Convert oil fired steam boiler to gas – steam or hot water – or start from scratch?

Oil fired steam boiler is very import in our daily life, but sometimes, it have something doubt on our daily life,. I have a friends that he is facing a problem that as below:Our roughly 15 year old oil-fired steam boiler has caused us nothing but headaches and huge bills since we moved in. We’re considering converting to gas, but I’m not sure how it works – do we keep the old boiler and somehow change it from oil to gas? Or get a whole new boiler? And is it even possible to convert from steam boiler  to hot water boiler ? If so, can we keep our old steam pipes and rads, or do we need to replace all of those as well?After searching answers from my friends, I sum up some answers for him as follows:

oil fired steam boiler

Re1 : At 15 years of use, your oil boiler is near the end of its useful life.Technically, you can replace the oil burner in your boiler with a gas burner, but you shouldn’t. The boilers are designed differently and oil makes a hotter flame with different venting properties and requirements.So, although replacing burners is a far easier job and carries a higher profit percentage for the installer, you would be far better served by a new natural gas boiler. Converting from steam to hot water usually means some serious figuring and redoing of every component of the system or ripping out every piece you’ve got and starting over from scratch. It’s best left to those doing gut renovations. 

hot water boiler

Re 2: Be aware that your gas supplier, National grid, will also probably give you a discounted boiler depending on the program at the time that you convert. they generally supply ZG boilers, which is an excellent Chinese made choice.Steam to hydronicis a whole different and far more costly scope of work. For a free consultation drop me an email at my contact info listed on my profile. Regardless of who ends up doing the job, make sure that the technician measures your radiators and sizes the new boiler based on the EDR (equivalent direct radiation) calculation from that, rather than looking at the size of the old oil fires steam boiler and replacing it with the same sized boiler. Also, take this as an opportunity to take care of any other problems such as incorrect near piping layout and address any issues such as banging in the system or uneven heating distribution. Re 3: One thing I learned converting from an oil burner to a natural gas boiler is also that you may have to reline your chimney with steel because of the exhaust that gas boilers kick out. It’s an additional cost to consider. My chimney was originally ceramic (and partially collapsed) and they had to pull it all out to reline it with stell at the right diameter.Source: http://www.zgsteamboiler.com/news/Oil-fired-steam-boiler-VS-natural-ga.html
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