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New home owner with oil boiler, lots of Qs...
Hello everyone. Found this site last night around 11:30pm and gorged myself on great info until 3:00am. I wish I found you guys many months ago. Our house (purchased in September) has a Weil-McLain Gold Oil boiler which heats the copper and fin baseboards as well as the DHW (didn't figure out what that stood for until about 1:30am :p). The house is a 2 level rambler with 4bd/3br with about 2600 sq/ft and has 2 zones (up/down stairs). We've had no issues with keeping the house warm but the DHW supply is paltry, can't get through a 10 minute shower. We're also going through heating oil very quickly, however, I really don't have a frame of reference on that. I have several questions so I guess I'll type them out in list form.
1. How can I tell the model number (and therefore figure out BTUs) of our boiler?
2. If I want to get an indirect-fired water heater installed would it use the DHW coil in the boiler or the baseboard coil to source the hot water?
3. I was told by a boiler tech that I could install an electric water heater in-line after the DHW coil but he never mentioned an indirect-fired heater. Any thoughts for or against this as an option? Should I be skeptical of this tech if he didn't mention the possibility of an indirect-fired heater? There's no easy way to get 240v to the boiler room so not sure how feasible electric would be anyway.
4. Would an outdoor reset switch help now or could/should I wait until closer to spring to get that installed?
5. Natural gas is available at the street but not at the house. Should I explore the possibility of converting to gas right now (before spending any more money on this setup) or do you think I can make this oil boiler as efficient and cost effective as gas (or close on either count)? I was told the boiler was installed within the last 10 years or so.
6. Can I purge the air out of the system or should that be done by a pro every time?
7. Are there other questions I'm not asking but should?
Here's a picture of the boiler. Thanks in advance. I have a lot to learn and I'll try not to post questions that have been answered a thousand times (already done some searching on these topics going back a few years).
Regards,
Patrick
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