I have an old oil hot water furnace and I was wondering if I could reduce
the amount of time and duration it fires up if I added a hot water tank
before or after it? My father in law has a newer, multi zone one and I
noticed he has a ho****er tank beside his. I noticed his doesnt come on as
often as mine does.

My old one is dude for replacement in the next few years and I was also
wondering in what way a new one is better?

mike

miker wrote:
I have an old oil hot water furnace and I was wondering if I could reduce
the amount of time and duration it fires up if I added a hot water tank
before or after it? My father in law has a newer, multi zone one and I
noticed he has a ho****er tank beside his. I noticed his doesnt come on as
often as mine does.

My old one is dude for replacement in the next few years and I was also
wondering in what way a new one is better?

mike

Actually, all other things being same, the higher the duty cycle of
your
burner, the higher the efficiency, for a couple of reasons. The tank is
a
red herring.

New unit, properly sized and set up, will likely be much more
efficient.

What you can do right now: install servo-controlled flue damper.
Insulate
and seal house. Reduce heating to areas that don't need it. Maybe
reduce
spray-tip size a bit, to increase duty-cycle, in consultation with
service
tech.

J

"miker" wrote in message
...
I have an old oil hot water furnace

No, you don't. You have an oil fired boiler. Furnaces heat air, boilers
heat water.


and I was wondering if I could reduce
the amount of time and duration it fires up if I added a hot water tank
before or after it? My father in law has a newer, multi zone one and I
noticed he has a ho****er tank beside his. I noticed his doesnt come on as
often as mine does.

I don't have any personal experience with them, but you can start
researching here
http://www.amtrol.com/boilermate.htm

In theory, a larger reservoir requires less cycling, but it still takes a
given amount of energy to heat water to a given temperature. You want to do
it as efficiently as possible.