New Oil Boiler Install

I am replacing my old undersized oil boiler with a unit a bought used but only 5 years old. It also came with an indirect water heater. I want to do this right and would like advice from the oil gurus in the forum. I'm planning on ball valves before and after the circulator pumps and a shut off for the expansion tank. I'm also adding a low water cut off and an hour meter for the burner. Anything else I should consider?

No I'm not giving up on coal. Just want a newer, reliable properly sized backup.

Sounds like a cool project. What model boiler & burner did you get?

A Hydrostat 3250 would take care of your aquastat and low water cutoff in one shot. Plan on cleaning the system & adding some boiler conditioner afterwards.

How are your current fuel lines run? Tank in good shape? I am a fan of a second filter mounted right at the boiler.

Will the VF3000 still be piped the same way?

The boiler is a 2008 Burnham MPO-147 with a Beckett burner. The indirect water heater is a Burnham 35 gallon. My oil tank is only about 8 years old and piped with copper tubing with inline filter. I plan on piping the same way as present with the coal boiler entering the return of the oil boiler. All zones come off of the oil boilers supply and return.

It's a heavy rascal. I had my boys come over last night to help my get it into the basement. Strapped it to a heavy duty furniture dolly and lowered it down a ramp. Had a heavy strap around the boiler tied to my trucks trailer hitch and slowly lowered it down.

That is a very nice boiler. Triple pass.

I would get the manual for it and see how the burner is supposed to be setup. Which nozzle, etc. Don't assume the previous guys that worked on it had it correct.

It came with the manual for the boiler, burner and indirect water heater. He did have the indirect water heater plumbed incorrectly according to the manual. I have a neighbor who works for the local fuel oil company who does Burnham installs for them. He's coming by this weekend to check it out and give me a price on installing it.

New boiler is installed and running. I have not made a coal run yet so strictly on oil now. Boiler works great. It heats up so much faster than my old Weil-mcclaine. Here's a couple pics of the install. Added a low water cut off. not required here but it's cheap insurance.

One very interesting thing to me is the improved performance of the hydro-coil in my duct work. It's a double pass coil and its in the return so the air flow is down in this pic. I originally installed this when I first got the coal boiler. Not having any experience with these, I piped the supply into the top pass, the one that "sees" the air first. The guy who installed my new oil boiler took one look at it and told me it was wrong. He re-piped it so that the supply goes into the bottom pass of the coil. Makes perfect sense to me now but this way, both passes see full temp water. I have thermometer wells in the supply and return and before it would drop water temp 5-7 degrees. Installed this way its dropping the water temp 20 degrees! It's hard to believe the difference. The indirect water heater works great too. That thing really holds the heat!

I did fire the coal boiler last weekend when we had the first cold snap. I had about 300# of coal left over from last season. I'll be making a run on 11/3 for my coal.

Looks like a very nice install. will be interesting to see how the VF3000 reacts to the replumbed fancoil.

all these pics and not one of the coal boiler or the little one Juniper , 'SSUP?
Im envying you that feeling of satisfaction you must be having, as I havent done a damn thing all week.

Rob R. wrote:Looks like a very nice install. will be interesting to see how the VF3000 reacts to the replumbed fancoil.

Thanks Rob. The guy who was originally going to do the install really didn't seem to share my vision as to how I wanted things done so I found someone else. Actually two guys. One is a plumber and the other a controls guy for a large commercial mechanical engineering company. They did everything exactly as I wanted it.

As you know the VF3000 struggles and runs balls out in extreme weather. The new efficiency of the fan coil is only going to exacerbate that weakness. But for the majority of our normal winter weather I don't think it's going to be a major problem. I may up the coal boiler temp to 190. For extreme weather I will let the oil burner pickup when water temp drops below a threshold temp. I wish I knew in 2003 what I know now and I would have looked for a nice refurbed EFM. And I guess anything is possible but I don't see myself swapping out the VF3000 at this point in my life. So if I end up with a hybrid method that uses coal and incorporates oil to supplement it, I'm going to have to be ok with that. The major part of my heat demand will still be met by coal. For now I'm very pleased with the new oil burner and indirect water heater.

I've got a couple ideas rolling around in my head about how I could maybe squeeze some more BTU's out of the VF3000. I'll start another thread in the boiler section to float those ideas and let the group shoot holes in them or offer suggestions.

I would do exactly as you proposed, let the oil boiler assist as needed. If it is only a few times per year the cost of running it will be much less than making equipment changes.

How are the controls setup? Does the oil unit come on based on room temperature or an aquastat on the coal boiler?

possibly some storage? I havent read much into this type of setup though so take it easy on me lol

Thermal storage can help in some situations, but not in the case of the load exceeding boiler output for an extended period of time.

It is amazing how fast the new oil boilers come up to temperature compared to older units.

yes they are almost like a "on-demand" system now, very efficient I think. but nothing like coal lol

Yes, storage is not a remedy for this installation. As Rob points out it's a matter of boiler capacity over time in high demand conditions. This boiler does get up to temperature quickly. It's a triple pass boiler and a cold start. So the burner does not fire unless one of the zones is calling for heat and the boiler temp is below the set point.

The oil boiler does not really communicate with the coal boiler The oil boiler just constantly receives hot water from the coal boiler into its return. The zones feed off of the oil boiler supply piping and then returns to the coal boiler.

Good job CoalKirk! I learn yet another lesson. I had no idea that you could plumb the coil backwards! I'm going downstairs to check mine right now. I think I have the supply on the opposite side of the blower?

-Don