Posted by Nomar on September 23, 2001 at 20:27:12:
Our boiler unit is about 25 years old. It's a gas fired, steam boiler for I believe what's called a one-pipe system. We have big radiators with only one pipe coming into the radiator.
We had a heating guy come out to clean and service the boiler, and he told me that we needed to replace the whole unit. It appears the cast iron boiler is leaking water down onto the gas manifold and causing some corrosion there, as well as the problem with the boiler. Can the boiler piece of the furnace be replaced? He wanted to scrap the whole thing and totally replace it with new for a cost of $4000. Our home is only 1250 square feet, and we're not planning on living in it forever so we're not really interested in major investments to the heating system.