Beckett Heat Manager - experts' opinions?

[smwsmw]

Our oil burner service guy is recommending a "Beckett Heat Manager".

I looked at the tech sheet, and using the graphs, I can't tell the difference between getting the heat manager and just changing the aquastat differential between high and low to 20 degrees. Our Burnham boiler with Riello burner is less than 3 years old. It has a hot water coil.

We normally turn the boiler temps down during the summer. We also have solar panels with a 110 gallon tank for our hot water supply, and may actually turn off the burner during off-heating season if the tank can maintain its heat.

Your feedback is welcomed...

[iwannahelp]

Heat Managers are good as long as the boiler supply temp does normally go above 150 degrees during the heating season. If your water temp is normally lower, then the heat manager won't really be doing anything.
A control that I use a lot is made by Tekmar and it uses outside temp and line temp to determine the required water temp for the boiler with an algorithim used by the controllers processor which saves a lot of fuel.

[smwsmw]

Thanks for the response.

What does the heat manager actually do differently from an aquastat?

Is the Tekmar 262 the device you're talking about? It looks interesting, but the price is 2-3x the cost of the heat manager. What does it do that the heat manager doesn't?

[iwannahelp]

The heat manager varies the water temp according to water temp. An aquastat will only start and stop at a certain selected temp. The heat manger will stop the burner at a lower temp. if the supply temp is hot enough to handle the load, where as the aquastat is gonna run the burner until it's setpoint is satisfied regardless of supply temp. Honestly, there isn't a bunch of energy savings but it does do a little.
The Tekmar 262 is the control. It actually reads the outdoor temp as well as supply temp. This makes for a much broader range of water temp. settings which will save you more money. For example if outdoor temp. is 40 degrees then the controller will keep supply temp cooler and if outdoor temp is 0 degrees then it will raise the supply temp.