Calling MasterPlvmber!
Or anyone else who knows about indirect water heaters. We installed radiant heat and an indirect heater to our old boiler around early spring, and ever since our gas bills have been rather high. I mean, astoundingly high. Our heat’s not even on, and we sometimes pay $178 a month for gas, and it never…
Or anyone else who knows about indirect water heaters.
We installed radiant heat and an indirect heater to our old boiler around early spring, and ever since our gas bills have been rather high. I mean, astoundingly high.
Our heat’s not even on, and we sometimes pay $178 a month for gas, and it never goes below $100.
I am assuming that something got installed wrong, and that this is causing too much boiler-firing. It’s a complicated system–there are pumps and stuff… my husband knows what everything is, but I look at the whole thing and scratch my head.
The water temp is set low, around 120.
I know it’s ridiculous that we’ve been living with this for about six months. But…
…where do we start with the troubleshooting?
You all have your heat on?
It’s like sixty degrees still…
And thanks Denton, I will look into it!
Hi VBP:
It’s a Lohinvar Knight modulating condensing boiler. Works well with an indirect tank. See MP’s previous posts on these boilers. I could be wrong but I think most of the money is in installation and not the boiler.
B77, sorry, that was seriously bad writing! I meant altho I have some heat on, I have not yet received a bill. Even then, with all I have going on in my house, it’s likely to be higher than it could be.
Denton. No heat yet ! Where do you live ?
Sorry if I jumped down your throat, Denton. I’m a little jumpy about the election, and paying so much for gas during a recession feels retarded…
Anyway, thanks for the support. I want your gas bill, but I don’t want to pay $35K. So far, we spent much less:
$10K on supplies/engineering for all 3 floors of radiant heat
I think like $1K for indirect tank
Probably like $1500 on hardeeboard.
$1K to plumber to hook it all up, did the rest of the labor ourselves.
Even if a new boiler was another $4K, that wouldn’t be so bad, I guess. But if it’s got to be a new boiler, then I want a super-efficient one like yours. What kind of boiler did you get?
VBP, of course I did (make compromises). Not being sassy, just asking. In fact, as I posted on my reno blog, we started out wanting radiant heat, but it got out of control price-wise and other-wise so we didn’t do it. I don;t know what the boiler costs but the whole shebang, boiler, indirect water heater, rads, installation, etc., was about 35k. Good luck, and I’m sure we’d all like to hear what happens!
Oh, Denton, don’t you ever do anything incrementally and/or imperfectly because you can almost-but-not-quite afford it?
The radiant heat was a total splurge that was intended mostly to make the best out of a bad, bad situation. We found a lot of structural damage after we bought the place, and had to replace a lot of joists. This was such a bummer that we felt like the only way to make lemonade was to put radiant heat in over all our new floor joists.
And don’t you dare sass me, Denton, about the fact that we could afford it because we installed it ourselves. We had intended to do this job with MP, actually, but he got real busy and we got real tired of not having heat, so we wound up hooking all this up with a plumber who was smart and game to learn, but certainly not an indirect/hydronic heat specialist.
To answer MP:
This is an incremental project–we have the hydronic radiant heat installed so far in only the garden apartment and are working our way upward, *slowly*. Most of the house is a shell, with one finished(ish) apartment at the bottom.
It’s a hot water boiler–a Weill-Mclain (sp?). I don’t think we use a crazy amount of water–our water bill for last quarter was only $68. So something is obviously wrong.
I am having a hard time believing that a new boiler is the first place to start thinking about this. I feel like the pumps are pumping too fast, or that it’s otherwise just working too hard.
But if it’s really so… Denton, how much did your fabulous boiler cost?
We’ll start rolling up our spare change and taking our lunches to work!!
I don’t understand why you would spend the very large amount of money to install radiant heat while keeping the old boiler.
My gas bill for cooking, laundry, and hot water for my wife and I has hovered around $30 per month since we’ve been up and running. No heat yet, of course.
Seems like you should replace the boiler. Those old boilers were not meant for indirect heaters or radiant heat, neither existed when the boiler was installed!
Is this a steam or hot water boiler?
Before the indirect was installed, what made your hot water?
You say your boiler is old. If you installed an indirect water heater on a boiler that fires at a much less efficient rate than your free-standing gas-fired water heater did then it is possible you are using more gas than you used to.
Remember the boiler fires to heat the domestic hot water, so if you’re using a lot of it, say in the case of doing lots of laundry and dishes/multiple showers and such, you may be better served by upgrading your boiler to realize the efficiency of the long lasting indirect water heater.
Is the whole house radiant or just a portion?
Sometimes wiring for these systems gets installed in a crazy way that make the boiler actually maintain a constant high internal temperature that wastes energy all day long.
Need some more info to zero in on the cause, but that may get you started.
Call your gas company. They may send someone out to check the appliance and the meter.