Heating Help

Convert only the oil burner head to gas?

I have seen a boiler that normally would have a Beckett type oil burner head in it,   with instead a natural gas firing burner head.

My propane supplier had mentioned some sort of conversion that would fire propane.  Unless I misunderstood,  it sounded like the Beckett air blower would be retained.  Instead of the oil pump and oil tube/nozzle assembly there would be a propane supply and "nozzle".

In either case,  how well do gas conversions with existing boilers work?

Natural gas is in the street right in front of my driveway (I think the line ends there),  so I *might* be within the limit for free install of the gas hookup from National Grid (or is it LIPA?) here on Isle Du Long.

Thinking this conversion of my existing boiler could be a cost effective first step in full conversion to a Nat Gas boiler in the future,  while giving me less costly heating fuel.  And probably the ability to spread the cost of fuel over the year (balanced billing) rather than pay the bulk of it during Winter months for oil deliveries  (COD prices are so much lower).

Could be something

new that I am not aware of. I have never heard you could change the configuration of an oil burner and just add a gas head.

Most conversion require replacing the oil burner with a power gas burner made by Carlin, Heatwise, Riello, Midco, Wayne and others.

After installing over 3,500 gas conversion burners I can say that properly done it is an excellent move. You can obtain combustion efficiencies is the 80% range very easily. They can be fired on both LP or natural gas by simply in most cases a change of the orifice or simply order it all set up for the gas you plan to use. Carlin by the way will preset a burner up for you from the factory and all that has to be done then is the install and some minor adjustments made using a combustion analyzer.

By the way your company out in the island of long is National Grid. 

Heatwise

Tim,Heatwise is out of business

Robert I did not know that. . .

We do however still have an outfit selling SU-2A burners here in RI as I just saw one installed about three weeks ago. How long have they been out of business?

I think Steamhead had installed some of those at one time not really sure about that however.

Tim

Been out since September,I believe Patriot Supply bought all the inventory. Never installed one of their gas burners but never heard a bad thing about them

I have

and like them a lot. The SU-2A can fire a positive-pressure boiler- it was the standard gas burner on the Solaia boilers until HeatWise went under.

PP, what make and model is your present boiler?

Make and model

>>>> PP, what make and model is your present boiler?

I think you mean me?    I have a New Yorker  KD-118-AP.   140psi with a 0.75 nozzle.  HW coil feeds a 50 gallon electric HW tank which hardly ever kicks on the heating elements.

BTUs per Dollar

Now the question is,   what will be the BTUs per dollar I will get from this same boiler vessel with nat gas versus the present oil burner?

I have no idea how much nat gas costs here.

Conversions:

Phil,
That's a good part of the equation, but I always wonder the cost of the conversion versus how much saved and the time of payback.
And the Bankstera and Wall Street Crime Family are just bidding their time before they run up the cost of natural gas. There was a time not all that long ago that customers who switched from oil to gas in 1971, still hadn't made up their investment in gas equipment.

Switchable burners

Maybe then I'll keep my oil burner head so I can switch back and forth to whichever fuel is cheaper at the moment!  ;-)

Switching back and forth is not such an easy

process and itself gets expensive unless you know how to do it yourself. I have a chart that will help you determine cost comparison to Oil, LP, Natural Gas or Electric. Give me a FAX number and I will send it off to you or I can e-mail it contact me at gastc@cox.net.

gas head looks like oil burner head

I just looked at the Carlin EZ-Gas.

http://www.patriot-supply.com/images/medium_EZ-GAS.bmp

It does look *mostly* like an oil burner.  Perhaps the propane supplier was awkwardly describing the gas head and made it sound like the guts are swapped out.

Gas

Cost on LI is the equivalent of $2.30 oil

COD oil is more

Does that have all costs like delivery charge all in?

Even COD oil prices are much more.  Last I looked in teh $3.40 to $3.50 a gallon for 200-plus gallons.