In article , "steve" wrote:
I'm getting quotes on a new boiler. Our current HB smith is 17 years old and
has alot of corrosion between the 4th and 5th plates. I'm told it could last
1 month or 5 years??? Also the tankless coil needs replacing. The boiler is
in a crawl space so the size is an issue.
17 years ago there was no internet to do any research but now I've been
looking up these boilers.
of course they all praise their own products. I'm hoping one of you may have
an opinion for the following quotes I've recieved so far.

First and most important: did *any* of the companies do an actual heat loss
calculation on your house?

About six years ago, we had our boiler replaced. It was (apparently) the
original unit, a 450,000 BTU Weil-McClain. We got estimates from five
different heating contractors -- four of whom went from room to room,
measuring the lengths of the baseboard heaters, and concluded that we needed a
boiler in the range of 300 to 350 KBTU.

The fifth guy walked around *outside* the house, measuring walls and windows,
ran a heat-loss calc, and bid a 175 KBTU system.

The thing is, the original system was waaaaaaay oversized, and most of the
contractors were basing their bids on what was in the house already. The fifth
guy based his bid on a calculation of what was actually needed, and it was
*much* less expensive -- and it works, too. We have *never* had a problem with
insufficient heat.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.