that your system(s) will be comprised of, down to the last screw and wire nut), Proposal with all the essential information and legalese, in an understandable presentation, and any and all product specifications that comprise your system.
12. If you don’t hire me for your designs, estimates or proposals, then let me review those of your installing contractor so I can pinpoint any shortcomings.
13. If you live in my area of business, then consider me for the system installation and service.
14. If you hire someone else, then let me inspect his work…before you make the final payment to him! That way you will have leverage if he did something that is wrong and the system won’t perform as intended. He will come back to fix a problem if he knows he will get paid when the problem is fixed.
15. Make sure that the installed system is inspected by the local Municipal mechanical inspector and/or the Fire Chief. But don’t rely too heavily on the “rubber stamp of approval” from the inspector, as a good majority of inspectors have no idea what they are even looking at.
16. Check with your state’s Public Utilities Commission to see if they prescribe and enforce energy efficiency measures and codes. You will be surprised how many installers do not know of or follow these prescribed codes and measures, or if they even exist.

I could tell you volumes more about HVAC systems efficiency and safety, but that will have to be seen in past and future Blog postings. In the meantime, good luck and be educated!

Contact me if you would like to discuss any of the services I offer. In the meantime, watch your heating and energy bills closely!

John Rocheleau

603-545-1282

Hello Ron,

I’ve thought of other details of my experience with Sean and ABC Graphics (ABC), regarding a “vehicle wrap” for my 2009 Chevy 1-ton Van. I think it’s important to accurately state the facts as completely as I can. With that intent, I’ve revised, and added to, my previous accounting of the wrap experience I’ve had with ABC, in my 10/10/09 email to you. The revisions better represent my memories and those of my wife, and follow. I submit this with the goal of reaching an agreement.

At this point, I assume that you’ve heard Sean’s accounting of his side of the story. To be frank, I think Sean underestimated the cost to install the graphics on my van then cut a lot of corners, which lead to the situation at hand. I have serious issues with the wrap he and Cody installed on my van and feel they attempted to take advantage of me, which I strongly protest. Despite what Sean might have said, or I may say within this letter, the proof is in the wrap on my van.

I first stopped by your place of business after seeing a graphic design encompassing the entire box trailer outside your Dad’s house, in Hooksett. The graphics job on the trailer looked impressive. I was there visiting my brother, Gerard Rocheleau, who was doing carpentry work for Ron on his house. Gerard told me that Ron’s company, Alpha Truck Accessories, installs “vehicle wraps” like the one on the trailer, and suggested that I go to Alpha, in Manchester, to inquire about a wrap for my van. Right away I went there and when I arrived your Dad directed me to Sean, in the sign shop. I posed a graphics design to Sean for which to arrive at an approximated cost for a wrap design based upon the banner on my website, www.thehvacguru.com. Sean approximated an installation cost at $600. I was excited to start work on a seemingly affordable design that I hoped would successfully “advertise” my business, The HVAC Guru, LLC.

Over the next few months, I worked with Grinning Moon Creative (GMC), the business I use for all of my graphics work, and Sean to create a wrap for my van. Sean was fine with James Mojonnier, of GMC, designing the wrap and said he emailed him, or his wife, Danielle, a copy of a graphic design template so James could create a design to conform to its boundaries. Grinning Moon had not received the email, so Sean burned a copy of the template to compact disc and gave it to me, in person, for me to give to James. I emailed the template file to James from my computer and he received it without difficulty.

James and Danielle devised a price quote of $450 for a 4-phase design process, which I accepted, and soon I emailed design phase 1, a “full wrap” of 3 different design concepts to Sean and asked for his professional opinions and a “ball park” price quote for any one of the designs. When he told me then that a full wrap would cost approximately $2,500, I replied that I couldn’t afford that right now, so he suggested a “partial wrap” for $1,500. I thought it was a long way from the $600 I initially hoped to spend, but I accepted that price.

We agreed that for $1,500 ABC would wrap from behind the front doors, along the sides, and back around the rear doors and windows – a partial wrap. The work also included a 3M vinyl base wrap with a laminate cover, and utilized a perforated see-through material for the rear windows so I could see out the back of the van. This was important to me because there are no side windows on my van, and I did not want to lose much more visibility out the back, for safety reasons. I instructed James to design a partial wrap.

GMC asked me if I would like them to deal with ABC and Sean directly, or if I would handle the communication between their companies. I told James that I would be the go-between. I also told him that my brother was working for the owner of ABC, Ron, Sr. and that my brother had recommended my company’s HVAC services to Ron, but he had chosen another contractor for the heating and cooling work in his home that was being constructed. I thought that if I gave ABC my work, that, in turn, Ron would consider me for HVAC work in the future. For this reason, I wanted to get to know Ron and his company, therefore, preferred to work with ABC directly on my wrap project. I’ve been in business for 21 years and have developed over 50 invention designs with 42 people/companies and know how to communicate ideas and information with other businesses. Dealing with ABC would be easy, given mine was a small project, I thought.

Nearing the end of the design process of the wrap, on Saturday, 10/3/09 I drove with my wife from the Seacoast to ABC, in Manchester, to verify the proper PMS, Pantone color to use in the final wrap design. Sean previously told me he would print out a sample of the color to compare to that of the van, which I thought was a great idea.

When we arrived, Sean was busy with other customers, but he interrupted their meeting to assist me and my wife. Looking at the van and a Pantone color chart, the 3 of us concluded that PMS #5395 would be the color that would best match up with the van paint color, though not perfectly, as the van paint is “metal flake” and its appearance changes somewhat under different light conditions, but would transition well to the “unwrapped” part of the van. After all, “Transitioning well” is very important to me and is why I traveled round trip to Manchester (100 miles) to decide, face to face, with Sean what color to use. We also all agreed that #5395 was more appropriate than the color James and I had previously chosen using James’ Pantone color chart.

We went back to Sean’s office and his other customers were still waiting for him. Nevertheless, I asked Sean to put in writing exactly what I was going to get for wrap materials, etc. Sean asked, “How much did I tell you, $2,000?” “No.”, I stated. “You quoted me $1,500.” Then, Sean, without contesting the amount, produced a printed document called, “Job Quote for Graphics Work”. In this document under “Job Details:”, “Partial Wrap on Van w/3M Material” was all that was written for materials. Under “Estimated Job Cost:” the amount was “$1,500.”

No mention in writing or verbally about payment terms, warranty, satisfaction guarantee, a complete materials type on the van panels and glass, or what recourse each party had in the event of either party not fulfilling their end of the ‘contract’, was given to me. Though, I figured that because my brother knew your Dad, Ron, Sr., that if anything went wrong I would at least be able to resolve it with him and he would make it right. Sometimes, business-with-a-handshake is enough to agree on the terms of a simple job like the one I was undertaking with ABC. Plus, Sean was very busy with others and I didn’t want to seem pushy and create more work of the written estimate than I deemed necessary, knowing we covered every relevant thing in verbal discussions over the course of a couple of months. I felt confident that GMC and I had completely communicated all relevant information, with emails back and forth to prove it, for the outcome of the project to be successful, and Sean seemed to have verbally conveyed that he understood everything relevant for the successful outcome of the job.

By way of comparison, on 9/28/09 I received a formal quote for the same work that Sean verbally expressed to me and my wife, from Advantage Signs, Inc. Their price was $2,100, and the same work that Advantage spelled out in their estimate was what Sean explained to me as if it was industry standard. I took Sean at his word and accepted his estimate and we scheduled the work for October 8^th and 9^th. Then, Sean said he would contact GMC on Monday and tell them what PMS number to use.

After leaving ABC, I told my wife that I thought Sean’s ‘written estimate’ was rather amateurish, but I was okay with it for the previously stated reasons.

To be certain James had the right information, and knowing that Sean wasn’t always responsive via email, I emailed GMC with the new PMS color number. Danielle replied to my email and said they would make the color adjustment to the file, and email the finished design to Sean. Sean never did contact GMC regarding PMS #5395.

Over the course of the design process, on 2 occasions, GMC asked me to find out from ABC what file type and scale they would need so they could send the desired file format to them. Twice I forwarded GMC’s request to Sean, asking him to forward the information to GMC that they needed. He never did respond to me or GMC. Finally, James called Sean on the phone and asked him those questions. Sean told James that he needed a Jpeg (RBG color system) file, which is what GMC emailed to Sean, as evidenced in email correspondence between them (see below).

I dropped off the van on the 8th, as planned. I expected that Sean would print out a color sample before applying the wrap, given that he was too busy to do so on 10/3. Sean told me that I could pick up the van around noon on the 9^th.

The next day my wife and I were driving to pick up the van and she asked me why I was so nervous. I told her that in 21 years of being in the HVAC business, and 3 previous attempts at having my van ‘lettered’, each time the end result was a disaster, at the hands of so-called “professionals”. You can imagine my extreme displeasure and frustration when we arrived and I saw that the finished wrap color did not even come close to PMS #5395. There was no transition at all, just a stark contrast in color. In utter disbelief, I asked Sean and Cody why the colors did not match. Cody stated quickly, “Your graphics people sent the wrong file. They sent an RBG, and we use a CMYK file.” I asked, “If they sent the wrong file then why didn’t you ask them for the right file?” Neither Cody, nor Sean replied, but the facial expression on the face of (presumably) another ABC employee present in the shop spoke to the rediculous color mismatch.

At that point, Sean said they would need another 20 minutes to finish the decals they were putting on the tinted rear windows. I said I was going to get some lunch and would return after that. He said we could wait, but I needed to get away to think about what appeared to be a failure with ABC Graphics’ work, and yet another van-lettering fiasco.

While at lunch, I discussed the issue with my wife and we decided that I would tell Sean that the color mismatch was unacceptable and give him the opportunity to offer a solution. We also concluded that there was no way that Sean printed out a color sample to ensure that the wrap would match the van when applied. Otherwise, the colors would have matched.

When we returned to ABC’s shop, the same employee that I saw earlier asked me what I thought about the wrap, so I told him I was not happy with the color mismatch. He nodded his head and walked away. I backed my van out of the shop bay so I could see the color contrast in the outdoor natural light, hoping that it would look better so I would not have to confront Sean, but the natural light made it look worse. Sean came outside and snapped pictures of the van and joked about me being in the picture. But this was no laughing matter. “Sean, I have to say that I am not pleased with the way the colors don’t match. What do you propose as a solution?” “I can put a strip on the door so it will transition”, he remarked. I told him that would look weird, that the vertical door line was the transition point, not some strip on the door panel itself. He immediately blamed me for my unhappiness and, seemingly, the disturbing outcome, saying “I told you the colors might not match!” I reminded him that he told GMC over the phone that he needed a jpeg file, not a CMYK color system file. “Yeah, I might have told them I needed a jpeg. That’s around the time I was sick last week”, he remarked.

As previously stated, Sean, my wife, and I agreed that a perfect match wasn’t possible in every light condition. However, the printed color of the finished wrap was not even close, in any light condition! Sean never told me that this stark contrast in colors might be the outcome, and had he said this would be a possibility then I surely would not have proceeded with a partial wrap. Advantage Signs quoted a “3/4 wrap” and never said a successful partial wrap would not be possible with my van. I searched the Internet for information about vehicle wraps and saw on several sights an offering of partial vehicle wrap installations. I was confident that Sean had made a serious error in judgment and failed to prove out the color through a physical sample color match up process. Now he and Cody essentially blamed me and GMC for ABC’s failure to ensure that the outcome would be acceptable – by requesting the correct color system file type from GMC, something I asked him twice previously to do. I was dumbfounded that when Sean realized the colors did not match he didn’t, at least, call me to inform me of this before he proceeded with the installation. Surely, they must have discussed the problem when they discovered it, I thought.

I disagreed with Sean that he told me the colors would not match like this, to which he said, “Look, I’m not going to argue with you!” I asked him if he knew that my brother was working on Ron Sr.’s house. He said, “I don’t care about that!” I told him that I would drive to Ron Sr.’s house and show him the screw up. “I don’t care!” he stated. “If you don’t like it, peel the whole thing off and go to somebody else!” he shouted. I drove away, disgusted, and attempted to see out the rear windows through the rear view mirror, but I could not, as Sean did not install perforated vinyl, as promised, he installed solid vinyl – another mistake – that now almost completely blocks the view through those windows.

As I drove off I decided to go to Advantage Signs, on Hall Street. I figured that I would have them quote the process and price for repairing the obvious mistakes with my van’s partial wrap. I would need to know what costs I would incur above and beyond what I rightfully expected to spend on the wrap, so I could then negotiate a settlement with Ron, Sr. During my meeting with Advantage Signs, I received a voice message on my cell phone from Ron, Sr. I listened to the message and then took his 2^nd call when it came in. In his message and while on the phone with him he shouted that he would call the police if I did not bring the van back there immediately, at which point I was dumbfounded at the lack of customer service skills that ABC used in trying to resolve this matter, so I lost all patience and told Ron to call the cops and hung up. I figured a neutral police officer would be better to discuss it with than anyone from ABC.

Within an hour, Officer Taylor, of the Manchester P.D., called me and I told him the gist of what happened. He recommended that I try to reach a settlement with ABC and that he would have you call me. He also said that if I was not happy, that ABC offered to remove the wrap from my van, free of charge. I told him that I would discuss this with Advantage Signs, as I was not comfortable with ABC doing any other work on my new $35,000 van. I asked him to have you call me so we could work out a solution.

I did get your message on my cell phone voice mail, on Saturday morning, and as you know, returned your call asking that you check your email for one from me that would be forthcoming before you left work at noon.

Since Friday, I have met with Advantage Signs and GMC to come up with the most appropriate solution, which I initially thought would be to have Advantage Signs wrap the rest of the van to match the color that Sean decided to use. But now, after realizing how far off the color of the wrap is and the difficulty involved with trying to match yet another color to it, and that I will have to spend more money and time for GMC to design the rest of the wrap, and Advantage Signs will have to wrap the roof of the van to match the faulty color of ABC’s wrap, adding even greater cost to what I thought would be limited at $1,500, I have decided that I want the wrap that ABC installed to be completely removed from my van. Further supporting my resolve to have the wrap removed is what I believe is the absence of a laminate coating over the wrap. I will ask Advantage Signs to confirm this. Also, after only 2 days there are numerous spots on the wrap that are bubbling up, and there is excessive “banding” which Advantage told me is caused by dirty printer heads and/or waning printer cartridges.

By the way, when I drove off ABC’s property with my van without paying for the wrap I did not intend to not pay ABC, just gather estimates and ideas for reparation of what I feel are my losses, before I reached out to ABC for settlement of this matter. I also left because it was clear the Sean was extremely defensive. Further, when I returned from lunch I immediately went looking for you or your Dad, but was told by the blonde woman in the main store that neither of you were available. I was hoping to have one of you look at the wrap and offer a solution.

I hope to determine through discussion with GMC and Advantage Signs on Monday exactly what is entailed to bring my van back to its original state, and the amount of all costs that will be associated with the process of doing so, and I will get back to you.

The emails from me to Sean and a couple of relevant emails from Grinning Moon are below. If you request the original emails, with dates, etc. I will forward them to you.

Hopefully, Ron, you are a reasonable businessman and understand that I am not a satisfied customer, and that I will have spent a minimum of 3 business days dealing with what has become a failure on the part of ABC Graphics to deliver what I was told, by Sean, would be “a really nice wrap”. I hope you will work with me to equitably resolve this matter. Please know that it may take a few days to get back to you, which is contingent upon others’ schedules, but rest assured I will as soon as I have the information that I need.
Sincerely,

John Rocheleau
protechhvac@comcast.net

I met Lea Aechlimin last week after she called me seeking ways to improve the fuel efficiency of her 3 properties in Portsmouth. When I gave her several low-cost suggestions that, if implemented, would save her as much as 30% on her heating bills, she was very interested and surprised that such simple measures could reduce the heating systems’ fuel usage to that extent. When I informed her that these simple suggestions are the sort that “your fuel supplier does not want you to know about”, and expressed interest in getting ‘the word’ out to building owners through workshops, she suggested that I contact you.

Please see my website www.thehvacguru.com <http://www.thehvacguru.com> to understand more about who I am and my background, but, in short, I have been in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration (HVACR) business for nearly 30 years, 20 of those working for myself. I’ve developed not only a keen understanding of HVACR efficiency, but have many industry-standard inventions to my credit. One invention that I am excited about is a heating system invention (under development) that I showed to James Robb (jrobb@dred.state.nh.us) and Rep. David Borden that uses at least 30% less fuel than a baseboard hot water heating system, yet would be on par with the cost of a baseboard system. This system is so easy to install (requires one basic tool) that the installer needs very little skill or experience in heating installation to do it him/herself.

Regarding a workshop with a title like, ‘5 fuel efficiency increasing measures that every building owner should know’, does the Jordan Institute have any interest in promoting and hosting this sort of long-running workshop? I would like to be the creator and speaker. As former president of New Hampshire Inventors Association, and guest speaker at MIT and a host of other educational institutions, I have background in developing, managing and participating in workshops and lectures and would enjoy presenting that which I am most knowledgeable and passionate about – exposing the truth about HVACR technology/industry and how to implement HVAC system fuel cost-saving measures in virtually any building.

Please contact me, or have your staff do so if you are interested in exploring this further through in-person meeting, via email or telephone.

Thank you,

John Rocheleau
The HVAC Guru, LLC
Protech HVAC, LLC
www.thehvacguru.com
protechhvac@comcast.net
P.O. Box 29
Portsmouth, NH 03802-0029

Well, what about that ancestry?

“Back in the day” for me is a place in time when “oil burner technician” wasn’t something I was proud, or happy to be, but it was the beginning of my HVAC career, that has now spanned nearly 30 years. At first it was interesting, positively challenging and rewarding in a career sense. But after the novelty wore off, I began to see clearly what was intended when the individual coined the phrase, “grease monkey”.

The cast iron vertical sections, coated inches deep in asbestos insulation, was well concealed and no notice of the exquisite American made, graphite impregnated Gray Iron castings could be made. But by today’s standards those boilers were built to last, like so many products that once were, but have since been exchanged for something new, as if the newness was necessarily better. I remember those heating systems well. The largeness and mystery about the contents that the dust covered white outer shell seemed to contain invoked immense intrigue. All around the central heating plant sprawled spidery pipe legs all, too, covered in cob-webby, dryer lint basement mulch that when packed by gravity and humidity seemed to propagate indeterminable growth that would give most of the uninitiated-in-basements the heebie-jeebies. Though to me, there was much more to the environment and the objects and devices in it.

Cast iron softening the boiling and churning excited water within sat densely aside its esophagus, brick red chimney breathing tube. Out and back into the natural environment from where it came from rose the initial smoke number 7 column of sooty smoke. Soon, the flue gas chemistry cleaned up to 1 on a scale of 0-9, as the combustion process gained a firm grip on a proper mixture of fuel oil and atmosphere. At times the conversion oil burner that replaced the coal stoker would vomit out violently the highest smoke number possible and then some, alerting anyone nearby that mechanical malfunctions were now screaming for Rx. On rare occasion delayed ignition forced the ornamental cast iron vertically hinged doors to burst open, effortlessly opposing the binding force of the cured furnace cement that closed its seams ever since the last time the boiler was cleaned. Out in a flash #2 fuel, sulphur and carbon – soot – diffused in a puff a release of soot particulates larger than spores and tiny as fleas, until it equally coated every exposed object in the space it effortlessly contaminated.

I responded to such a service-necessity in November of 1982. A blind man greeted me at his door covered in soot, the very same soot he unwittingly applied to everything he touched as he felt his way from the basement, air passageways burning from the sulphur rich and oxygen deprived air, making it to the rotary dial phone and the Tenney Fuels, Inc. dispatcher on the other end. He was concerned and happy for my arrival. I cautioned him he’d better call one from his support network to help him deal with the insurance claim he would be needing to file, so he could get his place cleaned up and press, instead, against the guiding safety of the familiar walls that were once devoid of anything as obnoxious as the unwanted substances of this day. The contrast of oily black finger paint on walls of white was as good as any impressionist’s work that I think I had seen.

I was in awe at the situations I would sometimes confront, situations that arose as a byproduct of oil burner technology gone awry. I stepped around the soot dense areas until I reached the sick patient. Ahhhh…it’s a Timken Rotary burner and its 7000 volt fuel igniter burned a whole through the circular steel track that circled around the cast iron inner combustion chamber wall and supported an impressive array of steel grills for flame control, perching in organized fashion atop the thin vertical band. The metal strip was anchored in high temperature cement and fire brick, a pancake of course insulating cement-like material that might appear to turn around like a turntable, but to the contrary, sat fixed motionless as the rotary burner distributor whirled quietly as it spewed an intelligible volume of fuel/air mixture at an awaiting heavy gauge hooked igniter, its downturned tip juxtaposed to the hole that resembled a bullet wound through the metal track. At the press of the reset button, the spark danced around its vertical steel partner, slightly shorter in stature, as if the partner’s hands never clasped and off they separated stumbling wildly out of control. Instead of the oil lighting, an odiferous mist of fuel hung suspended in the cave-like chamber. My readied hand firmly controlled the service switch off before the 2^nd delayed ignition could occur. An inch square repair clip somewhat reluctantly fit over the top of the burnout in the steel, none too soon, as I plied myself, arms outreaching with clip and hammer in hand, into a cold noxious environment that not even my corded portable drop light could illuminate enough to make any of it seem bright. Caked soot accumulation adorned the otherwise gray iron over every aspect of the cavernous hearth, the blackened heart of the boiler.

Soon, the ole Cadillac of its day purred to life, to rise another day to the challenge of its own longevity. For soon, the day would come when the last of its technological breed would only hang out in the fringes of the world of combustion.

Though the antique white octopuses were a rugged bunch, their requisites for survival would be no longer permissible in the changing arena of fossil fuel fired heating systems. The antique brass pressure and temperature gauges were lifelong companions to the cast iron, giving the system some semblance of visual meaning that explained a lot to the technician who knew what he was doing, but was just another device that the end-user could barely interpret. At the time, I was just an apprentice, and so much more knowledge awaited me in decades to come, but this day the gauge told me the temperature was steadily climbing inside the hot water boiler and the click of a relay powered to life the circulator whose sole responsibility was to deliver heated water to the convectors and radiators in the living space in exchange for cooled water to again be heated. The swap continued until the thermostat decided enough and shut the whole system down.

These thoughts come to me as I ponder the notion that one type of cast metal and its associated technology was better than the other. I think of how far superior the gray iron casting quality was, in general, and how much the designs, materials and craftsmanship of those rugged workhorses were that comprised the system as a whole, compared to today’s here-today-gone-tomorrow thoroughbreds.

Plastic boxes now cover miniature examples of 1.5 gallon hot water boilers that heat up really fast due to their very low mass technology. Without corresponding circulator technology, the low mass propane and natural gas fired wall-mounted boilers of today would not even be a viable product. For these machines are built with so little casting material, and of a different type – lightweight cast aluminum, that if water did not circulate at a prescribed rate through them, the material would overheat and fail, rendering the system to junk. Cast iron boilers sometimes had 50-100 times the mass and water content. Because of this change, cast aluminum boilers rarely have more than a ten-year warranty, whereas cast iron boilers can last as long as their owners themselves and have twenty five-year warranties.

On the subject of cost, a very important consideration, indeed, while cast aluminum boilers are roughly 15% more fuel efficient, they are easily 100% more costly to buy, and last 20% as long. So depending on the cost of fuel in dollars, the more efficient designs may not bring more value in the long run, they may bring far less than their cast iron cousins.

To Be Continued…

Baby Boomers surely recall the Oil Embargo of the early 1970s, but what about the automobile carburetor that allows a car to get 150 miles per gallon? Even the Honda Civic CVCC got 55 miles per gallon in the 1970s, but where did it go? The truth is folks, Big Business does not want us to know about anything that will “cannibalize” their market share.

For those of us who live in Northeast USA and most of Europe, we can expect colder seasons to bring with them higher consumption of heating fuel oil, natural gas and liquified petroleum gas (LPG). The majority of heating systems in these regions are forced hot water, while in other parts of the country forced hot air is preferred, as the furnace is often coupled with air conditioning due to the hot temperatures 3 seasons of the year.

New Hampshire is where I’ve lived most of my life and is where I have always practiced my trade. I cut my teeth, so to speak, on oil burner technology, having the privilege of working for 2 highly ethical family-owned fuel oil companies that had been around since the 30s. So had some of the heating equipment that they installed in the beginnings of oil burner technology. I found it curious that the older the equipment was the more durable it was, and some brands were more efficient than today’s models! General Electric made a down-fired oil burner/boiler that was 88% efficient! Timken Rotary burners/boilers were as efficient as the technology made in America today.

In my opinion, most boilers and furnaces made in America today should be outlawed, they are so fuel hungry! Single-Pass flue designs, such are American boiler designs, should be banned. The Europeans have us beat in boiler designs and have for years, but do you know that tariffs imposed by our government kept these designs from our marketplace until relatively recently? That’s right people, the U.S. Government (in other words, lobbyists) kept fuel consumption high in the Northeast by restricting free trade of efficient heating technology.

Buderus, a German company, has been making cast iron heating equipment since the early 1700s and is finally competing fairly with American manufacturers, now that their North American headquarters is based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Their “Scotch Marine” boiler design has a triple-pass heat exchanger that retains the majority of heat it produces, while American designs can have more than twice the amount of heat leaving the boiler (and the building), right up the chimney. I just installed a Buderus G215/7 oil-fired boiler that had a 200 degree net stack temperature. The same size American boiler would have a 450 degree stack temperature!

If you are an owner of an inefficient American boiler design, or even a high efficient European design, there is hope for greater efficiency. A “temperature modulation control” can save as much as 30% on your fuel bill. For around $800, this easily installable control will monitor the outdoor temperature and as it drops the control will raise the boiler water temperature proportionately. In example: If your thermostat is set for 70 degrees and it is 60 degrees outdoors, then corresponding boiler water temperature will be maintained at approximately 100 degrees, all things being equal. Whereas, if it is 0 degrees outside, the control will demand a much higher boiler temperature say, 170 degrees. Conventional boiler controls have fixed temperature settings and if your fuel supplier is servicing your boiler/furnace, then you can probably expect that they have jacked the settings up to their highest settings – 180-200 degrees, 24/7/365! The higher the control settings the more fuel they will sell you! Tell me, where is the incentive for them to save you money on fuel consumption? None exist, my friends! An aside: there is no corporate incentive for the fuel company’s technicians who service and clean your heating equipment to do a good job either. Why that would mean you would spend less on fuel. It’s a true story.

Would you allow “the fox to guard the hen house” when it comes to fuel consumption with your heating equipment? I wouldn’t, especially given I am in the business of creating energy efficiency for my heating customers. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve arrived at a new customer’s building to find the temperature controls cranked up to their highest settings, even in the summer when there is no heating demand. This is unconscionable and should be made illegal through legislation, but I am not an optimist while lobbyists rule the day. Fuel companies are ripping off the unsuspecting consumer to such a great degree, and are free from regulation, that if the lid was blown off their scheme it would mean they would be required by law to make available to the consumer information on all available energy savings devices.

Remember the 150 mpg carburetor? Well, the same sort of energy efficiency technology exists for your boiler, but your fuel company will never tell you…unless legislation is passed demanding it! 2 Things must happen: Federal legislation must be passed outlawing single-pass heat exchanger boilers, and information on energy savings devices for heating equipment must be made available, proactievly, to customers of fossil fuel suppliers.

Contact me if you would like a free analysis of your heating system and to find out if a temperature modulation control is applicable to your system. Start keeping your money instead of handing it over to the likes of Exxon fat cats!

Stay tuned for the story!