Will the AHS 130 Heat a 3,000 Sq Ft House

I was looking to buy the ahs-130, or a boiler similar to it. I need to know if it will be sufficient to heat an old circa 1900's brick exterior house with avg insulation. The house has radiators as a heat source, there are 3 floors to the house. Currently I have a natural gas water boiler H.B. Smith G200-W-7. It seems to be very old and, I do not know the exact year it was made. It says the input BTU is 225,000 and the heating capacity is 175,000. I see the ahs-130 claims to heat 4,000 sq ft and has a BTU of 130,000. I am new to all of this and don't understand how something that is less BTU then what I currently have can heat 4,000 sq ft? If someone could help me out and explain this to me I would appreciate it. thank you.

I'd guess the AHS130 would do the job. When they claim "heats 4,000 sq ft", that's more advertising than anything. Obviously it wouldn't heat a 4,000 sq foot tent at 20 below. As long as your house has some insulation and cats can't walk through the cracks in your windows I'd think the 130 would heat you with no problem. Do you live in NJ or Alaska? oh, I see Maryland. You don't ever see 25 below zero, yaaa, it should be fine. By the way, it's a beauty of a boiler.

No, I live currently in Maryland. The Coal boiler would be for the house we are moving to in sunbury Pennsylvania.

I was also interested in the Harman VF3000 Verti-Flow Stoker Boiler. same question as I originally posted would it heat my house 3,000 sq ft etc ... Does anyone have prices on either of these boilers?

Depends on the efficiencies of the appliance, the heat loss of your house, insulation, windows, etc.... The older the furnace/boiler is probably not as efficient as newer ones.

I have an AHS S130 and live in Schuylkill County. The key figures to compare are the net heat output. The figures you quote show that the AHS S130 has less net heat output than the existing heating plant. So in answering the question whether the AHS S130 would be adequate (alone) it really depends on whether the existing heating plant is oversized, appropriate, or even undersized. As suggested by some of the other posts the heating requirements for a structure vary widely depending upon the amount of insulation and the tightness of the building envelope.

Another consideration is whether you are going to remove the existing boiler or add the coal boiler to the existing system. If the latter you could use the gas fired boiler when you are away and, if necessary, as a peaking unit for those very few days each year when temperatures are very low. One of the disadvantages of coal as compared to gas is that it requires more frequent "tending"--to load the hopper on the S 130 and to remove the ash. With my S 130 and the heating demands of my installation I use as much as one half of the hopper fill per day on very cold days, and more typically a third of the hopper fill on most winter days. I have to remove and replace the ash container every 2-3 days.

Whether or not a unit will heat a certain amount of square footage depends on many variables including insulation, design temp, distribution system etc. Freddy hit the nail on the head in that respect. I personally dislike sizing boilers based solely on square footage.

That being said, it is not at all uncommon to see folks at 3000+ square feet using an S130.

Like Patrick and Freddy said... square footage is not the point to consider... I'm heating 3000+ square feet and it HARDLY RUNS... because my house is tight and very well insulated. I think with a little math, the existing boiler net BTU output would give you an idea of what you would need - taking into account the unit's efficiency. That estimation coupled with how many therms the previous owner burned to heat the place last winter at 68 degrees or whatever the temperature should help you determine if the AHS 130 could keep up.

Pret

How much natural Gas do you go through in a heating season? Therms or Cubic feet

PatrickAHS wrote:How much natural Gas do you go through in a heating season? Therms or Cubic feet

we went through 307 therms in twenty two days from dec 31st to jan 21st with an avg. temp of 24. some of the days it was 0 or below. and that was with the heat at 55 degrees. since we were not at the house at the time. This weekend I did do alot of insulting in the basement. we had two big doors letting in massive amounts of could air and a bunch of windows letting in cold air now they are all sealed up and the basement isnt as cold.

Thanx to everyone for their help and suggestions

Bob wrote: ...Another consideration is whether you are going to remove the existing boiler or add the coal boiler to the existing system. If the latter you could use the gas fired boiler when you are away and, if necessary, as a peaking unit for those very few days each year when temperatures are very low. One of the disadvantages of coal as compared to gas is that it requires more frequent "tending"--to load the hopper on the S 130 and to remove the ash. With my S 130 and the heating demands of my installation I use as much as one half of the hopper fill per day on very cold days, and more typically a third of the hopper fill on most winter days. I have to remove and replace the ash container every 2-3 days.

I planned on removing the gas boiler and just using the coal boiler. But maybe I could leave the gas boiler hooked up and use the coal boiler most of the time. How would that work? Bypassing the gas boiler and going directly to the coal boiler since the would both need to be hooked up to my radiators ?

BrockWilt wrote:It says the input BTU is 225,000 and the heating capacity is 175,000. I see the ahs-130 claims to heat 4,000 sq ft and has a BTU of 130,000.

Remember that the output of the AHS is continuous. Not so with the rating on the oil burner as it fires and runs a while and then shuts off. It may have a greater BTU output in raw #s but it should not be a problem. I heat my leaky old shack with an 85-90,000BTU hand fired and the oil is rated at 139,000BTU's net. The oil burner struggles in the cold and the coal has no problem. My coal is about 65% of the oil, your deal is about 75%. If your oil burner runs more than half the time it would be a problem.

BrockWilt wrote:maybe I could leave the gas boiler hooked up and use the coal boiler most of the time.

I don't have a coal boiler myself, but from reading in this forum, lots of people leave their gas or oil boilers in place. Then your coal boiler can just pump hot water to your gas boiler, and the existing circulation from gas boiler to radiators can continue unchanged. And if you can't feed the coal boiler for a week because Paris Hilton invites you to the Bahamas for a tryst, the gas will just kick on and keep the house and the wife warm while you are gone. In fact you will probably find the wife actually steaming upon your return. The other way to plumb it is as you describe, an independent feed to the radiators from each boiler. One is called a series connection, the other parallel, but I don't know the relative merits of each.

BrockWilt wrote:...
I planned on removing the gas boiler and just using the coal boiler. But maybe I could leave the gas boiler hooked up and use the coal boiler most of the time. How would that work? Bypassing the gas boiler and going directly to the coal boiler since the would both need to be hooked up to my radiators ?

I have an oil fired boiler in the house that and it was connected to the heating system because the original install was oil heat. I put the coal boiler in an outbuilding and connected the two with a loop of 1" Pex al pex. I installed a control that disables the burner on the oil boiler when the coal boiler is hot. I installed a pump to circulate hot water from the coal boiler to the oil boiler when there is demand for heat in the house. So--whenever the coal boiler is operating it provides the heat. If it fails, goes out, whatever, the oil boiler picks up the load. This allowed me to use all existing plumbing for the heating system in the house and all existing control circuits. It also allows me to use my oil boiler to heat DWH in the summer when it is not worth keeping the coal fired boiler operating.

There are several threads that discuss how others have done similar installations.