Posted by jtown on February 12, 2000 at 06:20:50:
In Reply to: Re: upgrading a hot water gas residential boiler posted by Jack Finn on February 10, 2000 at 13:14:21:
First, buy a couple of CO (not CO2) detectors, to monitor your boiler (not furnace) and leave the burner alone before you kill your own family. If you set the flame up to "touch the metal" you will make plenty of CO to do so. The Carbon combines with one Oxygen atom to make CO (deadly) and if there is another O available and the flame is still HOT it will become CO2 and rise up into your unlined chimney and condense into several acids that will eat the mortar out of the top section, if not already. The chimney should be lined, kits are $150 or so. Baffling inside the boilers passages could be added by someone that knows what they are doing, it would force the hot gases out of the center of the passages and against the walls that should be clean. The boiler and all those little doors for coal firin should be sealed with a pail of furnace cement, The supply pipes should be insulated and returns maybe left bare to promote circulation and leave a little heat for the bsmt. Better radiator covers have a gap at the floor of an inch ot two and one at the top of the face frame, below the top that promotes circulation again, especially if there is a sheet metal baffle curving from behind the top of the radiator to the top of the top slit to encourage flow to it. A low energy bill would help sell the place. To hit 97%, the neighbor probably has a warm air system (furnace). One benefit you probably have, or should have since you don't need a pump anyways, is that the old gas burner does not need electricity to run during an outage.