Of course, the boiler waits until the coldest day of the year

[Rot 911]

Almost coldest day. Only -5° below zero last night. Going to get -13° below tonight. So yesterday the cast iron boiler of our 14-year-old hot water radiator heat decided it wants to crack open horizontally. Which we didn’t discover until my wife comes upstairs from the basement and tells me there’s water all over the place.

There’s no emergency service that’s going to fix a cracked cast-iron boiler on a weekend. This requires a total replacement. Fortunately I’ve got a portable 240V heater that I use in the garage and a bunch of 110v space heaters that I was able to plug in. Managed to keep the house above 60° last night. Not sure if I can keep it above 55° tonight. Our two dogs will be sleeping on the bed with us tonight! Not quite a three dog night.

[Baz]

Sorry to hear, Kurt....but sounds like you have an adequate backup plan for now.

Just curious......your home is heated with radiators then? Interesting!

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by Baz

Sorry to hear, Kurt....but sounds like you have an adequate backup plan for now.
Just curious......your home is heated with radiators then? Interesting!

Yes. The house was built in 1913. We have hot water radiator heat. Which is really nice. Unlike forced air heat, once the water gets up to temperature, the heat is constant in the radiators. It has a water circulator pump, so the warm water is constantly moving through the radiators.And unlike steam, you can’t burn yourself on the radiators. The boiler is quite modern. About the size of a small desk. Computer controlled. Unfortunately, like almost any new appliance, it’s got about a 15 year lifespan. This one lasted 14 years.

[cabmandone]

We always talked about that sort of thing when I was in the HVAC field. Systems always fail on the coldest or hottest days of the year.
Hope y'all stay warm.

[masraum]

Ouch that sucks, and always the way, die right when you need it at the most convenient time.

Good luck getting it fixed quickly.

Our place is going to be weird the next few days. Our home is barely insulated and a bit drafty (I've been working on both the insulation and draftiness so it's a lot better. Our place was 65º downstairs this morning. I suspect over the next 3-4 days, it's going to get down to 60º downstairs, maybe in the 55-60º range. Fortunately, our upstairs should stay plenty warm, and that's where the bedrooms are.

[Rtrorkt]

Had a system exactly like yours in a house built in 1923 in Arlington VA. Feel for you on the cracked boiler. Had a similar issue and replaced the old one with a new more efficient unit. Agree it is the best heat. Non- directional and consistent. Hope you find your solut

[jyl]

One benefit of installing some minisplits is that my house will have some redundancy in HVAC. I don’t like camping out in my house. For a night, it’s fine. Fire in the fireplace, bit jolly, piled on the blankets upstairs and break out the hot water bottles. If this goes on for more than a day, I’m looking for a hotel.

[BK911]

Current Minisplits don't do very well below freezing, and get worse the colder it gets.
We are developing cold climate refrigeration systems that will perform below 0.
Still a few years out before this tech hits home depot.

[rfuerst911sc]

Yesterday I turned my 24k minisplit on and set it to heat mode in anticipation of the cold front . Per the handheld remote I set it to the lowest setting of 61 degrees . This is in my 24 x 26 man cave garage with 12 ' ceilings .

This morning it is 15 degrees out with a feels like temp of 5 . This is quite cold for Georgia . I just walked out to the garage and my digital temp gauge says 63 . Very good heat coming out of the wall unit . The minisplit is 6 years old with no additional heat strips .

Not sure what the cut off point for mine is when it won't produce heat but I do know it works down to the temps I listed above . Efficiency may also vary from brand to brand .

[rwest]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

Yesterday I turned my 24k minisplit on and set it to heat mode in anticipation of the cold front . Per the handheld remote I set it to the lowest setting of 61 degrees . This is in my 24 x 26 man cave garage with 12 ' ceilings .

This morning it is 15 degrees out with a feels like temp of 5 . This is quite cold for Georgia . I just walked out to the garage and my digital temp gauge says 63 . Very good heat coming out of the wall unit . The minisplit is 6 years old with no additional heat strips .

Not sure what the cut off point for mine is when it won't produce heat but I do know it works down to the temps I listed above . Efficiency may also vary from brand to brand .

I checked mine a few times yesterday in the garage and it was keeping up and only drawing 4 to 5 amps. It was about -10 F outside.

The temp in the garage varied from 63 to 48 depending on how far away and close to the floor I checked.

Mine is supposed be able to capture heat at up to -22F.

[gsxrken]

Kurt, if you can get the EXACT model again, it is a very easy swap. Two unions, reconnect the power and fuel oil. If you get a different unit, the feed and return will be in different locations and some serious re-piping will be necessary. You could save a ****-ton of money swapping it out yourself, even if you had a service company come in afterwards to tune the flame and draft parameters. We've had a few neighbors pay $7,000 for new boiler installations, when the unit itself only costs around $2k. That's a nice day's work.

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by gsxrken

Kurt, if you can get the EXACT model again, it is a very easy swap.

Unfortunately, this is a hi efficiency, computer controlled gas boiler. And everything has to pass the city code inspector. Outside of my expertise.

On the plus side, the company that we have used in the past to do with some AC work for us was out this morning, looked everything over and will be out tomorrow morning to start installing the new boiler!

On the negative side, doesn’t look like my wife is going to be getting a new car this year!😂

[jyl]

Glad you’re getting this fixed fast. Until then, may I recommend hot water bottles in bed. Very effective - any water container that seals tightly, wrapped in a towel, will work in a pinch.

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by jyl

Glad you’re getting this fixed fast. Until then, may I recommend hot water bottles in bed. Very effective - any water container that seals tightly, wrapped in a towel, will work in a pinch.

We don’t own any hot water bottles, but we do have heating pads and electric blankets!
We survived the night, and the HVAC guys are here working on the new boiler! They hope to be finished sometime tomorrow! Got a bit chilly outside last night and in the house.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

We don’t own any hot water bottles, but we do have heating pads and electric blankets!
We survived the night, and the HVAC guys are here working on the new boiler! They hope to be finished sometime tomorrow! Got a bit chilly outside last night and in the house.

Yowza! The past 2 mornings, we've been 61º inside downstairs which isn't too bad. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be 8-10º colder in the morning, so I'm expecting the downstairs to be 2-3º colder. I'm looking forward to tomorrow afternoon's temps hitting 50º.

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by masraum

Yowza! The past 2 mornings, we've been 61º inside downstairs which isn't too bad. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be 8-10º colder in the morning, so I'm expecting the downstairs to be 2-3º colder. I'm looking forward to tomorrow afternoon's temps hitting 50º.

This is really the difference between our house, which is well insulated, and yours, which is well, not so well insulated. I know you are working on it, so, obviously, the first step is to seal up all the cracks you can find. And insulate everything that can be easily insulated.

On a sidenote, here is what a high efficiency gas boiler looks like that can heat a 3100 ft.² hot water radiator house. Note the size of it compared to our hot water heater.

[john70t]

If you have a NG stove, put a big covered kettle of simmering water on low.
(Make sure it is burning blue..ie no CO)
That will provide at least one heat source.

We lost electricity during one of those unnatural freak 'sticky snow' storms, probably caused by cloud seeding.
I've never seen snow pile up in a ball 6" on thin wire.
This entire area was a mess. Took a day to restore power. And it was cold.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

This is really the difference between our house, which is well insulated, and yours, which is well, not so well insulated. I know you are working on it, so, obviously, the first step is to seal up all the cracks you can find. And insulate everything that can be easily insulated.

Good advice. A small breeze from the outside will feel colder than a sealed house with paper doors.

I've been looking into AirCrete insulation:
-Spray in walls.
-Or order a shipment of prefab blocks to stack up.

-Twice the R-value of cellulose. Mice do not chew through it or use it for nests(my old ceiling). Fire-proof. Sound-proof.
-No standardization at all.
-Some formulas may contain formaldehyde materials.
-Like porous concrete it will pass water vapor. Water=Rot
-It's like concrete, except lightweight, and might be semi-load-bearing in some circumstances.
-Because it's hard and lightweight it will not shift with a moving structure or ground heave. And it will turn into hidden dust cracks.

Not common use here in the USA. (My internet search-returns were all for the UK)

But adding an additional wall of "easy lego building blocks" is an interesting idea.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

This is really the difference between our house, which is well insulated, and yours, which is well, not so well insulated. I know you are working on it, so, obviously, the first step is to seal up all the cracks you can find. And insulate everything that can be easily insulated.

Yep, yesterday I found a couple of new drafty spots, and used some insulation, a putty knife, and some aluminum tape to seal things up. No more drafts. It's hard to pin point those sorts of things except in extreme temperature situations. I got another one or two back in Nov during a cold spell.
If I was off today instead of working from home, I'd probably be working on a couple more that I discovered yesterday evening.

On a sidenote, here is what a high efficiency gas boiler looks like that can heat a 3100 ft.² hot water radiator house. Note the size of it compared to our hot water heater.

Wow, impressive.

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by masraum

Yep, yesterday I found a couple of new drafty spots, and used some insulation, a putty knife, and some aluminum tape to seal things up. No more drafts.

I’m always amazed at the amount of personal satisfaction I get in just fixing little things like that.