3300sqft home with oil heat what are my options

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Has 2 flue. 1 for fireplace other for heating system in basement
Then your only choice is covert to direct vent gas.
Gas and wood boiler project should be around 25K.
That buys a lot of oil.
 
Energy Kinetics of System 2000 fame has a direct vent oil furnace.
 
I'm confused. An air handler was mentioned on the third floor. Is it located in the attic, over the third floor living area? In other words, could there be heat loss there?

Where is the fireplace? How about a stove or insert where the fireplace is, and keep it fed? That should take over some of the heat load.

Can the heat/ac ductwork be zoned to provide more control,?

Can the air handlers use lower temp water than currently provided? Maybe add outdoor reset?
 
Energy Kinetics of System 2000 fame has a direct vent oil furnace.
Are you sure of that without me looking? I have an oil and LP fired unit. Both into chimneys but we looked short at the direct vertical wall vented unit and was very quickly turned away by the installer.
 
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That's interesting.

How long have they been on the go? Anyone with experience with one here, I wonder?
Well I know EK is not a lousy company. Both of mine (30 and 14 yo) have been pretty reliable. I would guess they did there homework.
 
The only bad things about EK I have heard are dealer service issues. Up in my area they don't have a lot of market penetration so the service guys are bit less familiar with the more complex controls. They can work on the burners but not as good on getting the options to work. Both people I know locally both said they need to be cleaned yearly no matter how little they get used.

I had friends with power vents over the years and non were thrilled by them. The siding would get blackened by soot and during the summer with the windows open (no AC) they might get a exhaust smell on occasion.

FYI they are real small, the dealer usually hits you up for stand to get it up off the floor.

My backup oil furnace is getting to be 30 years old and was looking at them but I don't need all the features. If I found a used one I might spring for it but they are pricey since they only sell through dealers.
 
The only bad things about EK I have heard are dealer service issues. Up in my area they don't have a lot of market penetration so the service guys are bit less familiar with the more complex controls. They can work on the burners but not as good on getting the options to work. Both people I know locally both said they need to be cleaned yearly no matter how little they get used.

I had friends with power vents over the years and non were thrilled by them. The siding would get blackened by soot and during the summer with the windows open (no AC) they might get a exhaust smell on occasion.

FYI they are real small, the dealer usually hits you up for stand to get it up off the floor.

My backup oil furnace is getting to be 30 years old and was looking at them but I don't need all the features. If I found a used one I might spring for it but they are pricey since they only sell through dealers.
Huummm. My post went whacky
Dealer network is a thing but I’m lucky that my northern HVAC guys sell Rennai, Tarm, EK and Thermo Pride. Some people hate them but I've had no issues as I request a friend to do my work and he is very bright and anal like myself. They have keys and alarm codes to my house in case there is a problem and I'm not around. They are a very large outfit that isn't going anywhere soon.
My boiler is set up pretty simple. In fact it's now wired as a dumb boiler due to the wood boiler. The RFH zones adjust themselves with ODR and baseboard is baseboard.
I was told no way will they do power venting on the LP boiler thru the sidewall because of the soot problem. There was no fight back by me on that. I had 3 flues in the chimney anyway.
My oil gets cleaned every year but I'll skip a few years on the LP. That said I should call to have it done. I annually check the air box for debris.
I had a loose wire from the factory that gave me some headaches but we found it. A couple of fuse issues on the oil boiler but we just popped in a bigger fuse as the newer controllers had it eliminated. 3 oil burner chambers replaced and 1 LP chamber.
We did use the stand in Maine but set it up on cement blocks in MA.
 
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if allowed an outdoor wood boiler and inside a mass storage tank for hot water this would be a batch run system. in other words fire wood boiler once or maybe twice in a 24 hr period . hot water stored in insulated tank is what would be used to circulate to various heat exchagers. just adding the owb and mostly using the existing plumbing would be a start . a little more involved would be to add a heat exchanger to your current hardware to siphon off the heat from the wood boiler system feeding that back into current hardware making the wood boiler a closed system loop unto itself. for back up just set the oil thermostate at a lower temp should temps drop enough then oil kicks on. This being a rough quick overview.
 
It is basically four different questions but the four different answers all have to work together or there will be some complaint about the heat. It is fuel choice, heat loss, house construction type, and the heating system distribution type.

You would have to figure that fuel consumtion will be about the same as you switch to a different fuel choice, without making heavy changes to the house, construction tpe, heat loss, and existing distribution type. Changing only the fuel type to wood, you would have to figure on the large quantity of wood fuel to replace the large quantity of oil. I would consider changing to a pellet boiler, best available meaning more expensive system, but set up to feed a lot of pellets.

As far as changing house condtruction type, heat loss, or putting in radiant something, new distribution system, I would already be thinking building new from the ground up is necessary to get the very energy efficient forever build quality. The hydro air would go and I would be looking to probably put new windows and exterior ridgid foam board with siding, roof ... I only want to build it once.