Hello out there. Just wondering what experiences any of you may have with condensing (i.e. high efficiency) boilers. In my area there are now energy utility incentives for installing them. I have never installed one, but am considering a few this fall. Any problems? Pointers? Thx
Typical drawbacks are first price.
The condensing boilers I have come across are sometimes more than twice as much as typical non-condensing boilers. In addition, the flue needs to be am aluminized stainless steel in order to prevent corrosion from the condensing flue gases.
From what I understand the boilers run most efficient at part-load taking advantage of the condensing flue gases and the preheating of the intake air.
We have designed many of these condensing boilers and in applications such as laboratories where they need some form of heat all year-round in order to maintain precise temperature control, they are very economical.
I would recommend the Aerco Benchmark boiler.
Around here there are a lot of Aerco boilers. The benchmark is a fine piece of machinery. We mostly have the KC Series. Like joeseffus said... these and other condensing boilers are expensive and not just on install. The comb. blower for the KC series is about $1000+ your cost, just for the part. Plus per most manu. specs they require a lot of maintenance. I like them for efficency reasons but I would never own one.
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