Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

October 23, 2002 - 10:15 p.m.

Warmth returns

No, it's not summer again. God heard my prayers and provided the means to an end.

ARS installed a 100,000 BTU boiler in my basement Monday. The old boiler was out by eleven AM. It was a huge sectional boiler, each section was a cast iron hunk weighing about 200 pounds.

The new boiler is about as big as an oversized two drawer filing cabinet. They joined it to the existing pipes with one inch copper lines. It's 80% efficient, and came with a programmable thermostat so I can shut it down when I'm not home and at night.

It came with protective oil coating the heat exchanger, so as it burned off, the house smelled like woodsmoke! That has dissipated, now it's just nice and warm in here.

I came home tonight while the boiler was running. If I listen carefully, I can hear a slight hiss as the pump draws the hot water through the radiators.

Hot water heat is attractive to me for two reasons. Water is a more efficient method for transmitting heat than air, so it takes less effort to gain efficiency. But the best part is the radiators themselves, because they have a flywheel effect. When a forced air heating system turns off, the air stops moving and the rooms start to cool down. When a hot water system (with huge radiators like mine) shuts down, the hot water in the radiators still radiate heat into the room and sustain the warmth for a longer period of time.

I miss having central air conditioning, but since I heat my house more than I cool it, I can live with that.

And, it's nice to be warm again!

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