High Efficiency Boilers Installed and Serviced by K-Wood LLC

Is your boiler bothering you? It may be time to replace that old boiler with a new high efficiency boiler. Even if your boiler is running fine, it still may be advantageous to replace that old boiler system. Through our years of experience, we have discovered a recurring theme in old homes. This theme is an oversized boiler. This is good for 4 hour shower marathons, but will eat you out of house and home when it comes to your utility bills. If it appears that you have an oversized boiler, we will calculate the best sized system for your home so that your system can be as efficient as possible.

Got a summer winter hookup?

If so, sorry. A summer winter hookup is the most inefficient way to heat hot water. To understand why this is the case, you must first understand how a summer winter hookup works. During the summer, the boiler maintains the temperature of a reservoir within the boiler at 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Besides the fact that 180 degrees is too hot for just hot water, the boiler itself is not well insulated. This will cause the water to cool off rapidly; which in turn causes the boiler to run more often, even if you’re not using any hot water. When we replace your boiler, we will replace your summer winter hookup with an indirect system (or, if you choose, we can install a boiler and a cheaper electric hot water heater). This works slightly different. Hot water is treated like a different zone and held within a heavily insulated tank. When the tank drops below the set point, the boiler turns on, heats up the tank, and if nothing else needs heat, turns off. Because of the size of the tank, reduced temperature, and the insulation around the tank, your new boiler will run less often and use a lot less fuel.

To get you the best equipment, we use two different boilers, depending on fuel type.

Oil Boiler

For oil, we use Buderus. The Buderus boiler was born in the high cost fuel arena of the European market. It was designed to be as efficient as possible without sacrificing quality. The G115WS is made of an unusually flexible cast iron. The reason this is important is because of thermal shock. When the boiler is running, the boiler casting is at least at the set temperature (around 180 degrees for heating). But when the cold water enters the boiler, the temperature of the boiler surrounding the water drops rapidly, which causes the cast to shrink rapidly. Then as the cast heats back up, the cast expands again. If the cast iron is too hard, this expansion and contraction will lead to cracks in the cast iron. This can lead to leaks within the boiler which will decrease efficiency and eventually lead to the death of the boiler.

Obviously, the G115WS is Energy Star efficient, and there are multiple reasons for this. One is the front door. This innocuous part of the boiler is a key component to the boilers efficiency. The reason for this is not the steel, but the fact that the door is large and opens up to show the entire combustion chamber. This allows us to thoroughly clean the combustion chamber, which allows for maximum heat to be transferred from the exhaust to the cast iron. Another way that the boiler is efficient is the shape of the internal casting. The path that the exhaust moves in is in the shape of an ‘S’. This gives more surface area for heat to move from the exhaust to the water.

Gas Boiler

Got gas? I mean, do you heat your water by gas, not that you have an upset stomach. Anyway, for gas boilers, we use NTI’s Trinity series of boilers. Their Trinity Fire Tube (TFT) boiler uses a down-fired tube design to help keep the combustion tube clean. The heat exchanger is made of 439 stainless steel. This helps to prevent corrosion, which will not only prolong the lifespan of the boiler but will also increase efficiency from lack of rust. The heat transfer tubes have dimples to aid in heat transference. This allows the boiler to get an AFUE (annual fuel utilization efficiency) of 95%. But Trinity Fire Tube’s features don’t stop at efficiency. It also looks great. It is painted with high quality paint and a clear coat. Plus it has advance controls that use an lCD screen. When we’re not adjusting these controls, we can set it up to have little balls bouncing around the screen. Seriously, we can.