Heating Help

Need a boiler man in North/West New Jersey.

@ October 25, 2011 10:44 PM in Need a boiler man in North/West New Jersey.

I'm looking for a good wethead that I can recommend to my customers in Morris/Sussex & beyond into Warren/Passaic counties of New Jersey. I need someone that can do steam & hot water, gas & oil. At the risk of asking too much, I would prefer someone that can do replacements and then stay with them for the repair & annual servicing down the line. As well as someone to do regular old repairs and clean up after the hacks. I've been trying for years to find someone that lives up to my standards (i.e. it has to be done right, period.) Nobody under 30 years old unless your the apprentice or you've been doing it with your dad since you were 12. I have the clients pre-primed for them that they don't want the guy with the lowest price and I can send them a pretty regular flow of new home owners. I don't want anything for it, just to make me look good by doing an excellent job.

I know about the "find a professional" link. I don't want to go shopping and hope for the best. I really want a recommendation from someones peers.

Don't think so

@ August 4, 2010 4:09 PM in Buderus G115 ?

The homeowner says they told him they would put a liner in after he complained about the staining the first time. Since then, nothing has changed. Unfortunately it has a clay tile roof, which I wasn't about to walk on, and a Spanish mission style chimney with a flue termination that I just couldn't see otherwise. The flue connector is high temp RTV'd into a terra cotta nipple so I don't know if it is or isn't.

The house is in South East Sussex County NJ, Adover. He's got one of the bigger HVAC companies that installed it and have been doing all his maint. for years. I'm less fond of them now then I ever was.

Buderus G115 ?

@ August 4, 2010 2:49 PM in Buderus G115 ?

Hi,

Inspected a house yesterday with a Buderus G115 w/Riello burner. (G115/5) When I opened the burn chamber door a minute into the burn cycle there was a considerable flow of exhaust gases coming out into the living space. It continued the entire time I had it open. For any other boiler (common boiler I should say) this is an immediate flag for improper draft. The homeowner was on the phone with the company that installed it within minutes and they were telling him this was totally normal for this boiler as it is a positive pressure boiler. Unfortunately Buderus is not a common install around here and I'm lucky if I see one every couple years. Can anyone shed some light on this for me.

A couple other notes about the install & performance... I noticed an exhaust/oil odor as soon as I opened the basement door at the top of the stairs. The homeowner told me he has been having problems ever since it was installed with stains running down the outside of his stucco chimney. The flame character and color was pretty poor and the burn chamber had quite a bit of debris in it for a boiler that was supposedly just serviced in Feb. of this year. This along with the deteriorated relief valve doesn't give me any confidence in this installer.
And lastly, The service ticket from a couple years ago stated 87.5% combustion efficiency but the one from this past feb. was 84.6%...

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. Any that can reference some form of documentation would be even better. I already scanned the install manual and didn't see anything relative.

some info

@ March 10, 2010 9:45 AM in Unreal HE corrosion

I am working for the people looking to buy this house so information about history is very limited. It's an estate sale and has been vacant for more than a year. Here's what I know.

... are they cold starting this boiler?
As far as I know, no.


... were they in the habit of turning it off in the summer?
I don't know, but I would assume so. Why would this be a problem?


... does the chimney need to be lined because it's too big for this appliance?
No, it's an 8x8 square clay tile flue. It had a rain cap on top that didn't want to come off and I was standing at the peak of a 10/12 pitch roof so I didn't get to look down it but everything I could see gave no indications of damage or flue gas condensation at that end. (I'll post a picture)


... when was this unit allegedly last inspected?
Last fall according to the maint. tag.


... is a barometric damper fitted?
Yes, I don't think it was balanced properly but I didn't use any instruments to confirm one way or another.



To my untrained eye, it looks like the chimney is having a condensation
issue.
This was my first thought, but after poking around it seemed to be more "in the boiler" then in the flue. The flue connector knuckle had corrosion seepage at the joints but looking inside the horizontal section through the damper, everything looked normal.

If the boiler and the gas water heater share the same flue,
that's probably the cause.
This was one of the first things I mentioned was that it shouldn't be that way. But in my world this is a sticky issue. Some municipalities prohibit it other don't. The better HVAC people I know won't install gas & oil on the same flu and many others do. Honestly though I couldn't find anything there to pin it on the WH.

Up here, one chimney was demolished by a gas
water heater, one heating cycle at a time. By the time we bought the
house, a hole big enough to put a fist through had spalled through the
chimney. At the very least, I'd get the chimney lined, ideally with
separate flues for water heater and boiler/

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Yikes

@ March 9, 2010 10:51 PM in Unreal HE corrosion

Yah I'd love to be able to pull this one apart and see whats happening inside. I ah, "bumped" into the flue connector when the agent went upstairs but is was too tight...

It was fin/tube BB radiation, diverter Tee system. I rarely see a boiler with any kind of controls beyond the hydrostat that came with it (cept in my own basement & on this board)

Here's a pic of the boiler and the chimney base.

No, not damp

@ March 9, 2010 10:23 PM in Unreal HE corrosion

No, the basement isn't damp. I've been in really damp basements and not seen anything on this level. The gas fired water heater right next to it looked clean as can be and is the same age.

I did this as part of a property inspection so I'm not allowed to take off the filters and open up the burner. I was tempted to bleed some oil from the burner but the listing agent was skulking around...

The house has been vacant for a while and was cold when I got there. I fired it up and let it run through a full cycle just to check function/temp/pressure and look at the burn.

Unreal HE corrosion

@ March 9, 2010 9:18 PM in Unreal HE corrosion

These pics are from a 7 or 8 year old, oil fired, Burnham HW boiler I looked at the other day. Looks like new, almost, on the exterior. The installation isn't the worst I've ever seen. But before I laid a hand on it I noticed a couple spots of pretty good moisture in the chimney structure a couple/few feet off the floor but still well below the flue connector nipple. Then flue gas condensation induced corrosion seeping out the seems on the connector elbow. So I open the burn chamber inspection port and see the worst corrosion I've yet laid eyes on.
There was a tag from the oil supplier/maintenance company with records of annual service every year, but this is one of two companies I typically tell people to stay far away from for exactly this reason. Though when I fired it up the flame looked fine and there was no backdrafting through the inspection port.
The oil feed line is buried in or below the slab and there is a high water table. I'm leaning toward a hole in the feed line that the burner is sucking water in through. Anybody have other likely culprits?

The first two are looking straight to the left inside the inspection port at the long horizontal fins on the vertical sidewall of the fire chamber - the last is looking hard right

Band Aid Applied

@ February 3, 2010 12:29 AM in Need Steam boier in Dumont NJ

I asked my inlaws if anyone looked at any radiators... no to all, nobody went outside the basement. They all said they would pipe it up real nice in copper.... Like a parade of clowns. Never fails in the middle of Winter.. I couldn't take it anymore and drove out there today. I warned him about the Copper header 10 years ago when I first saw it, but i was still surprised today at the level of corrosion for an 18 year old peerless.

Anyway, I patched the hole pretty well, I'm confident it will hold until spring when I can take my time finding the right contractor or break down and do it myself.

The pics show the rot and the fix. The head of the 3/8th bolt and another 1" washer are inside the water chamber with a good helping of steel impregnated epoxy between the washers and the cast iron, everything sinched up tight and hardened off, it was holding fine when I left...

Dump your preferences

@ February 3, 2010 12:10 AM in Anyone else having this problem, or is it just my Macintosh?

One of the best old standby bug fixes is to dump the preference files for the app. your having trouble with.
Their located in the library folder; preferences. Move it to the trash but don't empty the trash, then restart the app. and the OS will crate a new file. If it has not effect you can take the original out of the trash and replace the new one with it so you won't have to re-save all your user info (passwords, autofill and such)

There are two pref. folders. The primary is in the HD, Library. The user specific is in the User folder, Library. Sometimes you have to dump both.

Steam Boiler replacement needed in Dumont NJ

@ February 1, 2010 1:10 PM in Steam Boiler replacement needed in Dumont NJ

I posted this in the general section, I'll try again here. I need a competent professional (real deadhead) to swap a residential steam boiler in Dumont NJ (just North East of Paramus/Bergenfield).  The find a professional link is turning up nothing and I don't know anyone in that area. This is for my in-laws, their senior citizens (don't tell them I said that) and without heat due to a failed heat exchanger. Their calling any Joe/Schmoe in the phone book and these guys are coming in, looking at the boiler and throwing a price at them. Not looking at the radiation or going through the house at all...

No go

@ February 1, 2010 12:41 PM in Need Steam boier in Dumont NJ

Yah, I already called them, apparently a 1/2 hour drive from the office is too far for them. Thanks anyway.

Need Steam boier in Dumont NJ

@ February 1, 2010 11:55 AM in Need Steam boier in Dumont NJ

I'm trying to find a good craftsman to replace a steam boiler in Dumont NJ - a little North/east of Paramus and the find a professional feature doesn't seam to be working... 

and then some.

@ August 20, 2009 1:12 AM in Transite Pipe

I've seen it for flu and flu connector. Even better there is an area in a town not far from me where it was used as under slab ducting for the forced air systems...

Non Barrier Pex.

@ August 18, 2009 11:04 PM in Under cement floor pipe for heating

Her inspector knows because he has installed a substantial amount of radiant heating himself over the years.

I'm going to stop talking about myself in third person now, because it's weird.

I also know, because it looks like this. Last I checked, Zurn only makes white tubing in Non-barrier grade. And unless someone is producing one I haven't seen yet, totally possible, O2 barrier tubing shows two distinct layers in the cut end, 3 if it's Pex Al Pex or Alumi Pex.

Now, what happened here is that the tubing was laid in a trench that happened to be open for a sub-slab drainage system cause it was a convenient way to get from one side of a fireplace to the other with the baseboard run, so it's not an entire system with non barrier Pex, it's about 10 - 12 feet of tubing. Standard, cast iron heat exchanger boiler. Is the amount of oxygen that may come through this going to be a real problem? I'm not certain, which is why I suggested the OP come here.