Ok I have owned this house for 3 years and have only used the FOB a couple times because I have been under the impression it would eat fuel oil and I couldnt afford it. so I been burning Pellets for the past couple of years and now they are getting too expensive so I thought I would give the FOB a dance. I have had it inspected and everything checks out good as I figured since its a newer Weil Mclain Gold boiler. I have the water flowing through it and the baseboards are bled out and getting hot. My first question may sound stupid but am I supposed to leave the water supply lever on or do I shut it off once the lines are full of water? My pressure gauge is showing around 30psi which the HVAC guy said was good but I didnt get to ask him about the water being on or off. Im guessing it should be left on. The next question is about replacing a copper line in mt upstairs attic. It was leaking so I shut off the upstairs until I could replacce the line. I can sweat copper pretty well but I was thinking about replacing it with PEX. Can I just go to Lowes and get a couple 10 ft sections of the 200 degree@80PSI and the fittings to go from PEX to copper or do I need a special High temp PEX for this?
a couple basic questions from a new FOB user
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When you say "inspected"-- do you mean given annual pre-winter service by a truly, really qualified tech (and not everyone that the fuel companies may send to charge you for that, or that may put in a Yellow Pages Ad may be truly qualified)?
Or is it something where someone just walked up to it and declared it relatively new, not leaking, and not dead?
Filters (both large and small) can be clogged, nozzles could have oily crud in them, or carbon on them that would be a problem (especially if used sporadically), and, if you have rarely run it and never had it serviced, for all you may or may not know, the last person who "set it up" may have "done it by eye" (not by instruments)-- which basically, although there are people who proclaim to still be able to do that, is guaranteed to give you sub-par performance (both on oil used and in terms of building up carbon inside your boiler) with modern burners.
It really rots when your burner begins to not work in January on a cold Saturday night because you or someone else that you hired cut corners and said "close enough." This is the voice of experience speaking....
Find a local pro plumbing/ HVAC place and go in on lunch hour and ask them who really is good; chances are, whoever that is doesn't work for a fuel dealer and has no need to put ads anywhere.
For the repair/ replacement of the upstairs line, any PEX will need to be either oxygen barrier PEX or PEX-AL-PEX, because it is very important to keep oxygen out (regular PEX for domestic hot & cold water allows oxygen to diffuse in, which means that your steel/ iron boiler parts will slowly rust away from inside out (and will fail when you least expect it and in a way where you are unlikely to get warranty coverage unless the MFG/ distributor is feeling really generous)). DO NOT trust the advice of some apron-wearing person in Lowes or Home Dopey who will probably tell you "Oh yeah, sure, this will work" because (through no fault of their own) they have no training or experience to know the difference otherwise. Copper is always impervious to O2, so it is a safe bet no matter where you buy it.
PS, I am not an oil burner tech or HVAC pro- just someone who decided to learn about this stuff on the theory that if you want it right, DIY. Only problem is, there can become so many things to then DIY....
Or is it something where someone just walked up to it and declared it relatively new, not leaking, and not dead?
Filters (both large and small) can be clogged, nozzles could have oily crud in them, or carbon on them that would be a problem (especially if used sporadically), and, if you have rarely run it and never had it serviced, for all you may or may not know, the last person who "set it up" may have "done it by eye" (not by instruments)-- which basically, although there are people who proclaim to still be able to do that, is guaranteed to give you sub-par performance (both on oil used and in terms of building up carbon inside your boiler) with modern burners.
It really rots when your burner begins to not work in January on a cold Saturday night because you or someone else that you hired cut corners and said "close enough." This is the voice of experience speaking....
Find a local pro plumbing/ HVAC place and go in on lunch hour and ask them who really is good; chances are, whoever that is doesn't work for a fuel dealer and has no need to put ads anywhere.
For the repair/ replacement of the upstairs line, any PEX will need to be either oxygen barrier PEX or PEX-AL-PEX, because it is very important to keep oxygen out (regular PEX for domestic hot & cold water allows oxygen to diffuse in, which means that your steel/ iron boiler parts will slowly rust away from inside out (and will fail when you least expect it and in a way where you are unlikely to get warranty coverage unless the MFG/ distributor is feeling really generous)). DO NOT trust the advice of some apron-wearing person in Lowes or Home Dopey who will probably tell you "Oh yeah, sure, this will work" because (through no fault of their own) they have no training or experience to know the difference otherwise. Copper is always impervious to O2, so it is a safe bet no matter where you buy it.
PS, I am not an oil burner tech or HVAC pro- just someone who decided to learn about this stuff on the theory that if you want it right, DIY. Only problem is, there can become so many things to then DIY....
thanks for the info Trevor... the inspector is actually a plumber/hvac guy that was referred to me for 2 reasons..he is a friend of my family that I know is very knowledgable about plumbin and HVAC...and he is an known expert when it comes to Weil Mclain FOB's. He totally went through my system and changed out the filter too. he did what cleaning needed to be done to the burner and even inspected my chimney while he was out...he also helped my bleed the baseboard heaters while he was here.. all in all he was here for a few hours and it cost me about $200 which I thought was pretty decent. he did all that last year and I had to shut off the water to it because of the busted line upstairs. when I went to start it up this year to make sure everything worked right I couldnt remember if the water supply stayed on all the time or just long enough to fill the lines. thanks for the heads up on the pex line. sounds like I may be just as well off sweating some new copper in.
drtnshtr said:
Great- good for you and good for your service guy (sincerely).
I've never owned a Weil-McLain, but from anything I understand, they are really (extremely) well made units.
On the water feed, some people like to leave it on all the time in case the boiler needs some water from minor losses somewhere. Others-- as long as you _do_ have a low water cutoff on the boiler, like to shut it off so that if something is leaking somewhere, you get the heads up, rather than slowly feeding water into a leaking system that may do damage that may not show up until later. Without a low water cutoff, if you shut off the feed, you may be dancing with bad operating conditions for your boiler or for steam pockets forming somewhere, which will not be good.
If you have a leak in the upper end of your system, you will likely need to either bleed air out from a high point (assuming that the original installer hopefully installed a coin vent, or, if not, that you add one when doing repairs) and/ or have/ put a really extra good microbubble remover in the system.
By the way, if you live in an urban or semi-urban area of Ohio where there are a number of restaurants, and like to work on stuff, look into using used restaurant oil in your boiler instead of dino juice. Google Yahoogroups Altfuelfurnace. Do not sue me if you blow yourself up, but some people successfully avoid regular fuel oil altogether.
I live in a rural area (amanda) but work in columbus. how does one turn this FOB into a Veggy Boiler (VOB)? I will take a look into that website. thanks!
drtnshtr said:
These guys do it- I was very interested in doing it myself, until I found out that where I live, with relatively few downtowns and restaurants, and one large organic farm that has "spoken for" nearly all the used food oil to heat its greenhouses, supply does not meet demand here. Which then re-launched me into a wood gasification boiler, as I was already trying to heat with wood
read a lot of the list's archives & FAQs before you post questions- the folks there are generous with knowledge, but tend to be more responsive if you demonstrate that you've already made your own attempts to "get up the learning curve" with the info already there.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/altfuelfurnace/
ok i went ahead and sweat new copper in. now i am not getting pressure to those new lines. I bled them and it seems like im getting a little but its very little and the hot water is not making it up there. any ideas? I forgot to mention my gauge is still on 30psi at the boiler just as it was when i had the upstairs zone shut down. I have re-opened all valves and have my fresh water on full blast as always.
air bound would be my guess let the heat run and keep bleeding it you should be good thats my .02
drtnshtr said:air was the culprit...works like a charm nowthanks!
Water is the best median for moving heat...air in lines is its arch enemy.
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