Options for heat source

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Burnbaby

Burnbaby

Member
May 19, 2011
84
Southern nh
Thanks in advance for reading this, any insight would be helpful. I heat my house with my pellet stove, only time oil boiler kicks in is for hot water, or if pellets run out. I have about a 20 year old weil mcclain boiler with tankless coil. Our hot water is very inconsistent at best, and I would like to do something about it. I'm thinking of a completely new system, however i don't like the idea of getting a new boiler that will really never get used. Do I just add a water heater or indirect to boiler? I have gas at street, do I get a gas water heater and separate gas boiler( again I hate the idea of getting a new boiler that will hardly get use , isn't it bad to not use boiler?) should I look into a water heater with heat pumps as a back up heat house? What would you do if money wasn't an issue. What would you do if money was a issue?
 
money no issue - get gas run to your house and put in a new gas boiler and gas water heater
money a issue - probably put in a straight electric resistance water heater and convert the boiler into a cold start. Maybe a heat pump water heater.

If you had a gas boiler most folks would prefer to use that over a pellet stove. So it would not be unused.
 
You've got choices - but the one thing I would do is get rid of the oil all together.

That could mean doing your DHW with an ordinary electric hot water heater or gas heater - and swapping in a gas boiler. Or, you could put a pellet boiler in. Or, you could look at mini-splits (is AC a factor?) - but then you'd lose use of your distribution system. But I think I would try to take advantage of the NG line out front.

But heating DHW with oil is a losing proposition for starters - and especially so doing it with a tankless coil setup. Which is about the most expensive way to heat DHW there is. Combined with an older oil boiler that sounds like might not be working right would push me to send it down the road and the oil man packing.
 
I would not ditch the oil furnace. I'd keep it around as a secondary heat source.
 
If money is no object I would go geothermal heat pump for heat and HW, ditch the boiler and use the pellet as the secondary heat. Geothermal should be cheaper than pellets by quite a bit.
Ron
 
railfanron said:
If money is no object I would go geothermal heat pump for heat and HW, ditch the boiler and use the pellet as the secondary heat. Geothermal should be cheaper than pellets by quite a bit.
Ron
Click to expand...

Electricity is expensive in the NE. I have geothermal its cheaper then pellets but not a huge difference maybe 20% cheaper. I pay around 15c kw/hr.
 
If I had NG at my street, I wouldn't even know what a pellet / wood stove is...
 
I'm leaning towards ng, a new boiler and water heater or indirect, as this will be my house for years to come. Some of you guys solidified that decision for me. Now it's time for me to start freaking out about price. Anyone have a ballpark. Btw I will never get rid of a pellet stove, as I love the extra heat and ambience
 
Figure about 5 to 8k for the whole system. If you need to run gas from the street to your house then that will cost extra. You could always keep your oil system for backup and use a heat pump water heater for your hot water needs. If you heat with pellets only except for emergencies then it's kinda hard to justify the investment for a whole new boiler. Your payback would take forever. Figure about $1500 for a heat pump water heater installed. The payback on that will be fairly quick because you won't even burn oil for hot water. Tankless coil is the most inefficient way to make hot water as most heat goes up the chimney as standby losses. We use a heat pump water heater and for a family of 3 it runs us about $25 a month at 15 cents a kWh. Hope this helps.
 
Here's a different idea that will at least let your boiler take the summer off: Add solar to your hot water. You can't use it during the winter but it'll spare you the energy use during the summer, for me that was about 150 gallons of oil from April to now. Run the boiler for an hour every week or two to keep it from relaxing too much, although my grandmother's boiler in the 70s and into the 80s was shut down from Easter to Thanksgiving.

Good luck,
- Jeff
 
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