So in the post about my water heater woes, the unit had quit working again last Sunday (see comments). My normal heating and plumbing company is not open on weekends and their emergency voicemail box was full, so I called my propane company. I had the thought that maybe the regulator from the propane tanks was going wonky. If not, at least their tech could also trouble shoot the water heater itself. The tech quickly established that the tank regulator was fine. After replacing the POF, the water heater still would not stay lit. The only other possible part to replace is $700-800 - which I declined. For a 2009 vintage water heater, doubling what I had already spent was not worth it.
That afternoon, I called my heating maintenance company and asked them to send someone out for a quote to replace the unit. I also contacted another local place. Both those places sent someone out on Monday (which was a PTO day for me, so worked out well). I had been thinking about replacing my boiler and HWH this summer (the boiler is over 30 years old). I was also thinking going to 1 unit to handle both jobs (thus free up floor space, would be good too. So I started discussing how to replace both units with the heating techs. Once those discussions were done, and I received the quotes, I chose to go with a Condensing wall-hung Combination Boiler.
I accepted the quote from my regular heating maintenance company and Wednesday morning they came out to do the deed. This was great timing with the arctic weather pattern due to arrive, in which I would need the boiler to circulate water in the forced hot water pipes to keep them from freezing.
The old units take up a lot of space
And look at the spaghetti piping
Bye-bye old units
New combi boiler with neat piping. There are two PVC pipes at the top; one is for combustion air (this is a propane unit) and one for the exhaust. The box on the floor is to get rid of condensate. I'll get a small shelf later to neaten up that. Oh, and it plugs into the 110 outlet that the pellet stove is on. If needed, I can plug into a power pack or generator if there is an extended power outage.
And here is all the space I gained. Okay, so some of that will be taken up by the shelving unit that the new unit displaced, but still, it is opened up quite a bit
Now I have to fill in the raised flooring where the old boiler and water heater were. Then I can move the shelving unit in where the boiler used to sit (where the bucket is on the left.
Yesterday afternoon, with the outside temps plummeting and the wind howling (it was bowing my garage door in and creating all kinds of heat loss), I set up so the boiler can circulate the FHW. The main floor pellet stove is doing the heavy lifting for heating, while the boiler turns on every once in a while to circulate water so the pipes in the garage don't freeze.
Oh, wow, that is so much better. You did great, Bogie!
I was happy to see that your garage door was not Boeing (tee-hee).
Posted by: Cop Car | February 05, 2023 at 06:18 AM
LOL!
Posted by: bogie | February 06, 2023 at 02:49 AM