Hey Thanks!
Id like to get the best boiler for the money obviously but would rather spend a little more for quality and performance. I was hoping for the $7,000 range. I have no idea how to calculate heat load but I will say that I have spared no expense when it comes to the efficiency of the insulation envelope, from the doors and windows to how I framed the headers and corners, the main consideration was thermal retention. At this point I'm trying to get an idea of the reliable and trustworthy brands not so much specific units. I figure if the brand is trustworthy and lives up to its claim the salesman should be able to spec the unit effectively from information I supply (that was my hope anyway). There are allot of brands out there making a lot of big claims and I just don't know what to believe.
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UHHH, you can forget dealing with a commission based salesperson helping you.
"You" "need" "and want" a heat loss study done on your home before you go anywhere!
You may be much further ahead with buying insulated storage that can be used to
its advantage with thermal mass since space is limited.
You have not mentioned whether you plan on burning wood or coal or wood pellets.
Boilers are rated on thier gross BTU output per hour
You cannot make any decisions until you know what your total
heat loss is.
NO you cannot size a new boiler based on the BTU plate on your existing boiler as
most of the time boilers are over sized.
A heat loss study involves counting the number of windows and exterior doors, the measuring the size of the windowsin square area and the size of the doors in square area and the surface area of the interior wallsand ceilings and several other things.
1.Does your existing boiler have a boiler bypass loop or a system bypass loop?
Is you boilers combustion air brought from the exterior of the home?
Is your existing boiler a condensing boiler???, they benefit from a system bypass
loop to keep them hot to reduce condensation to near zero.
2. Did you buy oxygen barrier pex for the floor loops????
3. Did you insulate the foundation and the ground under the pex??
4. Are the wall loops six inches from the exterior walls and are the ends
of the loops 6 inches from the walls?
5. Do you know the total length of Pex in your floor?
a. what I.D. diameter pex did you use
6. Is the Pex anchored in the plastic pex anchor sheets or attached to rebar
or concrete mesh?
7. Did you use a thermal concrete sand mix?
8. How many separate zones are there or do you have a single zone for heating??
9. Do you know what is the spacing distance is between the pex loops? 6", 8", 12", 16"???
You need to do a lot of work and after all that you may find a simple pellet stove with
exterior air piping for combustion air is all you need.
Just so you know the smallest wood pellet boiler runs about $7500.00 plus tax SO........................................ you can buy a lot of how water storage for that price.
