Adding Heart (and Heat) to the Home

As winter decided to send us the coldest weather of the season so far, I am thrilled to show you that we were toasty warm with our new gas boiler and fireplace. Two years ago, I told you about our life without heat in The Heat is On. We knew our oil boiler was nearing its end of life, but we didn’t know how bad it was.

During our first two winters, the house never seemed to get fully warm. And the boiler seemed to constantly need more water, which we could hear when the automatic fill valve cycled. This fall, we discovered that the boiler was completely rusted out and that we were sending most of the steam heat up our chimney instead of through our radiators.

The corroded boiler fell apart at just a touch.

With winter approaching, we didn’t want to waste any more oil or water, so we decided to change out the boiler immediately. This was also the right time to switch from oil to gas. Oil burns hotter, but gas is cheaper and was already available.

Since most single-pipe steam systems were designed by Dead Men, it is hard to find live experts. David went on various discussion boards, looking for a current expert–an expertise that is rare these days. Of primary concern is the configuration of the “near-boiler” piping, made of black steel. If this is installed correctly, dry steam is delivered to the system; if it is not installed correctly, wet steam is sent through the system, decreasing efficiency, increasing knocking and corrosion. David went looking for the best steam heat person in the area and found Ezzy of Creative Solutions Plumbing & Heating; who has studied the Dead Men’s work extensively. To properly size the boiler, he consulted huge books of old radiators finding matches to determine the proper steam volume required.

Changing out boilers was a multi-day project.

Here’s the before and after. The new furnace is much smaller than the previous one. And it doesn’t have any corroded parts! Once the new furnace was in, I could feel the heat radiating throughout the house. For the first time, the large radiators heated all the way through.

As a part of this project, we needed to line the chimney in order to meet new building codes. We decided to check to see what would be required to make our fireplace usable at the same time. We were thrilled that we would not need to make any adjustments to the chimney. (A previous estimate gave a cost that was astronomical!)

Relining the chimney took a big crew from TM Adams. One of them had to climb to the top of our roof and sit on the chimney. Yikes! Others worked from the basement.