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Back in the late 70's grandfather checked into having his oil fired boiler changed to save energy. I don't recall the name but I do know it was in the house and was not new when my grandparents purchased it in 1953. The previous owners had a reputation for doing things TOL so I assume that applied to the boiler as well. My grandfather was told that his boiler was running about 70% efficiency and that was too high to be worth replacing. The only repairs I recall were an inexpensive part that broke every 10 years and the fionverted coal furlter housing/casing cracked and leaked once and had to be replaced. That was it.

"converted coal furnace": I was with my grandfather helping him with something in a far corner of the property and we heard my grandmother screaming. We looked up and she was running toward us, doing an O.J. Simpson (through the airport) over bushes and fallen trees, etc.. We saw this huge cloud of billowing black smoke behind the trees. It was coming out of the tenants house next door. G'ma was rattling on about needing to get something in the house (nobody was home there). I was just old enough that there was no way in hell I was going to let her go in first. So after making sure the door was cool I cautiously cracked it open. All was fine. G'ma went and got whatever. We figured we were confused and it was another house next door so we should call the fire dept. NOPE! It was this house. I opened basement door and all was well there too. We all go back outside AGAIN and check.... still smoke. We go back downstairs to the totally normal basement. This time I noticed the old mica sight glass was glowing way brighter than I'd ever seen before. The fire dept showed up and they'd already guessed the cause.

A piece of dirt had gotten past the filter and stuck in the just so oil ever so slowly dribbled down and filled up the boiler from the bottom. When it got hot enough it ignited. The firemen said there was nothing to do except to let it burn itself out. They said it was quite safe because if something were going to happen, it already would have. Though my grandparents had never heard of such a thing, the firemen said it wasn't all that rare and it was a sign that the boiler was a good one. Apparently good quality coal-fired steam boilers handle post conversion oil fires with no problem. Cheapo ones do not and the house goes up in flames.

Damn! This thread has brought up so many memories, lol.

Jim
 
Ceiling Fans

I have a ceiling fan and was told to operate it in the winter so that it blows the air up and thus forces the warmer air at the ceiling along the ceiling and down the walls to the floor. In the summer the direction is reversed so that the air blows down and forces the warmer air up to the ceiling.

Gary
 
I have seen...

Something similar, the cutoff valve in the pump of our furnace when I was a kid stuck, luckily I saw smoke from the chimney and went to check the furnace, I was about 10, but knew enough to know there was a problem. a new pump fixed it, but if it had leaked into the furnace during the summer and built up, the first time it came on would have been a big fire, I have known of this happening, usually burning the house down, that was something we checked closely when I was servicing furnaces, if the oil tank was above the furnace level, if the cutoff was not quick and sure, we usually installed a delayed oil valve, this electrically cut off the oil, plus it let the burner run 15 seconds before ignition thus making smoother starts and stops, cleaner burning and less soot.
 
I have a New Yorker boiler that has normally used 500 gallons of oil for all my heat and hot water for nearly 2000 sq. ft.in a 12 month period. My last fillup, which I have (2) 330 gallon tanks filled was 650 gallons, but was $400 less than I paid last year for 500. Guess I was close to empty, but it was the coldest winter on record.
 
Here in NYC

There are hundreds of coal converted to oil and or gas (dual fuel) steam boilers and they are doing just fine.

Walk up and down streets of say Manhattan and peer into basements especially of pre-war buildings and you'll find plenty of fire tube boilers that once burnt coal but have been converted to oil. Since those things went in when buildings were built (it goes up around them) they aren't coming out easily. Unless there is access the only way is to chop the things up.

Newer buildings say those that went up in the 1970's or later are another matter.

Regarding another poster's comments about finite fossil fuel resources that simply isn't wholly true. Oil and natural gas supplies are plentiful enough to be causing glut atm. Many countries such as places in Europe, Asia and a good part of the United States also have vast reserves of coal. Thing is burning the stuff just isn't politically popular since various "clean air" acts went into place and certainly now with all the noise over *global warming*.

Being as that may plenty of persons with access to coal in the North East United States and elsewhere will burn the stuff in stoves or boilers/furnaces if they can lay hands on a good supply. You can also purchase brand new state of the art furnaces and boilers designed to burn coal.

When home heating oil prices were very high coal sales soared. The United States is a vast country and not every rural or suburban areas are piped for natural gas. So it is either oil, propane, coal or wood.

Anthracite is one of the cleanest burning fossil fuels and gives one of the highest returns in terms of energy produced. It is also quite clean burning as well. The smoke and mess persons often associate with burning coal comes from the soft variety.
 
You are right Laundress, Good old Anthracite burns just fine and gives a good even long lasting heat. Easy to get going with my charcoal idea. The pot belly stove I have was grandfathers, from a railroad caboose and when it was running is cold on the chimney pipe, barely warm on the top of the stove and nothing coming out of the chimney outside at -20 outside, but VERY hot off the bottom where the fire is. All the furnaces are spewing vapor out the chimneys, nothing from the coal from my chimney. And Hans, knock on wood, my New Yorker is almost 21 years of perfect service.
 
Well, AFAIK, the main worry with an old gas forced air furnace is that the heat exchanger might have cracked, letting out CO into the heated home air. Which is why I keep a CO sensor by the bed. As I recall when I bought the place about 18 years ago the inspector said there was no sign of cracking, and I'm thinking that's still the case. The fan comes on after less than a minute of flame (I can hear the whine of the igniter and/or gas jets in the house before the fan comes on), and then continues for a minute or two after the gas shuts off. I understand that if the fan shuts off too quickly then the heat exchanger can cool unevenly and that can lead to cracking.

 

The furnace control looks very simple. Don't recall the brand but somewhere I have all the wiring/literature for it.

 
 
A cracked heat exchanger in a hot air system or any system is bad news and keeping a working CO2 detector is a must for every home, just like smoke alarms. AND we should check all of them as the time changes back within the next week.

This is exactly right. An ounce of prevention as they say... but do you know that a lot of people out there think a Co2 and a Smoke Detector are the same thing? They'll have the smoke detector, but not a Co2 detector. Or they'll just never replace the batteries and just pull them out when the unit start beeping! Ask any fireman about how many house fires they have been to where there was a smoke detector but it didn't have any batteries in it. You's be shocked!
 
It's worthy to note that the old Timken Silent Automatic "wall of flame" rotary oil burners made from the 1930s to the 1950s had efficiency percentages in the 90s when set up correctly.

He house I grew up in had it's original 1927 Thatcher coal burning steam boiler which was converted to oil with a Timken burner in 1939. We ran it until the late 1970s when the company that serviced it convinced my dad to replace it. The modern replacement cracked it's boiler in 8 years and had to be replaced again.
 
I never saw

A Timken, or any rotary for that matter, but I understand many of them are still running in other parts of the country..I would love to see one run,
 
A shot of the return air vents

that the HVAC builder installed during construction. In winter, save for the living room, I close off the upper vents thus the cool air near the floor has to go into the bottom vents only.

In summer, I open up the top vents to allow the warmer air to be drawn into the vents for cooling.

I also ventured out to Trader Horn to get some frost king electrical wall outlet insulation. I did all the outlets on exterior walls.

Wednesday, weather permitting, I'm having a nice Larson insulated storm door installed.

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I think it's a CO sensor you want, that is for carbon monoxide. Not for CO2, carbon dioxide, which is not poisonous unless it crowds out all the oxygen, which would be unlikely in a normal home. Plus a normal person breathes out CO2 all the time...

 

CO is particularly noxious because it binds to oxygen receptors on hemoglobin and prevents the blood from carrying oxygen from lungs to tissues. Plus it's odorless and a silent killer. Seen too many news stories of families trying to keep warm by taking charcoal grills inside, or propane fired patio heaters etc, then everyone dies in their sleep from CO poisoning.

 
 
dies in their sleep from CO poisoning

So many sad stories of persons and or even entire families being wiped out by CO2 from malfunctioning and or improperly installed heating equipment.

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=28835698&nid=148

That was a recent one. There was an entire family I think also in Utah that was killed while sleeping in their brand new home (think it was a vacation place). Turns out the contractor didn't install the heating system properly.

Here in NYC we have had our share of similar events including an Irish-American family also wiped out in their sleep from CO2 poisoning. In fact by law all NYC apartments/homes must have working smoke and CO2 detectors. Sadly many do not keep fresh batteries in the things or take them out for use elsewhere.

Personally was taught since childhood to sleep with a window slightly opened even in dead of winter. Something I still do even though it does tick some people off.

At least back in the old days homes were so drafty that even with closed windows you got decent exchange of indoor air. Today with all the focus on tightly sealed homes/buildings for "energy savings" you are keeping in all sorts of gases and fumes. Older homes even with closed windows had much more frequent full changes of air. Today you cannot even purchase an AC that allows "air exchange".
 
These recent posts

About CO2 fears, and oil burning, and chimney fires, .... and on and on. Those are all real issues and thank god no one was hurt. I've had or know people who've had equal problems.

My parents first house burned down shortly after they sold it in the mid 60s, because of an oil leak in the furnace.
I've seen the mess of creosote when it gets wet, runs down the chimney, and out on the floor. I've heard the stories and seen buried oil tanks that rusted and leaked and caused thousands of dollars in damages.
Then there is the "old" basement, filled with a boiler and associated pipes that were covered with asbestos in the 50s or 60s and that whole mess. Ughh. That's tens of thousands of dollars to clean up and remove.

As much as I love basements, I don't like them filled with spilled oil, coal dust, asbestos dust, wood dirt..... NO ! I doubt ANYONE does.

My parents, well meaning, but not the most practical, used to cut and burn wood for heat. It was awful. I swear the heat exchanger was cracked. The dust, the uncontrollable temperature, the air pollution, the smell, the mice, the work, the chimneys existing at all and the need to frequently clean them, the higher home insurance cost, the fire risk. UGH

Electric is so nice. There is no-o-o-o 'going to the basement' to service it because its just a 3'-6' long metal piece tucked compactly in each room. There is no noise, no chimney, no waste, no moving parts, no mice, no asbestos, no big expense, no dust, no ducts to clean, no air pollution, and it's always the perfect temperature just by turning the thermostat. And AND, if you are equipped adequately, it is possible to generate some or all of your own electricity with solar or other means, so you aren't dependent on an outside source.

Electric baseboards are cheap. A 36" is about $40.

I do have to say, though, I was brought up with natural gas FA furnace and we had central air installed in about 1983. Call it weird (that's a given here at AW.) There was something about the first time the heat was turned on in the Fall. It was like a reassurance that you'd be safe and warm. And there was something about the smell- the oils from the ducting heating up, the subtle scent of singed duct dust, I don't know what it was. I've smelled it in other homes as well. There is that history there.

Still, if I were in the market (and actually I am) for a 1000 s.f. ranch type house, in a cold climate, would I focus on the status quo of working out the typical gas furnace and little bit of caulking and storm door here and there,
OR
would I kick ass and say "Hell no! I'm not doing that every other year" and kick the gas appliances to the curb, shut off the gas, and go all Electric [take a deep breath]? Yes ! And most importantly INSULATE, INSULATE, INSULATE!

I already know how well Solar electric works.
I WILL NOT allow any gas appliances in my home based on political and safety reasons (even though I love me a nice gas stove)
So yeah, its baseboard heating, SUPER INSULATION, solar electric, and for cooling sleave/window unit or mini split with remote controls.

Really good insulation also makes cooling in the summer much easier and more efficient.

In the typical house, if the inside is fine and I don't need to remove drywall, I'm going to work from the outside removing the siding and all crap fibre glas, reinsulating the walls with ISO foam board cut and fit, then apply at least another 4" to the outside and then reside.

The windows would be reduced in size and number and the frames extended for the additional insulation on the wall. Eliminate roof windows, and most large windows. All windows to be DOUBLE double pane windows. So, Two double pane windows at each opening. Like one would acts as a storm window for the other.

Ceiling/attic- remove all old material if not iso board and reinsulated with ISO board at least 12", make sure sealed from vapor passage and attic has adequate ventilation.

roofing= metal roof.

Exterior doors eliminate any patio doors, install an air lock if possible, which is basically a double steel exterior door.

Basement sills sealed and insulated, possibly the first floor, also the basement wall down to the frost line (48" in Minnesota).

Chimneys and fireplaces= removed.

All gas appliance and lines= removed.

Electric service= make sure it is up to code with ALL breakers being GFI protected. No 220 volt double pole breakers allowed. Install some lines that can be connected to inverters. Install all 12 volt lighting and 12 volt outlets through out house. These can run directly from battery.

Water heating= Kitchen, dedicated 2.5 or 4 gallon under sink 120 volt water heater with timer/switch on wall.
Bathroom(s) dedicated 6 or 10 gallon 120 volt water heater with 60 minute timer on wall
Laundry- fed off one of the mentioned water heaters or have a 4 gallon 120 volt water heater with 60 minute timer.

refrigerator- 4 c.f. dorm style frig
freezer - 2 c.f. freezer only

dryer- either decorative (not used) or operating at 120 volts with outside air intake.

Whoo, I got on a tangent there. Idealist? oh yeah.

It's not as easy as throwing money at a furnace installer, but it's kind of a once and done proposition. Insulation Foam board doesn't degrade, unlike fibre glas. So it won't need service in 5 years. Its kind of like would you rather live in a big foam cooler or a big wood box with numerous holes in it (chimneys, leaky windows, poor insulation, etc.)

Still, I take my skills for granted and assume others can do it too. That really hurts because, I realize how vulnerable many others are.

http://https//youtu.be/i1guAwzyEOQ
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CO2 vs CO

Again NOBODY dies from CO2 poisoning, unless they're locked in an airtight box and have CO2 and nothing else piped in, replacing all the air.

 

People DO DIE from CO, which is carbon monoxide.

 

Similarly, few people die from ingesting chlorine in the form of NaCl, or common table salt. But the same amount of chlorine as chlorine gas (Cl2) would be lethal.

 

Maybe it's because of all the media about global warming due to CO2 emissions that people are getting this SO WRONG.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to shout so much... but somehow CO2 is starting to sound a lot like "cake" to me ;-)

 



 

 

[this post was last edited: 10/26/2015-00:29]
 
Um, here in California with tiered electricity rates (the more you use, the higher the rates) resistance electric heating would be fiendishly expensive. Even with solar panels, it would still drive electric bills very high. Why? Because solar panels are still only about 10% efficient, and while prices have dropped they are still relatively expensive, and you'd likely not be able to generate enough electricity with solar panels to cover the extra cost of resistance electric heating. The conventional wisdom for anyone going solar electric is FIRST to reduce electric consumption to the minimum - with LED lighting, Energy Star appliances (especially refrigeration). It's  also a lot cheaper here to heat water with gas than it is with electric. Same for drying clothes and cooking.

 

There is an alternative - a HVAC heat exchanger type of heating source, which basically runs a refrigeration system backwards and exchanges heat from outdoors to indoors. These work until the outside temp drops below a certain level (around freezing, I think) and then a backup heat source must be used (such as resistance electric or *shudder* gas). A side benefit is that most systems can be used to provide A/C during the summer months. Then I could see solar electric as an option to reduce the bills.
 
I would much rather have a gas heat system than the heat pump that I currently have.Its a Lennox Diplomat-works super as a n AC in the summer-but is inefficient as a heat pump in winter.The bills with this thing are atrocious in the winter.Can't get above 63 degrees at best.Heat strips would be out of the question-cost to install them.My place would need to be upgraded to 200A service.150A at present.I have no problem with gas equipment as long as it is properly installed and maintained.The former owner of the house used wood for heat-around here that would be expensive-and just don't have the time to cut,stack,split the wood.and not to mention air pollution from wood.It is an inefficient fuel.Better to use wood for building and paper.
I also feel home solar systems for the most part will not pay off.Inefficent-expensive,and you have to be sure the power from the system is acceptable to the power company.If not they DO NOT have to accept it.Another thing solar panels get more inefficient as time goes by-the exposure to the sunlight decreases their efficency after like 5 yrs.Solar power is great for if you want light your shed,charge small batteries and so on.
 
CO2-Carbon Dioxide--CO Carbon Monoxide.CO is really bad.C02 can be bad if there is no oxygen.Ex when that volcanic lake erupted gas to the villagers that lived below it-that was C02 that sufficated them-displaced the air supply.If you have combustion heat or cooking you should have BOTH a smoke detector and CO detector.
 
When I bought my house it was all baseboard electric and I hated it. No matter how high I turned up the thermostat I was still cold. Also the house was very dry even with having portable humidifiers. The house was built prior to air exchangers being required. Also electric rates here are VERY high (see my separate thread on electricity rates) so electric baseboard heat is the most expensive form of heating there is. Yes electric baseboards are inexpensive and easy to install compared to other heating types but in the long run it will cost a lot more to operate. I took out all the electric baseboards, replaced them with hot water baseboards and installed a propane fired hot water boiler (no natural gas where I live). The house is much more comfortable now, the heat is silent unless you are in the same room when the boiler is fired up, and the house is more humid...no need for humidifiers any more.

Gary
 
I wonder if anyone's ever done a study...

... comparing people's attitudes toward different types of heating and how well those different systems were maintained when the person first encountered them.
Examples:
-My grandparents' house was heated by oil with a 1000 gal. tank buried in the yard. The boiler was ancient. Not once in my 40 years with that boiler was there ever any smell. NOT ONCE!

-I worked in a school heated by a coal burning steam boiler. There was a full-time licensed, certified fire-man to run it. You could eat off the floor of the boiler room and my fellow teachers actually ate their lunches in the boiler room on cold Mondays. Zero smell and zero dust!

Result? Whenever I see or smell oil or coal, my kneejerk response is, "There's a problem here that needs attention."

I have the same response when I'm in a house that has steam heat with pipes banging and rattling, or a warm air system that's dusty beyond that first day of operation in the fall. There's a problem.

It blows my mind how many people don't know anything about the heating system they have or even what is 'normal' for that system. I can't tell you how many times I've heard stupid sh*t like "I hate recessed radiators. I have one and that room is always cold." I go look at it and it turns our that the air valve is clogged so steam can't get in AND the casing around the radiator isn't sealed so outside air is leaking in. I explain that those 2 things are why the room is cold and what they need to do to have a warm room. Most of the time the person doesn't want to hear it, apparently preferring to be cold and blame the irrelevant fact that the radiator is recessed.

Another favorite is people replacing their steam system with hot water baseboard. They had a 4-foot long radiator 2' tall and 4" deep. It gets replaced by 4 feet of baseboard and the homeowner wants to know why he's cold!!! Yes, clearly the homeowner was preyed upon by rip-off artists but at the same time it's tough to feel sympathy for a person who's willing to spend thousands of dollars on a major home renovation but won't spend any time to learn about what will actually be done and why.

Warning: The armchair psychologist has arrived!

I used to think this kind of thing was the result of individuals just being too lazy to think. "I'm cold because of a draft. A draft has to come from somewhere. I'll find where and see if I can stop it." required too much mental effort. NOW, I think a lot of it is resistance to the notion that some "facts" actually are facts (without quotes) and are not subject to negotiation. More and more people seem to think that their feelings, beliefs, and ideas are somehow in the equation when it comes to how much gas their car needs to go a given distance or how much heat is needed to keep a room warm at a given outside temp. I know people who've reduced the temp of their HW boiler by 20 degrees "to save energy" and then they want to know why they're cold. I try to explain that if you have 150F water running through your baseboard it will produce less heat than if you had 170F water running through it. What people are resistant to is the idea that it's not open for discussion.

Sorry for the rant, but I simply have exhausted my lifetime allotment of patience for this kind of thing.

Jim
 
Coal

Vanderbilt University just recently removed their COAL boilers!  They used coal for 126 years for supplemental electricity production as well as heating some of the buildings.  They replaced it with natural gas boilers and tore down the iconic all brick smoke stack that could be seen from all over campus.

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sustainvu/2013/04/vu-power-plant-faq/
 
Air-Exchange (i.e. "Fresh Air Kits")

(Hope I have the right thread. I recall reading something on this here before). 

 

Given the obsession with sealing houses up tight, I think the EPA needs to step in and mandate something on this. 

 

Indoor pollutant levels are thousands of times higher than outdoors* due to the enclosed environment, pollution-generators (pets, dust-mites, human waste and movement, food, odours, smoke, combustion remnants and so on) and the lack of exhanged air. 

 

Commercial buildings are supposed to have some air exchange, so why shouldn't residential homes, too? I mean, its as simple as running a (filtered) vent into your return air supply. 

Our houses' positively ancient HVAC unit is fitted with a 25% fresh-air kit, as is practically every other unit of similar age. This means you can run exhaust fans at full capacity without that "blocked vacuum-cleaner sound" through the house. It means that stale air can be exchanged by a certain amount each hour! 

 

With Fan-On operation, I imagine that complete air turnover could occur within 6hrs (since I imagine the vent is supposed to achieve such turnover).

While there is some impact on cooling performance, the fact is the A/C unit is still cooling the air, so in the end, hot air isn't blowing into the house. The air is pre-cooled and makes no temperature difference; except when the unit is off and an exhaust unit is running. You could perhaps save energy in bathrooms with fans by just leaving the window ajar... Fancy that... 

 

There is no need for fancy filtration that costs a fortune. Fresh air is better than stale and continuously recycled air, and more economical than air purifiers/filters in the residential environment. Commercial ops, however, are different and should have advanced filtering AND fresh-air exchange systems. 

 

I'll close with this question: In the term, "HVAC," V= Ventilation. So why isn't that incorporated to many systems today? 

Why do they call residential systems "HVAC" when there is no "V" taking place (except through drafty houses or poor ductwork?)?

 

*I will state, however, that next-to-nothing times any number is still going to be next-to-nothing. So maybe its just exaggeration and hoo-hah over nothing. 
 
 
The auditorium HVAC units at the theater where I work have fresh air intakes.  The lobby doesn't.  A recurring problem is that the humidity level rises when (not if) a blower contactor goes wonky and gets stuck "on" which causes the blower to keep running when the compressor cycles off, sucking in high-humidity TX air.  The auditoriums typically are not checked at end of the day ... or if the idiot little boys who close 99% of the time do a run-through, it completely escapes their attention that the blower is still blowing.  The environment is like a swamp the next morning in an affected auditorium, to the point the air could be cut with a knife.
 
Electric baseboard

It's funny that some are preferring the stuff. I've always hated it because it usually reaks of burning dust the first time you turn it on in awhile, plus the idea of electric resistance heating has never sat well with me because to me electric resistance = electrical fire. I'm not really afraid of it anymore though.
What I don't like now is that it costs a fortune to run compared to just about anything else.

My sister rents a two story duplex in Colorado, built in the early 80s on the cheap, and it has baseboard heat throughout. The first winter they were being frugal and still had a $350 power bill for January. Now they're even more frugal with it and have kept it no higher than $300. They also had a warm winter last year so they didn't need a lot of heat. This year it's supposed to be real snowy in CO so they probably won't get off easy now, plus they have a baby now. So comfort will be more priority now. My sister inquired to the landlady about inquiring to the gas company if gas service even ran past the building and apparently the answer was no, but the house just a few places down on the corner has natural gas. If they could heat with natural gas, they could keep the whole place 70 degrees all the time and not pay more then $150 a month to do so.
Also by comparison, our house is 3 times the size of theirs, heated with natural gas and kept at 70 all the time and our bill is still lower then what they pay in electric.

It's funny to me when I hear someone's reaction to the idea of gas appliances that hasn't lived with them their whole life. They seem to think they'll explode or kill you with CO. In reality electric or gas could kill you. What keeps it all safe is proper installation, and performing preventative maintenance routinely.
 

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