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I am a longtime lurker here and an admirer of all the expertise represented by you regulars. This is my first post.
Our ancient fuel-oil boiler is serving its last season with us. I am now researching replacements. We live in a big old (though well insulated) house with big old cast iron hot water radiators. They work great.
I am looking at fuel oil boilers, but also at wood pellet and propane options. I'm intrigued by Maine Energy Systems' wood pellet boilers, but a little nervous about being on the leading/bleeding edge of that technology. I have looked at propane because I understand that condensing boilers are considerably more efficient than non-condensing boilers and that the condensing boilers are available for propane systems but not fuel oil.
I looked at Hallowell Int'l heat pumps, but i don't think it makes sense for us to put in all the forced-air ducting and take out our 11 600-pound radiators.
Does anybody have any thoughts on switching to propane or wood pellets for our new boiler? We do have quite a bit of space in our cellar, so I think there should be plenty of room for pellet storage. I also understand that if we went to propane we would have to put the tank outside. Not crazy about that, but I think we could find a place to do that. If we did do propane, could we use the same tank to power a standby generator? I've been wanting to get one of those for a few years now. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
I am not a heating contractor so take this advice as you will. I also know nothing about pellets, but propane, now that I do know. I installed a new propane boiler in my new addition last year and must say that I am impressed. In some ways my application is different then yours, but the benefits of propane are the same.
I cannot tell you what the price of propane will be, nor wood, oil or pellets, but I can tell you this. Pellets are cheap right now, but they are selling a lot of these units and there is a plant in ME and one in NH. The law of supply and demand really scares me on the pellet price.
Propane storage is a lot more compact, but keep in mind that its dealing with pressures and volume. You can only be x amount of feet from the appliance (an appliance is anything that consumes propane) depending on how much it consumes btu wise. You will definately want to go with a 2 stage regulator so you aren't limited where you can put the tank. Add in certain distances from windows, vents and openings and you really cut down where you can put a tank with a single stage regulator.
To answer your question though, yes you can put both a furnace and a generator on a propane tank. In fact you can put any combination of things on a tank. What drives it is the size of that tank and the regulators you use. My suggestion is to use the new 2 pound system. That is where you take 10 psi off your main tank and go to the side of your house. There you put a 2 pound regulator in. This will give you plenty of pressure to feed a manifold. Off the manifold you can feed any number of appliances, because you are feeding it 2 pounds of pressure and not 11 inches of pressure. Only at the individual appliances do you knock that 2 pounds down to 11 inches for consumption.
Its no different then wiring. You can run 14 gauge wire to the main breaker panel, or you can put in a 8 gauge wire to a sub panel and then run your lights and outlets off that. A 2 pound system is essentially a sub-panel for propane... a manifold. My manifold can run a boiler, a renaie forced air heater, a clothes dryer and range. It can also do so WITHOUT resorting to expensive black iron pipe too. Just copper or stainless tubing. Its actually very simple and fast to install, just hard to explain in the written word.
I have some thoughts on this subject, and some fairly recent experience as well. First of all, if you do have a propane boiler make sure that you know what the cost of propane will be and how much propane you will most likely use. Consult with your current fuel dealer in GREAT detail. Propane has fewer BTU's than fuel oil and is more expensive. I installed a propane boiler in a restored antique house I owned in 2002. I chose propane despite knowing that it was going to consume more, more expensive fuel than before because I knew that I was selling the property and I didn't want to spend the money to update my chimney with a new liner. The chimneys in the house were untouched since the house was built in 1800. I was able to use a direct vent system for the new propane boiler.
If you have propane for heating you will likely have a 100 gallon tank at least. If you have a larger tank...one that looks like a long saussage for instance...you will have adequate fuel for heat and a propane powered generator.
I also would suggest that you speak with Maritime Geothermal about their heatpumps. The website is NORDIC. I have no connection but they have an installer in Maine and have installed ground source heat pumps in houses like yours with good success.
The boiler I have is a 80,000 btu Munkin boiler and is the size of a small TV. Its super efficient and quiet.
One of the reasons propane is so much better then oil is because of something called flame modulation. With an oil fired boiler, the flame can be controlled from 65% effeciency to 85% effeciency. On the low side the nozzle starts sooting up and on the high side it happens because oil is only so clean. Propane though can be adjusted so that the flame is burning at a pilot light size, or at full burn. Since it is a gas it can burn at 95% effeciency.
What this means is, your temperature control switches can heat the water to only what is required. THIS IS HUGE. My dad's oil system which is 3 years older then mine, flows water through the pipes to heat his house at 100-120º. Mine is 70-100º. What happens is my dad's boiler gets the water hot, it flows through the pipes warms the rooms and then shuts off. There is this cycling. Naturally there is also some temp up and downs in the rooms as the floors get really hot water, then nothing, then as the rooms cool below the temp desired, the water flows again. Its on off, on off all the time.
With propane the flame control can do this instead. The water flowing through my floors can be matched to the temp of the room, in that way the water flowing through the floors is constant. You set the heat to 67º and it does not fluctuate.
In a forced hot air system this is even more important. Lets say you come home and the house is cold. You turn on the heat and the 100,000 btu heater goes to full blast. Assuming they are sized correctly, both systems will ramp up and heat your home as quickly as they can. Where Propane shines is where the room looses small amounts of heat.
Lets say you have been home for awhile, the house is warm but the wind is blowing outside. Your house will lose x amount of heat, but its not losing more then 40,000 btus. This is where that 65% effeciency comes in. The oil unit has to burn at 65,000 btus or it will soot the nozzle up, so it goes to 65,000 btus, gets the room warm, then shuts off. It idles for awhile, then as that heat is expelled, it comes back on and cycles this way on and off all winter long. In contrast, the propane heater just lowers the flame to 40,000 btus and injects the same amount of heat into the house as its losing. You are never paying for more btus then what you need, and wasted btus is wasted money.
But you are probably thinking propane has 91,000 btus per gallon and oil has 131,000 btus. You are correct, but here is where the price gets screwy. Last year when my dad was paying 4 bucks a gallon for his oil, he was ultimately paying .000031 cents per btu. I was paying 2.80 per gallon, which is .000031 cents per btu. THEY ARE THE SAME. In other words, the flame modulation of propane makes for a better choice. Why pay for btus that you don't need?
If you are still reading this, then here is a word about radiant floor heat. If you can afford to have it installed in your home, then do so. It is truly the BEST radiator out there. I just love mine.
Those big old cast iron heaters are pretty inefficient and take very hot water to work (small area in proportion to the size its heating) while as radiant floors are one big radiator in proportion to the size they are heating,so they use lower water temps.
In fact mine is pretty sophisticated. It has sensors outside as well as in the concrete. What it does is reads the temp outside, and then compares it to what my slab is losing for heat. It automatically calculates the temp of water to keep the temp in the house even. If the temp goes down outside, the water flowing through the concrete gets hotter, but as the temp outside goes up, the temp in the floor goes down. Its constantly balanced, in fact once every minute. With this I get rooms that only fluctuate by a degree one way or the other from the set temp.
The dumbest part of my whole heating system is the thermostats in the rooms. All they do is tell the system if it should be on or off. If the temp goes above 60º outside, my system goes into "warm temp shut down" or idles itself. When the temp goes below -10º it automatically pumps 100º water through my floor. That is because its basically saying its just too darn cold outside to try and miser btus, it wants to keep the house warm. An over-ride if you will.
The biggest benefit to having radiant floor is the constant heat. As I said, between the propane boiler and the radiant floor system, my heat is always 67º which is what it is set for. Once and awhile it may rise to 68º, and I have seen the temp drop down to 65º once, but that was just odd. (a very fast moving storm that dropped the temp outside quickly). This heat is also everywhere. In the closets, on the babies bedroom floor, in the bathroom linen closet...everywhere.
This system is also a set-it-and-forget it kind of thing. You don't mess with the thermostats. They work great but don't expect 42 tons of concrete to change temps quickly. It takes about 10 hours to feel a noticeably difference in temp.
Now radiant floor heat in wooden floors is a bit different, but no appreciably. You still get all the benefits like drying your towels by lying them on the floor, and not having to wipe the floor after you step out of the shower (the water evaporates from the warm floors) but just not the heat sink benefit that concrete has. No big deal, its still worth doing.
By the way there is way more on this subject. I can tell you why I finally went with a 1800 dollar boiler instead of a 300 dollar hot water heater because the former will save me LOTS of money, and some of the metering pumps and special valves I have to get the most from my 7500 dollar investment if you would like. I'll gladly share what I did, but ultimately its your choice my friend. Best of luck to you.
From what I hear a System 2000 oil boiler is just about the best you can buy. Even with oil at $4.00 a gallon they were recommended over virtually any other type of heating system.
BrokenTap, wow, thanks for all the very detailed information on propane. The flame modulation information was particularly interesting. I had seen a piece about outside weather sensors on Ask This Old House, so I did have that in the back of my mind as a good thing to add to our new system. I would go for radiant floor heating in a hot minute, but I don't think it's practical here. It's definitely a no-go for upstairs. Downstairs would be extremely expensive even if feasible because a previous owner installed new floors over the old floors. But I'm still interested in propane unless keeping the radiators wipes out its benefits.
It had completely slipped my mind that our boiler vents through an unlined chimney, so thanks for making that point about direct venting for propane, Acadianlion. I need to remember that I will have to get the chimney lined if I stick with fuel oil. You also mentioned Maritime Geothermal heatpumps. Don't they also feed a forced-air system, though? I could be persuaded otherwise, but it's hard to imagine it could be worthwhile to take out all our radiators and put in forced-air ducting in big house.
Maineah, I hadn't heard of System 2000, so I'll have to check it out. We got some recommendations two years ago, but it wasn't on the list. I'm sure I can just google it.
You also mentioned Maritime Geothermal heatpumps. Don't they also feed a forced-air system, though? I could be persuaded otherwise, but it's hard to imagine it could be worthwhile to take out all our radiators and put in forced-air ducting in big house.
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Geothermal heatpumps will provide heat to a home through several different mediums. A geothermal heatpump will pump the transfer medium, which might be a non-toxic antifreeze solution or even water, into and out of the ground. The water is then warmed to the ground temperature which is never less than 50 degrees. The water or transfer solution is then pumped back through the heatpump where it is placed under a certain amount of pressure to raise the temperature up to the point where it is usable to provide heat, whther through a radiant floor, radiators, or into a heat exchanger where a fan blows across heating coils and then out through ductwork.
My suggestion was based on continued use of the radiators that you have. BUT if your radiators are in fact old steam radiators that have been modified years ago for use in a hot water boiler set up, then they might not be particularly efficient at all, and should be replaced. It is common to see old steam radiators in use in older houses.
This will likely be the most expensive system that you can buy in that it will require more initial outlay in terms of cost. However you will then never buy fuel oil, pellets, or anything else to heat with again. In order to run one of these systems you will need to have either a very deep well, or a series of shallow ones, OR if you already have a well with a flow rate of at least 15 gallons per minute or so, you may have what you need right now.
The installer/sales folks in Aroostook County told me of one old farm house that they installed a Nordic system in. The oil cost was over $800 per month pre heatpump, and the total electric cost...to run the heat pump and the house...was less than $400 per month after installation. The outfit in Aroostook is the Watson Well people, and I would recommend calling them to discuss the systems and installation.
The overall efficiency of a geothermal heat pump is much higher than electricity, fuel oil, propane, natural gas or almost anything else once the initial cost is completed. By overall efficiency, I mean the cost of running the system, as opposed to the percentage of heat retrieved, or the ratio between watts of energy put into the system versus btu of heat delivered. This is called the coefficient of production. The figure will be under the specifications page of the Nordic heat pump web site.
BrokenTap, wow, thanks for all the very detailed information on propane. The flame modulation information was particularly interesting. I had seen a piece about outside weather sensors on Ask This Old House, so I did have that in the back of my mind as a good thing to add to our new system. I would go for radiant floor heating in a hot minute, but I don't think it's practical here. It's definitely a no-go for upstairs. Downstairs would be extremely expensive even if feasible because a previous owner installed new floors over the old floors. But I'm still interested in propane unless keeping the radiators wipes out its benefits.
If you don't have a slab there are two ways to get at the floors, from above, or from underneath. If you don't want to rip up the nice new flooring (and who could blame you) you may be able to easily get at them from the basement/crawl space. For the upstairs it may be better to take down the ceiling and install radiant floor. If its wood you may be able to salvage it, but if its drywall you'll get a new ceiling out of thedeal,anddtywall is pretty cheap right now.
I don't know your circumstance so I cannot say for sure what the best way is, but retrofitting radiant floors is very do-able. You don't need concrete or that slurry they pump in either, adding reflectors between the floor stringers helps direct the heat upwards. As I said its not as efficient as 42 tons of concrete but it is still worth doing...if you can fit it in your budget.
Don't get me wrong, when I paid out 7500 bucks I practically hyper-ventilated myself as I am very cheap, but 700 gallons of propane heated my 2100 square foot home last year. Not bad because it will soon pay for itself. Better yet the system is in place so I have the ability to add on an alternative heat source down the road.
I figure we live in Maine and lack cooling bills. We are ahead of the game if we invest the money that would otherwise go to air condioners and have good heating systems instead.
I am a longtime lurker here and an admirer of all the expertise represented by you regulars. This is my first post.
Our ancient fuel-oil boiler is serving its last season with us. I am now researching replacements. We live in a big old (though well insulated) house with big old cast iron hot water radiators. They work great. ...
Welcome to CD
I would like to say that the efficiency of an oil furnace is entirely within the carburetion of the burner. If that fuel-air ratio is tweaked properly then it is just as efficient as today's hottest selling model.
I am a member of a local club where they just replaced an old oil furnace with a new oil furnace, because the salesmen convinced the group that by being 'new' it is more efficient. So we spent money that did not need to be spent, we will see if this new furnace consumes any less oil. I doubt it though.
Depending on what it is about your old furnace that makes you think that it is no longer the best option for you, please do consider, swapping out the burner. Have you considered a 'Waste oil' burner? Or a WVO burner?
Since you like your existing radiators. I would recommend that you keep them and only change the heat source.
I hope that you realise that you could swap out the old 'furnace' with a 'water-heater'. A 'furnace' is more expensive and may last longer, a 'water-heater' is cheaper and may not last as long. A $250 water-heater that lasts 6 years [$41/year], is still a better deal than a $5,000 furnace that lasts 15 years [$333/year].
I would also recommend that you keep the old 'furnace' plumbed in your system, 'Tee'ed in with isolation valves. Should you come across a source of 'cheap' oil in the distant future, you could still fill up your oil tank and get a month's heat from it.
Quote:
... I am looking at fuel oil boilers, but also at wood pellet and propane options. ...
We installed a propane water heater that now feeds our radiant floors, and just as we did the price of propane went up.
What had been a fairly cheap fuel, is no longer cheap. Ouch.
No body can reliably predict the future prices of anything.
This year a lot of folks have jumped onto wood pellets. The list of wood pellet manufacturers has not grown at the same pace, so I predict that wood pellets will likely suffer a shortage soon.
Quote:
... I looked at Hallowell Int'l heat pumps, but i don't think it makes sense for us to put in all the forced-air ducting and take out our 11 600-pound radiators.
Air duct work is expensive and requires annual maintenance, which most folks do not perform, so asthma and cardio problems develop. [My Dw's first heart attack was traced back to mold in air ducts that caused a fungal infection in her lungs that was not detected until after it had caused a heart attack] Duct work will also consume a great deal of space in your home.
I just do not like forced air.
Quote:
... Does anybody have any thoughts on switching to propane or wood pellets for our new boiler? We do have quite a bit of space in our cellar, so I think there should be plenty of room for pellet storage. I also understand that if we went to propane we would have to put the tank outside. Not crazy about that, but I think we could find a place to do that. If we did do propane, could we use the same tank to power a standby generator? I've been wanting to get one of those for a few years now. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
I like the idea of running a back-up generator from the same fuel.
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