Piwoslaw-
I think Walt was replying to me - I have the coal conversion boiler. "Boiler" is used to describe a heating system that heats water while a "furnace" heats air.
Walt-
Thanks for your response. Thanks for pointing out the risks of derating the boiler. I have a couple of CO monitors in the house (one near the boiler and the other near the wood stove).
When I calculate energy costs, I assume about 50% efficiency for my coal conversion which seems about right. Instead of replacing the boiler (which needs to be done) I opted to first insulate and weatherize which cut the heating bills by a third to a half. Going from R-1 in the attic (just the plaster and lathe) to R-20 made a huge difference (ROI of about 2 years). The estimates I got for replacement were about $6000, a greater than 10 year ROI, and since I won't have the house much longer I couldn't afford to do it.
The combustion analyzer is a nifty (if expensive) toy. I guess it is a portable version of what the DMV uses to check my car exhaust every year. I'd likely have to find someone who works on commercial boilers to help with that, but I'm not well connected to the commercial boiler community. Probably the best thing that I could do at this point is remove all of the old, cracked furnace cement and replace it with refractory cement to better seal the combustion chamber and set it back to it's original burn settings.
|