Price on a new Oil Burning Boiler

[McKraut]

Happy Fourth Everybody!

Can anybody give me an exstimate for the price of a Weil-Mclain WTGO-7? I have been able to find a price for every model up to the WTGO-6. I am getting an estimate this week from a company that uses the Weil-Mclain line, and according to my heat loss calculations, I will need the WTGO-7. I am not giving up on the wood burner, I am putting this in as a back up boiler for my wife's peace of mind.

Bob

 

[btuser]

Happy Fourth Everybody!

Can anybody give me an exstimate for the price of a Weil-Mclain WTGO-7? I have been able to find a price for every model up to the WTGO-6. I am getting an estimate this week from a company that uses the Weil-Mclain line, and according to my heat loss calculations, I will need the WTGO-7. I am not giving up on the wood burner, I am putting this in as a back up boiler for my wife's peace of mind.

Bob

That boiler is huge, rated for over 200k net IBR. Don't want to second guess the situation but I know when I replaced my boiler I went from a net 164 to 92 btu, and I've got a 4300 sqft house.

 

[McKraut]

That boiler is huge, rated for over 200k net IBR. Don't want to second guess the situation but I know when I replaced my boiler I went from a net 164 to 92 btu, and I've got a 4300 sqft house.

I have over 3600 sq ft in an old farmhouse with very little insulation. My load calculation came up to around 183 btu and I decided to go with the 7 because the 6 is only rated for 184 and I wanted an extra cushion. If you think this is a bad choice, I'd appreciate the insight. I can find that the price on the WTGO-6 is a little less then $3k, but nothing on the 7.

Bob

 

[BoilerMan]

Personally I'd go with the 6 section. To be honest I like my Toyotomi oil miser 180. It's rated at 1.1gph or ~150,000 btu. Small, quiet, efficient and vents through the wall with 3" pipe. If your calc came out to 183K then you need 183K btu for the coldest day of the winter. Not sure about PA but here in the far north, -40F (design temp) happens for about 40 hours a winter. And if the boiler runs flat out and can just keep the house at 68 or even 66 on those days well thats ok with me. The vast majority of the time it'd be oversized.

Just my thoughts..........

TS

 

[jebatty]

Ditto on getting a boiler less than heat loss design maximum. The heat loss calculations for my new shop were about 35,000 btuh at -35F outside temperature, happens but not often and not for long in this part of MN, and sometimes it gets even colder. Based on actual heat demand, that is, btu draw from storage, the shop rarely requires more than about 18,000 btuh to maintain the setpoint temperature, and more normal draw is around 12-15,000 btuh during winter.

The likelihood of you actually needing 200k btuh on a backup basis probably is near non-existent.

 

[maple1]

My wood boiler is 40kw, and my back-up electric boiler is 18kw.

It was only really used for one day last winter, but in watching it's operation I know it could keep my house warm - as long as I paid the large power bill it no doubt would generate. I would have no regret in putting in a boiler that was rated at half my design load if it was only going to be used for backup or infrequently. Also, depending on what is there now & the local fuel situation, oil would likely not be at the top of my fuel choices.

 

[mikefrommaine]

Even a six sections seems a little big to me.

 

[McKraut]

I got in touch with the guy giving me the estimate. I got him to write it up for the 6. It was $500 cheaper. Thank you for your advice and I thank you for taking the time to reply.

Bob

 

[heaterman]

As a rough rule of thumb...........note the word ROUGH...........a heat loss of 35btu/sq ft of heated space is on the high side for even drafty old houses with poor insulation. If you increase the CYA factor to 40 btu/sq ft you still only have a design demand of 144,000 which is far less than the WTGO7.

The 7 is just far outside of what i would call normal for any kind of a house that size.

I would recommend you do a little shopping around and maybe get another opinion. While you're at it see if you can find someone who can install a Crown Freeport series oil boiler for you. IMHO it's a superior product for usually about the same $$. It's a true three pass design and I've had excellent luck with them.
The W/M is a royal pain to clean and if there's one thing you want to look for in an oil boiler it's easy maintenance. The Crown cleans from the front via a hinged door vs the W/M cleaning from the top.

I'd be surprised if you needed an input of over 1gph to heat you place.
For a rough check, measure up all lineal feet of active baseboard in the house and multiply by 500. This will give you a general idea of the output capacity of your system. I would hazard an off the cuff guess that you have less than 250' of active BB which would mean you can only dissipate 125,000 btu's regardless of how large a boiler you put on the system.

 

[btuser]

I got in touch with the guy giving me the estimate. I got him to write it up for the 6. It was $500 cheaper. Thank you for your advice and I thank you for taking the time to reply.

Bob

You can still downfire that boiler if needed. What are you using for hot water?

 

[Frozen Canuck]

Have to agree with the advice about the boiler being too big.
If I had a heating contractor give me estimates for that size of boiler I would be on my way to that house pronto, when I arrived I would be expecting to see all the windows & doors gone to justify those numbers, maybe a large hole in the roof as well.
A boiler that size heats commercial space here in my climate & like HM said I doubt you have enough emitters to distribute the heat from that boiler. Oversizing sometimes to extremes as a CYA factor was common back in the day when fuel was cheap, those days are likely gone forever. Perhaps a large portion of your estimate is based on replacing what is/was there AFA btu production is concerned. A heatloss calc from a good contractor will consider the structure to be heated, & go from there toward heating/distribution & many other factors, not the old heating system.
If we are all wrong & those #'s are accurate I would be looking at insulation air & vapour barriers first. Buy a better blanket & stop the drafts/leaks.
Lower the load always lower the load, really as a home/property owner that's all you really control, the size of the load. After that it's a trade off between cash & labour (time) on wood vs fossil. Insulation is cheap, big boilers & the fuel bill that comes with them, not so much.

 

[McKraut]

As a rough rule of thumb...........note the word ROUGH...........a heat loss of 35btu/sq ft of heated space is on the high side for even drafty old houses with poor insulation. If you increase the CYA factor to 40 btu/sq ft you still only have a design demand of 144,000 which is far less than the WTGO7.

The 7 is just far outside of what i would call normal for any kind of a house that size.

I would recommend you do a little shopping around and maybe get another opinion. While you're at it see if you can find someone who can install a Crown Freeport series oil boiler for you. IMHO it's a superior product for usually about the same $$. It's a true three pass design and I've had excellent luck with them.
The W/M is a royal pain to clean and if there's one thing you want to look for in an oil boiler it's easy maintenance. The Crown cleans from the front via a hinged door vs the W/M cleaning from the top.

I'd be surprised if you needed an input of over 1gph to heat you place.
For a rough check, measure up all lineal feet of active baseboard in the house and multiply by 500. This will give you a general idea of the output capacity of your system. I would hazard an off the cuff guess that you have less than 250' of active BB which would mean you can only dissipate 125,000 btu's regardless of how large a boiler you put on the system.

Thanks for the information. I was looking at Buderus because it was a triple pass. The closest Buderus dealer is 1 & 1/2 hours from where I live. I just did a quick search on the Crown website and nobody came up on the contractor search within 25 miles of where I live. I have contacted 7 contractors and so far I've only gotten one guy to come out to give me an estimate. The sad thing is that the one contractor that came out had come highly recommended by quite a few people. I am off Tuesday and I will check the baseboard measurements. Thanks for taking the time to help me.
Bob

 

[McKraut]

You can still downfire that boiler if needed. What are you using for hot water?[/quote

]I was using a DHW coil in the TARM. In the summer we use an electric HWH. With the new setup I am putting in a zone to heat DHW with a sidearm.

Bob

 

[btuser]

You can set up the side arm for priority and discount DHW as a heat load. Unless you've got +5 people taking showers when it's -20 degrees outside it isn't needed to be added to your calculation. There are very, very, very, very few instances when you really need it.

Another even more important feature is an outdoor reset. It will save you a bundle on fuel costs, even if it's a backup.

 

[McKraut]

As a rough rule of thumb...........note the word ROUGH...........a heat loss of 35btu/sq ft of heated space is on the high side for even drafty old houses with poor insulation. If you increase the CYA factor to 40 btu/sq ft you still only have a design demand of 144,000 which is far less than the WTGO7.

The 7 is just far outside of what i would call normal for any kind of a house that size.

I would recommend you do a little shopping around and maybe get another opinion. While you're at it see if you can find someone who can install a Crown Freeport series oil boiler for you. IMHO it's a superior product for usually about the same $$. It's a true three pass design and I've had excellent luck with them.
The W/M is a royal pain to clean and if there's one thing you want to look for in an oil boiler it's easy maintenance. The Crown cleans from the front via a hinged door vs the W/M cleaning from the top.

I'd be surprised if you needed an input of over 1gph to heat you place.
For a rough check, measure up all lineal feet of active baseboard in the house and multiply by 500. This will give you a general idea of the output capacity of your system. I would hazard an off the cuff guess that you have less than 250' of active BB which would mean you can only dissipate 125,000 btu's regardless of how large a boiler you put on the system.

Well it took me a long enough time but I did get a chance to measure the actual length of the baseboards and I have 226 feet. So 226 x 500 = 113,000. The Weil-McLain WTGO-4 is rated for 126,000 and the WTGO-5 is rated for 152,000. Btuser says I can discount the load for DHW, but we may in the future put in another zone for radiant heat. Would I be better served going with the extra capacity of the 5 plate so we can expand in the future if needed?

 

[McKraut]

You can set up the side arm for priority and discount DHW as a heat load. Unless you've got +5 people taking showers when it's -20 degrees outside it isn't needed to be added to your calculation. There are very, very, very, very few instances when you really need it.

Another even more important feature is an outdoor reset. It will save you a bundle on fuel costs, even if it's a backup.

\

Ok, I didn't know about the sidearm and since my daughter is now out of the house the hot water demand has dropped by 80%.

I really like your quote but I think your quote is wrong. Lincoln said it was only 95% of quotes are wrong. Didn't you check Wikipedia? By the way, Ben Franklin didn't really say what I quoted either -- I just like it.

Bob