Oil Boiler?

sham58107

Folks any ideas on good oil boiler, have been recommended Saturn any thoughts ??

K.Flyer

Grant Vortex, job done!

Tom44

sham58107 wrote: »

Folks any ideas on good oil boiler, have been recommended Saturn any thoughts ??

Importer "Pulsar" gone bust years ago and I wish you the best getting parts from Romania.

No compatible parts easily available :mad:

Water John

Firebird, excellent and reliable, Irish as is Grant.

Batman for Robin

Tom44 wrote: »

Importer "Pulsar" gone bust years ago and I wish you the best getting parts from Romania.

No compatible parts easily available :mad:

I have one installed 5 years now. No problems and very easy on fuel. I was concerened when the plumber that installed it said that the companny that sold them went bust. However a company in Co.Monaghan are now stocking the boiler and have plenty of spare parts. I found them through a drastic serch for saturn and came across saturnheating.net. Its your choice but I would definetly recomend one.

Dtp1979

Water John wrote: »

Firebird, excellent and reliable, Irish as is Grant.

Firebird will break your heart. Stick to grant op. There's a reason every decent installer fits them

John T Carroll

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Firebird will break your heart. Stick to grant op. There's a reason every decent installer fits them

Sad to hear that, the Firebird SE (kero fired) Boilers certainly seemed to be pretty good, I have one fitted since May 2005, not even one trip/flame out in nearly 11 years but I suppose thats no big deal with any Kero fired boiler, previously had a 1993 Grant with a Minor One S burner which, while pretty reliable, would trip out a few times/year but in fairness I dont think that this was a Kero fired burner. Anyway, all history now but I wont be throwing out my SE Boiler anytime soon as I value reliability very highly.

Dtp1979

John T Carroll wrote: »

Sad to hear that, the Firebird SE (kero fired) Boilers certainly seemed to be pretty good, I have one fitted since May 2005, not even one trip/flame out in nearly 11 years but I suppose thats no big deal with any Kero fired boiler, previously had a 1993 Grant with a Minor One S burner which, while pretty reliable, would trip out a few times/year but in fairness I dont think that this was a Kero fired burner. Anyway, all history now but I wont be throwing out my SE Boiler anytime soon as I value reliability very highly.

Ye the old firebirds were good in fairness. When they decided to turn the boiler upside down is when the problems started

sham58107

So guys hearing some stuff about Grant as well, are Saturn not made in Korea not Romania ?
2 yr guarantee,and looks good ? worth a shot?
Do not know anything about boilers so help appreciated.
Seems a minefield.

agusta

Grant are made in ireland,5 year warranty!

SuperVegan

Firebird Popular 120

Its a non condensing boiler but its built like a tank and never stops working.

Wearb

SuperVegan wrote: »

Firebird Popular 120

Its a non condensing boiler but its built like a tank and never stops working.

You may not install non condensing boilers now.

Anyway Grant or Firebird condensing. Grant have the advantage, but I have more Firebirds on my books and they run very well so long as properly setup and looked after.

agusta

SuperVegan wrote: »

Firebird Popular 120

Its a non condensing boiler but its built like a tank and never stops working.

Current building regulations state that a new boiler fitted has to be condensing where practical.Condensing boilers are highly efficient.They use less fuel and have lower running cost than non condensing boilers

Dtp1979

Grant have stopped making non condensing. Not sure about firebird

Dtp1979

SuperVegan wrote: »

Firebird Popular 120

Its a non condensing boiler but its built like a tank and never stops working.

The burners on them are almost identical to the burners on modern boilers so little difference there.
Saw a firebird 120 fitted in a house recently that had only 10 rads. The customer thought it was a great job until I explained how oversized and inefficient it was

John T Carroll

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Grant have stopped making non condensing. Not sure about firebird

Just a few practical queries.... has any one of you had any problem anywhere after changing out a SE Boiler for a HE Boiler with the radiater outputs due to the lower water to air temperatures? ie the SE Boiler might result in an average water to air temperature of 55C and the HE might be 40C which off the top of my head might result in 30%? less radiator output, hence my question. The other query is that on my SE Firebird the Boiler thermostat setting range is 65C to 85C, what is it on its HE counterpart and ditto on a HE gas fired boiler, Thanks.

Dtp1979

John T Carroll wrote: »

Just a few practical queries.... has any one of you had any problem anywhere after changing out a SE Boiler for a HE Boiler with the radiater outputs due to the lower water to air temperatures? ie the SE Boiler might result in an average water to air temperature of 55C and the HE might be 40C which off the top of my head might result in 30%? less radiator output, hence my question. The other query is that on my SE Firebird the Boiler thermostat setting range is 65C to 85C, what is it on its HE counterpart and ditto on a HE gas fired boiler, Thanks.

The outputs on the grant aren't numbered but they go to 80 I'm nearly sure. On gas it's around the same. Not sure what you mean about air to water temp

John T Carroll

Dtp1979 wrote: »

The outputs on the grant aren't numbered but they go to 80 I'm nearly sure. On gas it's around the same. Not sure what you mean about air to water temp

Radiator sizing output is based on a temp difference of 50C based on the mean radiator temperature minus the room air temperature so on a SE boiler you could have a rad flow and return temp of 80C & 70C and a on a HE boiler you might have 65C & 55C, assuming a room temperature in both cases of 20C, then the calculations becomes 55C for the SE boiler and 40C for the HE boiler which would result in a substantial reduction in the radiator output and especially in the morning might result in a slow house heat up. I was just wondering if anyone had/has complained about this after a boiler upgrade/replacement. You would possibly install bigger rads on a new build knowing that the temperatures might be lower because a HE Boiler will (have to) be installed.

Wearb

Usually by the time an old boiler has run it's course, there will have been insulation improvements in the house. Double glazing installed, walls pumped, attic insulation etc.. That along with the propensity in the past to over size, usually means that by the time a HE boiler is installed the rads are near enough correctly (or over) sized.

Even when the the above is not the case, a HE boiler can be run without condensing (except for part if the time) and still give large efficiencies over a SE one. This can be witnessed by the much lower flue temp due to the extra heat exchanger.

I usually contend that unless a boiler is really old and has been badly maintained and has a HARP rating below 80% efficiency, The cost effectiveness of changing is difficult to justify. I do attend boiler that have this min HARP rating, but have been let go. Those I would re commend changing.

Now if oil goes to over €1 euro (maybe more) I might need to have a rethink.

John T Carroll

Wearb wrote: »

Usually by the time an old boiler has run it's course, there will have been insulation improvements in the house. Double glazing installed, walls pumped, attic insulation etc.. That along with the propensity in the past to over size, usually means that by the time a HE boiler is installed the rads are near enough correctly (or over) sized.

Even when the the above is not the case, a HE boiler can be run without condensing (except for part if the time) and still give large efficiencies over a SE one. This can be witnessed by the much lower flue temp due to the extra heat exchanger.

I usually contend that unless a boiler is really old and has been badly maintained and has a HARP rating below 80% efficiency, The cost effectiveness of changing is difficult to justify. I do attend boiler that have this min HARP rating, but have been let go. Those I would re commend changing.

Now if oil goes to over €1 euro (maybe more) I might need to have a rethink.

Thanks for that, I suppose the control system could be configured to automatically change the boiler temperature based on the ambient temperature or something like that.
I had very extensive experience of relatively large (55 MW) industrial Steam Boilers wich burned Natural Gas & Bio Gas with heavy fuel oil as a back up and we were always looking at ways to lower the flue gas temperature, looking back there now on my calculations, if you are running with 35% excess air then each 10C change in the flue gas temperature results in a boiler efficiency change of 0.458%. If you ran the HE Boiler in a non condensing mode with a 100C lower flue gas then you would gain around 4.6% greater efficiency so its quite easy to do the sums then on the relative merits (or de merits) of changing out a SE Boiler for a HE Boiler, of course you gain an additional 5% or 6% or even more if firing on Gas if running in a fully condensing mode depending on the hydrogen content of the fuel.

Wearb

There are weather compensators available, which I think should be fitted to HE boilers. Then again it comes down to cost v savings.

Something that I have not been able to do satisfactorily is to calculate the losses due to boiler cycling (oil). A boiler correctly sized will run most of the time at its extreme demand. This will change with rising temperature and zones being shut off. An oversized boiler will do likewise. Have you any thoughts on this issue?

John T Carroll

Wearb wrote: »

There are weather compensators available, which I think should be fitted to HE boilers. Then again it comes down to cost v savings.

Something that I have not been able to do satisfactorily is to calculate the losses due to boiler cycling (oil). A boiler correctly sized will run most of the time at its extreme demand. This will change with rising temperature and zones being shut off. An oversized boiler will do likewise. Have you any thoughts on this issue?

Have a look at this link and scroll down to page 32 I think, I was quite surprised that the air purge losses arn't higher, for example, I think it states that if the boiler had 180 sec (3 min) run time that the efficiency loss due to the purge cycle is 1.5%.
I havn't come across any info re the losses caused by the draught losses when the boiler is off line but the hydraulic shut off damper is a very good idea, is this fitted on the HE Boilers as well??.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/299585742/14/Data-validation-and-energy-balance

Wearb

Will have a look at that later. I always suspected that losses were low, except maybe with conventional flues. Especially ones without automatic draught regulators, which should be fitted to those.
Hydraulic air damper on the burner or low level flues reduce losses a good bit I think.

These losses need to be understood, especially now with so many zones. Understanding the losses will help installers to decide if it is cost effective to install systems to reduce cycling. It has always been considered to be the horror of horrors and I think that except in extreme situations too much weight has been given to it. In most cases with CF a burner damper does the job and it is not a big problem in LLD flues.

oldtt

I've been pointed in the direction of this thread by a friend. As an employee of Saturn Heating, I would like to clear up a few untruths which have been laid out above. The following was sent to boards to post but to no avail.

From Saturn Heating.

“We are delighted to have taken over the agency for Saturn Heating in the Irish Market again. Based out of Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, we offer Saturn’s full range along with an extensive list of spare parts. Distributing through merchants nationwide you should have no problem servicing or acquiring any parts needed. To clarify our origin. Saturn Heating NHC condensing oil boilers with 100% stainless steel heat exchangers are manufactured by KD Navien, based out of South Korea, trading to over 30 countries since 1978, with the majority of its sales being in the US, Canada, China, Russia, Greece, Poland and the UK. With a HQ which produces more than 800,000 boilers per year, our boiler has been rigorously tested by the consumer. We are happy to, and have already spoken and worked with plumbers of our legacy installations for updates and spare parts and we are committed to help any issues Pulsar may have left behind. We are proud to pick up the agency, and hope for continued success. For more visit our website or facebook”

Brochures can be found on the website also, PM me for more details.

Cheers lads, now back to your SE to HE conversation

Wearb

Well JTC, I have been reading information from that link you posted and there is some fascinating information there. At least the parts that I understand. It has to be said that these tests were done on gas boilers, but some of it will hold true on oil boilers. It also gives an insight into usage patterns and DHW heating costs and losses.

Interesting to see that on a 3 min cycle the losses are about 2%. I am not sure if that figure includes flue losses during off periods. It only mentions purge and case losses. It also acknowledges that case losses may be excluded where the loss is in an area requiring that heat.

I think that we all understood that SEBUCK would have been on the high side. It is nice to have a figure on it.. about 5% too high when compared to field trials.

Cylinder losses for different cylinder laggings and pipework are also surprising. As are the figures when calculating the energy delivered to the hot taps.

Another interesting finding was that over-sizing had a relatively small effect, but I suspect that that was due to modulation?

Thanks for posting the link.

John T Carroll

From that report..Quote: "A typical boiler has a total purge (pre- plus- post) of approximately 30 to 45 seconds." Is this correct, ie that the gas boiler does a post purge??.

Niall Lydon

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Firebird will break your heart. Stick to grant op. There's a reason every decent installer fits them

Dead right!!!

Niall Lydon

John T Carroll wrote: »

Radiator sizing output is based on a temp difference of 50C based on the mean radiator temperature minus the room air temperature so on a SE boiler you could have a rad flow and return temp of 80C & 70C and a on a HE boiler you might have 65C & 55C, assuming a room temperature in both cases of 20C, then the calculations becomes 55C for the SE boiler and 40C for the HE boiler which would result in a substantial reduction in the radiator output and especially in the morning might result in a slow house heat up. I was just wondering if anyone had/has complained about this after a boiler upgrade/replacement. You would possibly install bigger rads on a new build knowing that the temperatures might be lower because a HE Boiler will (have to) be installed.

Funnily enough I had a customer and a relation of mine say exactly the same. Weren't as pleased with the output of the condensing boiler. My uncle and I were talking one evening and he put it to me that he reckoned rads from an SE boiler would get piping hot enough you could barely touch where as HE boilers do not.

He also made the point that in car/van engines that have an egr valve are supposed to be bringing your emissions down actually do the reverse and make your vehicle consume more FUEL. If you put that in the context of the boilers rads taking longer to heat up via HE boilers burning more fuel then you've got a conspiracy!!!😣 but logically I can't really see how.

Niall Lydon

Wearb wrote: »

Well JTC, I have been reading information from that link you posted and there is some fascinating information there. At least the parts that I understand. It has to be said that these tests were done on gas boilers, but some of it will hold true on oil boilers. It also gives an insight into usage patterns and DHW heating costs and losses.

Interesting to see that on a 3 min cycle the losses are about 2%. I am not sure if that figure includes flue losses during off periods. It only mentions purge and case losses. It also acknowledges that case losses may be excluded where the loss is in an area requiring that heat.

I think that we all understood that SEBUCK would have been on the high side. It is nice to have a figure on it.. about 5% too high when compared to field trials.

Cylinder losses for different cylinder laggings and pipework are also surprising. As are the figures when calculating the energy delivered to the hot taps.

Another interesting finding was that over-sizing had a relatively small effect, but I suspect that that was due to modulation?

Thanks for posting the link.

Modulating oil boilers??