Heating Help

Is this what I think it is?

I was backed up at a stop light the other day and noticed what appeared to be smoke coming from the front of a house. Look what I found!

Could this be anything other than an intake/vent for a high efficiency boiler or furnace? Like maybe for a clothes dryer?

Can anyone say "exhaust gas recirculation"

Besides the fact that it is in the front of a home in what is considered a historic building district.

Last fall, I proposed a high eff boiler to a household not far from this one. Very difficult install, because the venting had to go through two interior walls to get out the back/side of the house. Homeowner asked why I couldn't just vent it out the front of the house, said he didn't care what it looked like. Told me one oufit said it would be OK.

I told him I cared what it looked like, and the Village might also have a say in the matter. I was one of (5) contractors within 5% of each other. Homeowner went with an outfit that was 45% cheaper than me. I never went back by that house, because I figured no one would actually vent out the FRONT of a house, now would they? Silly me. I guess I'll have to drive by that house and see if the Vent Bandit struck there, too.

Hmm.

I would love to get that service call.

"Yeah, my heat isn't working... I looked at the furnace...I don't see the flames like I used to...all I see is a little black window."

You got it.

I put them on my mailing list this afternoon.

Couldn't resist!

So you are driving by someone's house that has a couple of pipes sticking out. Then with lots of commentary you stick it on the internet? !!  The homeowners should be advsed of the pictures.

?

I'm not seeing a problem with pics and comments. Newspapers do this all the time. So does the TV news.

Sorry about that, Bill

I had no idea that every post on here was with the consent and full knowledge of the homeowner! Imagine that. Thanks for setting me straight.

If its good enough for Google

maps.google street view, its good enough for me.

I do not know the law in all countries, or even here, ...

I infer that most people on this site are from USA or Canada. And I guess the laws in these two countries do permit Google to do its street-view maps. But some countries do not, and in some they must get permission of every house they show. Some countries do not even allow all the streets to be shown in map form. Syria and Jordan, for example.

re: google, via the ONION

Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology

Public pictures

In Canada and most probably in most States, anything that is in the public view can be photographed. The caveat is how one uses the pictures.

Henry
Paid photog

anything that is in the public view can be photographed

That may be the law, but when a policeman, park ranger, or other guard says no, do you photograph anyway, even pulling out a copy of the relevant law? It might get you shot, and almost certainly would get you arrested.

False alarm!

Recirculation is virtually impossible with co-located, horizontal intake and exhaust on HE boilers with an internal fan. The fan usually propels the exhaust well away from the building and the heat carries the plume upwards.  The intake air tends to get drawn in from below and immediately in front of the intake.  Atag (a VERY well-respected European manufacture)r used to make a combined exhaust / intake wall terminal that placed the two pipes approx 70 mm apart.  NEVER, EVER heard of recirculation problems on that setup!

Flues terminating on the front face of buildings is another issue altogether.  Pre-high efficiency, the flue plume was usually invisible, so no-one would have noticed or complained, in 90% of examples.  But now we have condensing boilers with a VERY obvious fog plume (if the boiler is working correctly).  And plumes are suddenly Public Enemy Number 1!

I'm tempted to comment to the O/P that since high efficiency is an important objective and flues can be difficult to route, maybe he's going to have to get used to seeing some plumes!  But maybe people in the US are more sensitive generally on such issues?!  I hope not - because it seems a trivial matter to me!

Allow me to disagree with you....

You stated, "Recirculation is virtually impossible with co-located, horizontal intake and exhaust on HE boilers with an internal fan. The fan usually propels the exhaust well away from the building and the heat carries the plume upwards. The intake air tends to get drawn in from below and immediately in front of the intake."

Your statement MIGHT be true if the fan were to run at 100% all the time it was firing, however, when these babies modulate back, the pee stream gets quite weak. Here in Denver Colorado, the prevailing winds are out of the South at 5 MPH. I have seen and taken pictures of more than one of the high efficiency appliances that were regurgitating their products of combustion due to vent/air terminations being too close. It was also evidenced due to the amount of corrosion on the appliances wiring connection corrosion in the boilers control vestibule.

I've also got photographs of concentric vent terminus doing the exact same thing. And although the chances are less with them stacked vertically, under certain conditions it is possible to get the same results.

As for being trivial, it is until you have to spend a few thousand dollars replacing all of the electronics on board due to degradation due to gas products being drawn back into the appliance...

Personally, if at all possible, I prefer to terminate on the roof, where people are USED to seeing plumes of steam. And if that is not an option, I make absolutely certain that the consumer is aware of all issues associated with that method (dead vegetation, leaching masonry products, visual impact, possible stalagtites and stalagmites etc...) BEFORE I do the installation.

Maybe they don't have cross breezes over in Europe... :-)

Except near Parliment ;-) And most of that is hot air, no?


ME

Here in New Jersey, ...

"Your statement MIGHT be true if the fan were to run at 100% all the time
it was firing, however, when these babies modulate back, the pee stream
gets quite weak. Here in Denver Colorado, the prevailing winds are out
of the South at 5 MPH. I have seen and taken pictures of more than one
of the high efficiency appliances that were regurgitating their products
of combustion due to vent/air terminations being too close."

Here in New Jersey where I live, it is hard to say what the prevailing winds are. Most of the time they are not very high.They seem to come in all directions, changing every minute or so.

The installation manual for my mod-con is very specific on how the air intake and exhaust vent are to be piped. They even supply a double metal template for the holes through the wall. These ensure that the pipes are very close together (5 1/4 inches apart, center-to-center) so that the pressure drop between  them is kept small. They permit several terminations. The one I have allows the exhaust stream to shoot straight out. The intake pulls in air from the side. So if there is no wind, the intake does not sniff in the exhaust.

When it is cold enough out to make the exhaust visible, it works as described when there is a call for heat to the indirect, because it fires at 94% under those conditions until the indirect is nearly satisfied, when it modulates down before the aquastat is satisfied.

But when the boiler is actually heating the house, the outdoor reset often results in the boiler modulating down to 20% of maximum. At that point, the exhaust sort-of billows around and does not go all that far from the house.And since the boiler is condensing pretty seriously sometimes, the exhaust is not even hot enough to go obviously up as it leaves the exhaust pipe. If the wind is coming in the wrong direction, it blows some of the exhaust against the wall of the house (garage, actually) and no doubt some of it enters the air intake. I rationalize that this does not happen very often or very long, and hope that the fresh air dilutes the exhaust sufficiently. But I do not have a continuous reading recording gas analyzer in the air input to see.

Codes?

How about the fact that it appears to be blowing directly below an operable window and approx waist high over a sidewalk. I know that wouldn't fly with the inspectors around here.