- Dec 9, 2009
- 1,495
Had a plumber in yesterday, and mentioned I was looking for a temporary fix because I was going to get my boiler redone, and would replace the pump at that point. He offered to give me a bid on the boiler job, and I agreed. Looked at my setup (burnt-out oil boiler in the garage, with thirty feet of glycol hose running to the house in a utilidor, and no mixing valve in the house for the upstairs HWBB and the downstairs in-floor radiant).
We discussed options, and he asked why have a boiler in the garage rather than the house. I told him that one advantage was that last winter when my boiler blew and sprayed glycol, it was all over the garage instead of the house, that I knew someone whose house burned down from the same boiler when the chimney corroded. So fire safety and the residual heat in the garage were both plusses.
He suggested I consider placing it inside, and said I could get away with about 2/3 the boiler if I weren't heating that long run through the utilidor. Oh?
Then he asked if I'd ever considered a propane boiler, and I said "A what?" and we talked a bit, and I'm considering it. He told me that I could probably save significantly on fuel, and suggested I do my homework.
I don't know anyone who heats their house with a propane boiler. I knew some folks who did it with heaters, and it cost them a fortune--I've just never considered it a viable option, and I have always politely ignored the presence of the "it's a gas" forum on this site. Here I am, knocking on your back door . . .
Can someone steer me towards a Propane Boilers for Simpletons primer? Or give me a run-down on the pros and cons of a propane boiler? (Pro: cheaper. Con: you can blow your house up.) Does it introduce more moisture into the air? Do you have OAKs for combustion air? How much power does it use? How does it function in a power outage? What questions should I be asking that I am too ignorant to even know to ask? Etcerayadda.
We discussed options, and he asked why have a boiler in the garage rather than the house. I told him that one advantage was that last winter when my boiler blew and sprayed glycol, it was all over the garage instead of the house, that I knew someone whose house burned down from the same boiler when the chimney corroded. So fire safety and the residual heat in the garage were both plusses.
He suggested I consider placing it inside, and said I could get away with about 2/3 the boiler if I weren't heating that long run through the utilidor. Oh?
Then he asked if I'd ever considered a propane boiler, and I said "A what?" and we talked a bit, and I'm considering it. He told me that I could probably save significantly on fuel, and suggested I do my homework.
I don't know anyone who heats their house with a propane boiler. I knew some folks who did it with heaters, and it cost them a fortune--I've just never considered it a viable option, and I have always politely ignored the presence of the "it's a gas" forum on this site. Here I am, knocking on your back door . . .
Can someone steer me towards a Propane Boilers for Simpletons primer? Or give me a run-down on the pros and cons of a propane boiler? (Pro: cheaper. Con: you can blow your house up.) Does it introduce more moisture into the air? Do you have OAKs for combustion air? How much power does it use? How does it function in a power outage? What questions should I be asking that I am too ignorant to even know to ask? Etcerayadda.