HeatingHelp Continued from page 30
house on the coldest day of the year was 375,000 Btu/h. That other boiler was a standby. Why was it firing all the time? My guess is that a service tech turned them both on one day and they stayed turned on. The abnormal became the normal. Happens all the time. The homeowner decided to fire the oil company, which
didn't surprise me. "They're seeing my house as a vending machine," he said. I made him a sketch of how I'd like to see all the main
gravity lines tied together into a primary loop. "Stop by a local supply house and ask them if they have in stock four, eight-inch-screwed by two-inch sweat reducers," I said. "And don't take no for an answer. They'll try to jerk you around because you're a homeowner. They've got them back there somewhere. They just won't want to look for you." Just kidding. So with the supply-and-return gravity mains connected
(with flanges and copper tubing, not reducers), I sketched how to use two boilers, with a combined load of 375,000 Btu/h, on secondary circuits. I included a couple of bypass lines so the flue gases wouldn't condense. This story goes back to before we had condensing boilers; otherwise, I would have suggested those. Condensing boilers love those old, high-volume systems. He had this installed by a gas contractor, and I followed up with him during the following winter. Most of the time,
he ran just one of his new, relatively tiny, boilers, which is better than running a single 1,300,000 Btu/h boiler. Right? The homeowner was happy. So what cost the oil company that account and the con-
tract for the new boilers? I think it was laziness. The sales- man didn't want to take the time to do what a profession- al should always do when replacing a hot-water boiler, that being a proper heat-loss calculation. The salesman must have thought that if he went to the trouble to do the calculations and then didn't get the job, he would have wasted his time. But you can see where that got him. Thing is, I've been telling this story at seminars for
about 20 years now, and contractors still come to me dur- ing the breaks to argue with me. They can't afford to do heat-loss calculations on every job. It takes too much time. They'll go by the label on the old boiler. I was making them feel guilty. I have no idea what they're up against. I'll mention that a proper heat-loss calculation will near-
ly always give you a smaller boiler than one you size by the Label Method, and that smaller boilers mean better prices and more closed sales. They'll argue with me about this too. It takes too long to do. They don't have the time. "So how's business?" I'll ask. "It sucks," they'll say. So I think I'll just keep telling about Redflash. n
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect those of Plumbing Engineer nor its publisher, TMB Publishing.
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