We just bought a house on Cape Cod, where we will live year round. It's a good sized house, and we will have lots of visitors in the summer (already have!). The house has five heat zones (baseboard hot water) and a NG hot water heater.
Boiler is 22 years old.
HW heater is 3 years old.
Here's the problem...the hot water heater was installed incorrectly and doesn't get enough draft. We occasionally get the smell of NG in the basement. Mass Save consultants think it's the draft on the hot water heater...there is virtually no vertical rise on the exhaust, and it sisters into the boiler flue, horizontally. We believe that the smell is post-combustion...several people have used sniffers throughout the house and have found no gas leak.
So we have a couple of options:
1. Replace the NG hot water heater with one properly sized/installed (the current one is 80 gallon and is too tall for a proper installation). I don't believe that retrofitting it with a powered vent is possible.
2. Replace the hot water heater with an indirect tank, adding a sixth zone to the boiler. Not sure that we could set that as a priority zone, given the age of the boiler.
3. Replace the hot water heater with an electric or heat pump unit. The HW heater is in a 10x10 utility room in the basement. The basement is finished, and currently there is a dehumidifer running in the utility room.
4. Replace the hot water heater with an on-demand NG unit.
5. Replace the boiler and hot water heater with an on-demand NG unit.
We expect to be in the house for a long time, and long term operating cost (and reliability) is more important than up-front cost. At some point we will probably need to replace the boiler, but for now it's in excellent working condition (22 years old).
We will be installing a large PV solar setup in the late fall and at that time will have excess electricity for the forseeable future,...
There are 0% loans available for some of this work, along with rebates on some equipment (up to $1600 on a new boiler or tankless system).
Last year the previous owners spent $1300 on natural gas. I'm not sure they were in the house full time, and we will be doing some insulation work shortly - topsealing in the attic and additional insulation. We have to address the issue with the hot water heater before we can do any of the insulation work.
And a minor point...the Cape occasionally has power outages, and a NG heater will be easier to run off a generator than an electric unit.
An additional thought is to go with an indirect tank set up for dual mode, like the SuperStor Ultra Solar. Run it as an additional zone off the boiler and add a couple of hot water collectors on a second part of the roof...this section of roof is shaded part of the day and wasn't a candidate for PV...but it does get 4-5 hours of direct sunlight in the summer. And it's located directly above the utility room (two floors up) so running the supply and return lines would be straightforward...
Oh, and yes, we will be installing the Kodiak Enviro 1200 in the den.
Comments appreciated.
Boiler is 22 years old.
HW heater is 3 years old.
Here's the problem...the hot water heater was installed incorrectly and doesn't get enough draft. We occasionally get the smell of NG in the basement. Mass Save consultants think it's the draft on the hot water heater...there is virtually no vertical rise on the exhaust, and it sisters into the boiler flue, horizontally. We believe that the smell is post-combustion...several people have used sniffers throughout the house and have found no gas leak.
So we have a couple of options:
1. Replace the NG hot water heater with one properly sized/installed (the current one is 80 gallon and is too tall for a proper installation). I don't believe that retrofitting it with a powered vent is possible.
2. Replace the hot water heater with an indirect tank, adding a sixth zone to the boiler. Not sure that we could set that as a priority zone, given the age of the boiler.
3. Replace the hot water heater with an electric or heat pump unit. The HW heater is in a 10x10 utility room in the basement. The basement is finished, and currently there is a dehumidifer running in the utility room.
4. Replace the hot water heater with an on-demand NG unit.
5. Replace the boiler and hot water heater with an on-demand NG unit.
We expect to be in the house for a long time, and long term operating cost (and reliability) is more important than up-front cost. At some point we will probably need to replace the boiler, but for now it's in excellent working condition (22 years old).
We will be installing a large PV solar setup in the late fall and at that time will have excess electricity for the forseeable future,...
There are 0% loans available for some of this work, along with rebates on some equipment (up to $1600 on a new boiler or tankless system).
Last year the previous owners spent $1300 on natural gas. I'm not sure they were in the house full time, and we will be doing some insulation work shortly - topsealing in the attic and additional insulation. We have to address the issue with the hot water heater before we can do any of the insulation work.
And a minor point...the Cape occasionally has power outages, and a NG heater will be easier to run off a generator than an electric unit.
An additional thought is to go with an indirect tank set up for dual mode, like the SuperStor Ultra Solar. Run it as an additional zone off the boiler and add a couple of hot water collectors on a second part of the roof...this section of roof is shaded part of the day and wasn't a candidate for PV...but it does get 4-5 hours of direct sunlight in the summer. And it's located directly above the utility room (two floors up) so running the supply and return lines would be straightforward...
Oh, and yes, we will be installing the Kodiak Enviro 1200 in the den.
Comments appreciated.
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