I have missed a few videos, but with the roof square footage I would try to keep as much electric as possible and add solar panels to the roof. That would be mini splits + 2 gallon water heaters under sinks + heat pump water heaters in the boiler room. And keep the boiler intact and functioning for usage when solar just isn't keeping up... The only way keeping a building this size private is for it to be self-sustaining (little to no ongoing costs after sunk costs). Living in the South I have never actually seen a boiler. Just the radiators on the walls in large buildings. Enjoying watching... Stay safe.
Oh dear Jason, what a headache this system is for you. I wish you the very best of luck on getting a solution that is not going to cost an arm and a leg. I know the property is big, but surely there is a more efficient system that you could install. Research, Research, Research. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be the case with every major utility you are going to have to fix in the property. Well, they say every journey begins with the first step, and this heating/cooling system is a huge step!!! Hoping that you are feeling better now and looking forward to the next video. 😊😊
Learned a lot, when I will use it? probably never😂. Very complicated and expensive situation, but you have to have heat! Will be watching your choices, Jason.
Thank you! And hey you never know! I sometimes feel like I might just get fed up with society and move into the woods and build a cabin! Im gonna need some rain water barrels for sure!
Copper is naturally anti-microbial. One of the biggest things I'm not a fan of with the plastic stuff. The plastic stuff is absolutely a lot easier to deal with and I do agree - you would be crazy to try to fix the copper. If you can get the copper out, you can get some decent scrap value for whatever is easy to get to and pull out of there. That older copper is thicker too so you should get some good weight. Do loop the hot water with a recirc pump, and insulate as much as you can on the hot water side too. It doesn't cost that much more and it makes a HUGE difference where you can pull pipe with the insulation. I was only able to insulate the portion of the return and hot water supply that was in my basement in my last house (probably about 50% of the linear feet of plumbing) but it cut my gas bill by about 20%. I also changed out the bathroom light switches with Zwave light switches that triggered my home automation system to run the recirculating pump for 30 minutes after you turned the lights on. That way the pump only ran when the lights in the bathroom were turned on. That made a huge difference too.
Sounds actually like a pretty cool system. I am thinking of doing a recirc system but It doesnt make sense to do whole house. I am considering maybe a recirc line on each floor, and have the ability to turn off a floor incase its vacant or not needed. The issue is even when the boiler was set in the center of the house, there is alot of linear footage of pipe that needs to be recirculated if the heater is in the basement. Its about 40 feet up and the building is 95x45, so even by half you are talking maybe a one way trip of almost 100 feet, 200 foot recirc at minimum. If one of the heaters can be relocated to each floor. I can drop that number by 100 feet almost. I wanted to run a manifold system to help with water distribution and help with shut offs whenever new problems arise but there is so much run of pipe and distance it might not be effective. I don't want to be dumping multiple quarts of water down the drain just waiting for the hot water to reach the fixture. But We will see! Appreciate the comment and suggestions!
@@watchere I think with a house like yours point water heating like is popular in Europe makes a lot of sense. Good luck finding an electric showerhead here though 🤓 Those things still amaze me but they find our concern over them amusing.
A steam boiler story: Many years ago, part of my teaching duties was in an old (circa 1840) building with steam heat. That boiler put out enough to heat half the town! It needed replacement, so they weren't going to spend any money to repair it. The condensation pump and the automatic fill stopped working, and when it ran out of water the burner would shut down. As the only male staff member, it was up to me to refill the boiler and start the burner. One morning, when I opened the door to the cellar it seemed unusually hot, and when I looked toward the cement-block enclosure for the boiler I could see glimpses of a red glow. I recommended that the building be evacuated immediately. If the automatic fill had decided to work there would have been cast iron shrapnel flying everywhere. Since then I have hated steam heat.
Wow! That is incredible, Steam is very violent and dangerous. I suppose that is also why there are multiple fail safes on this unit. I have seen some old documentarys about steam engine trains and when they fail its catastrophic! Glad you and everyone made it out safe! And to tell the story none the less!
Really no doubt in my mind from plumbing in that age will have lead solder. However many water treatment plants have added phosphates to the water to prevent much of it from going into the water. Who knows how well it works. I grew up drinking water that was terrible from the local river so we always filtered it with a brita or something. Hopefully that helps but a replumb is prob a good idea regardless! Thanks for the comment!
Some ideas here: * If you wanted to install a chiller in that room in the space, you can pipe cold water through them for summer cooling and install fans behind them to blow the cold air out. * I would not install a BBQ in that space. The Carbon monoxide emission levels would be too high for charcoal. Charcoal should only be burned outside. In any case you will want to install a hood if you do any kind of cooking appliance there. * As to water heaters, it is possible even with gas to to limit how much they run. There are timers available for gas water heaters (I Googled this). Another option may be to run pipes to connect the water heaters in series. This way, only one will turn on at a time for the most part for small water draws, and the others turn on when the water draw is much larger. The others will act as trickle tanks where the water is kept hot. * Since your steam boiler is oversized, I wondered it would be cheaper to repair the pipes to the other side of your building, and install a steam to hot water heat exchanger on the like and feed the radiators on the other side from your steam heater using the exchanger. * I suppose you could use a gas hot water heater on the other side to feed the radiators too. I suspect that if you pumped a water loop through the heater, it would work if you set it to a high temperature (about 150-160 degrees). * You may want to see if there is an electronic ignition conversion for that boiler. That way you will not waste gas with the pilots running all the time. Electronic ignition will allow the gas to turn on when heat is needed. * If you are going to replumb the entire system, you could look into full hot water conversion of all the radiators and use a heat exchanger. If you do go with individual units, you might look into the wall A/C units that mount up top.
Thanks for the reply! Many valid points here. Still weighing the options, the biggest thing is since the building is so large and the school previously didnt care about the utility bills most of the heating and cooling systems in this place are really inefficient. Since I will be paying all the utilities any bit to increase the efficiency seems like would be a good call to do now instead of later. This is also one of the reasons I have been holding off on doing the water, if i cant get the heating system working before winter the pipes will just refreeze again which is not ideal. The multiple loops are completely separate, so there is a radiant water loop for the anex, there is a steam loop for the main house, then there are multiple water loops between the main and the 3 water heaters and the different zones. So i am hoping to replace essentially just the water loops for the faucets and water heaters. I may luck out and some sections of copper pipe not blown out..... but I'm not holding my breath at this point. There are already tons of signs of water leakage and pipes rupturing everywhere, Might be a matter of time before a failure happens even if I decide to use partially existing pipes. Just want to be sure i dont wake up to a nice shower one day from the ceiling! Mini splits are a option I am looking into too (the ac units that mount up top) as always thanks for the suggestions!!!
I get The Shining Overlook Hotel vibes.....I'd ignore all this old & probably end of life tech that designed to run a massive school 24/7 and not a house - and start new with modern more efficient solutions...
ditch it all - scrap it and install about 2-4 mini splits after thoroughly insulating, run 1 24/7 in the basement and your pipes won't freeze - you could power them all with solar - they are so efficient you will see major savings
We had to replace our hot water heater, and went with on demand. You need a fancy plumbing bit at the farthest point in the house to keep hot water in the lines, but it’s still a ton better than a regular water heater. Not sure what you mean about vents … ours is in the basement and they drilled a hole in the wall and ran a vent pipe up the outside of the house to a point above the roofline. Obviously your place is about a million times bigger than my 1800 sq ft bungalow, but it seems like the theory would be the same. They’re more expensive to install, but cheaper to run.
The vent is the hole that was drilled through your wall. So the main water line goes through the center of the house and all the bedrooms are on the outside walls. The house was built in 1918 so natural light was pretty important. Any utility rooms are then plumbed through the center of the house. So If i were to run on demand water heater the heater would have to be placed in the center of the house essentially. I would need to vent a pipe 20 foot minimum to the outside wall to draw fresh air and vent exhaust gases from the heater. If that makes sense? I don't know If I explained that clearly. Thanks for the Comment Auntie Tara!
@@watchere Yup! Got it. I went back and took screenshots of the floor plans (because one of my favorite things about your channel is all the fascinating rabbit holes!), and now I have a clearer picture in my mind of what you’re dealing with. Our on demand is in the basement on an outside wall right next to where the water main comes in, so it was a “simple” installation. 🙄 (You know what I mean. It took half a day, but required very little creativity to make it work.) It SEEMS to me like you could hang an on demand unit on the boiler room wall (the outside wall) and run the water line to the unit rather than hanging it where the water heater is now and running all that vent pipe. Or you could just replace the hot water heater! 😂 So many things to think about! 😁
That's a lot of decisions to make with the heating. Good thing you have a buddy in the business to give you advice and direction. Maybe...his professional discounts on equipment/systems when purchasing.
Even with is wholesale discounts hes sayings its going to cripple me lol. Well when we are budget constrained we learn to get creative with solutions instead of just throw money at it. Hopefully i'll come up with something!
It sounds like it's time to start making decisions about whether you want to restore the house to what it most likely looked like before the school took over the building. That's going to have an effect on decisions about heating and cooling. I'm glad these are your decisions to make and not mine.
Mini splits you have heat and air that you can control room by room. Water heaters on every floor. Your talking about tearing out all the copper. You can do all kinds of things with pex.
Correct. Though the issue is the main pipe running through the house is in the center of the house. So If i branched off there and put it in that closet it would need quite a long pipe pro 20 feet each direction to draw in fresh air and expel exhaust. If i were to mount on an exterior wall that would make more sense, HOWEVER most exterior walls are occupied by bedrooms or bathrooms, and might be subject more prone to freezing since there is no insulation in the walls. If there were any faults in the system it might freeze in a matter of hours vs a matter of days if the house can retain some sort of heat.
Those boilers are rough for sure. I do boiler water chemistry as my job so I've got recommendations on the water side of things, but it looks like you've got a few mechanical issues to resolve before worrying about water. If you do move forward with fixing up the steam boiler I highly recommend getting a simple water hardness test kit and testing your incoming water. Hardness (calcium and magnesium) in the incoming city water will become scale (calcium/magnesium carbonate aka limestone) in the boiler when it's operating and will quickly ruin any remaining efficiency you have. Not to mention it can eventually lead the boiler to failing since scale is an insulater and is inversely soluble (precipitates on the hottest surface first, opposite of most things that dissolve like salt and sugar). Scale the thickness of a sheet of paper on the boiler tubes will reduce your heat transfer efficiency by 10%, and less heat transfer means more gas to get the same amount of heating to your building which costs more money. If you get it up and running, you're going to want to get some water treatment on the boiler soon to help reduce corrosion and scale. For a small boiler like that, I'd recommend a sodium nitrite-based steam boiler treatment, much simpler and less complicated than traditional oxygen scavenging chemistry, and likely less expensive as long as you don't lose too much steam and water to leaks. Many things are a compromise in some fashion. A central heating system like this can offer simplicity in fewer individual pieces of equipment to break or fix vs many smaller heat pump mini-splits. But you've got to deal with older equipment and the headaches that can come from not being properly maintained over the years before you inherited them.
Thanks Grant! Awesome reply. I completely understand the situation you are describing. If I can get a probe down there maybe get a sample of what the boiler tank is made of I may try to come up with a solution to disolve the scale if possible. I do have a Chemistry background so I should be able to come up with something to dissolve the scale with out harming the original tank. My fear is that the tank is pitted and from the years of vacancy perhaps there might be a crack in the main, tank in that case it would be not cost effective to repair. I think over all I will fix this up as a temporary fix. Install more efficient systems like mini splits and then use this as a back up heat source for the extremely cold weather. Thanks for the tips I do really appreciate it!
If you thought that anything about this house would be easy and cheap, think again. It's a commercial-sized building so its systems - like the heat - are going to be commercial sized at commercial prices. For the coming winter I'd get heat and water to just a couple of rooms and think about what the grand plan is.
You are in over your head soooo far. Even if you fix that mess you'll need to hire an around the clock maintenance man with a steam boiler operator license. You have no clue how that octopus works. I guess watching how this nightmare works out is a good enough reason to keep following.
I have run into plumbing problems with my old house. You could do some of the pipe replacement. A hot water heater per floor depends on number of full bathrooms per floor.
On demand water heaters are great however they need to be maintained more frequently than the average tank heater. Also you may not necessarily have to have the individual on demand in the same room that you intend to use it your hot water lines are already ran to the basement you could just have the zones set up
I been looking into it so hopefully there is suitable solution. On demand does need to be flushed out alot. But at this point If i have to blow down a steam boiler every week or twice a week, flushing out all the on demand heaters once every 6 months is going to feel like cake.
Just a thought for you. We recently had our hot water system replaced in our old house with copper pipes and the plumber said having copper pipes is like owning a Ferrari and to never replace them. Hang on to them if you can.
Dont get me wrong. I LOVE copper. copper is a great material. The biggest issue is They are all snaked in the walls, there is no plumbing blueprint for this place and the whole building has been through 3 winters un heated. So there are all kinds of weak spots and blow outs everywhere. For me to find each hole and cut it out and solder or braze in every failure spot might be a nightmare, plus even if i replace all the sections there may be weaker spots just waiting to blow open. Figured a replumb would be the easiest and for piece of mind in the future.
I am watching the full series and finding it very interesting. The amount of money is go to be astronomical to complete the renovation from start to end. For being an accidental purchase are you prepared for the cost it's going to take to complete this project?
Its going to be a process for sure. Many of these items I accounted for before i made the purchase, but was hoping some stuff was salvageable. Once again prepare for the worst hope for the best. The good news is, I don't have a time frame on the project so technically I can just work little by little to repair all the issues. So that helps alot. There is no pressure to move in by a certain date either since I do have another place to stay at. But I am constantly reminded every month of how much of a money sink this place is when I have to write that check to the bank!
Those of us that own a home have all heard and maybe said those words. If you can’t do gas on demand water heaters my suggestion is don’t do them at all. So what’s next? How do you start?
I think I have some thoughts planned out. Going to sleep on it for a while. Its a big project so i think lots of thought and planning needs to go through. I think first try to order the cracked part and see how much of this system still works. Then decide afterward what to do I suppose. Everything is mostly up in the air. I think an effecient system like a heat pump should be installed regardless just to decrease utility bills. Maybe keep this as a back up just incase?
You have mentioned how old and historical importance the history this building has. Have you spoken to the Historical Society regarding the renovation. Do you plan to return this back to the original state and can you get funding from the Historical Society to help with renovations?
Not historical. Too far gone to be reverted. To be historical it would probably need the extra wing torn completely down. That may be a different story though we will see!
He popped his hat up and scratched his head immediately. That's contractor sign language for, "Oh, damn, this is effed."
hahaha he knew lol
Sure is.
I have missed a few videos, but with the roof square footage I would try to keep as much electric as possible and add solar panels to the roof. That would be mini splits + 2 gallon water heaters under sinks + heat pump water heaters in the boiler room. And keep the boiler intact and functioning for usage when solar just isn't keeping up... The only way keeping a building this size private is for it to be self-sustaining (little to no ongoing costs after sunk costs).
Living in the South I have never actually seen a boiler. Just the radiators on the walls in large buildings. Enjoying watching...
Stay safe.
Wow, that seems super overwhelming. Hats off to you. Can't wait to see the outcome.
Oh dear Jason, what a headache this system is for you. I wish you the very best of luck on getting a solution that is not going to cost an arm and a leg. I know the property is big, but surely there is a more efficient system that you could install. Research, Research, Research. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be the case with every major utility you are going to have to fix in the property. Well, they say every journey begins with the first step, and this heating/cooling system is a huge step!!! Hoping that you are feeling better now and looking forward to the next video. 😊😊
Lol...welcome back again. Glad to see you are feeling better and back to work on this little project.
LITTLE project..... lol.
Thanks John!!
Learned a lot, when I will use it? probably never😂. Very complicated and expensive situation, but you have to have heat! Will be watching your choices, Jason.
Thank you! And hey you never know! I sometimes feel like I might just get fed up with society and move into the woods and build a cabin! Im gonna need some rain water barrels for sure!
Copper is naturally anti-microbial. One of the biggest things I'm not a fan of with the plastic stuff. The plastic stuff is absolutely a lot easier to deal with and I do agree - you would be crazy to try to fix the copper. If you can get the copper out, you can get some decent scrap value for whatever is easy to get to and pull out of there. That older copper is thicker too so you should get some good weight.
Do loop the hot water with a recirc pump, and insulate as much as you can on the hot water side too. It doesn't cost that much more and it makes a HUGE difference where you can pull pipe with the insulation. I was only able to insulate the portion of the return and hot water supply that was in my basement in my last house (probably about 50% of the linear feet of plumbing) but it cut my gas bill by about 20%. I also changed out the bathroom light switches with Zwave light switches that triggered my home automation system to run the recirculating pump for 30 minutes after you turned the lights on. That way the pump only ran when the lights in the bathroom were turned on. That made a huge difference too.
Sounds actually like a pretty cool system. I am thinking of doing a recirc system but It doesnt make sense to do whole house. I am considering maybe a recirc line on each floor, and have the ability to turn off a floor incase its vacant or not needed. The issue is even when the boiler was set in the center of the house, there is alot of linear footage of pipe that needs to be recirculated if the heater is in the basement. Its about 40 feet up and the building is 95x45, so even by half you are talking maybe a one way trip of almost 100 feet, 200 foot recirc at minimum. If one of the heaters can be relocated to each floor. I can drop that number by 100 feet almost. I wanted to run a manifold system to help with water distribution and help with shut offs whenever new problems arise but there is so much run of pipe and distance it might not be effective. I don't want to be dumping multiple quarts of water down the drain just waiting for the hot water to reach the fixture. But We will see!
Appreciate the comment and suggestions!
@@watchere I think with a house like yours point water heating like is popular in Europe makes a lot of sense. Good luck finding an electric showerhead here though 🤓 Those things still amaze me but they find our concern over them amusing.
A steam boiler story: Many years ago, part of my teaching duties was in an old (circa 1840) building with steam heat. That boiler put out enough to heat half the town! It needed replacement, so they weren't going to spend any money to repair it. The condensation pump and the automatic fill stopped working, and when it ran out of water the burner would shut down. As the only male staff member, it was up to me to refill the boiler and start the burner. One morning, when I opened the door to the cellar it seemed unusually hot, and when I looked toward the cement-block enclosure for the boiler I could see glimpses of a red glow. I recommended that the building be evacuated immediately. If the automatic fill had decided to work there would have been cast iron shrapnel flying everywhere. Since then I have hated steam heat.
What an experience to go through!
Wow! That is incredible, Steam is very violent and dangerous. I suppose that is also why there are multiple fail safes on this unit. I have seen some old documentarys about steam engine trains and when they fail its catastrophic! Glad you and everyone made it out safe! And to tell the story none the less!
So glad to see u back .Have no suggestions about your water problem but can't wait to watch your problem solving fix good luck 😉
Thank you!!
I bet the house is plumbed with lead in the soldered connections. Per is probably a good idea.
Really no doubt in my mind from plumbing in that age will have lead solder. However many water treatment plants have added phosphates to the water to prevent much of it from going into the water. Who knows how well it works. I grew up drinking water that was terrible from the local river so we always filtered it with a brita or something. Hopefully that helps but a replumb is prob a good idea regardless! Thanks for the comment!
I love radiator heat. In MD many homes still have them.
They are great, just the cost to get them to function again may be more expensive than they are worth, plus heating inefficiencies!
Glad to have you posting again I miss these videos so much. Ty @Yason.
I'm trying! Thanks for watching!!! and you are absolutely welcome!! I appreciate you ms brandi!
Some ideas here:
* If you wanted to install a chiller in that room in the space, you can pipe cold water through them for summer cooling and install fans behind them to blow the cold air out.
* I would not install a BBQ in that space. The Carbon monoxide emission levels would be too high for charcoal. Charcoal should only be burned outside. In any case you will want to install a hood if you do any kind of cooking appliance there.
* As to water heaters, it is possible even with gas to to limit how much they run. There are timers available for gas water heaters (I Googled this). Another option may be to run pipes to connect the water heaters in series. This way, only one will turn on at a time for the most part for small water draws, and the others turn on when the water draw is much larger. The others will act as trickle tanks where the water is kept hot.
* Since your steam boiler is oversized, I wondered it would be cheaper to repair the pipes to the other side of your building, and install a steam to hot water heat exchanger on the like and feed the radiators on the other side from your steam heater using the exchanger.
* I suppose you could use a gas hot water heater on the other side to feed the radiators too. I suspect that if you pumped a water loop through the heater, it would work if you set it to a high temperature (about 150-160 degrees).
* You may want to see if there is an electronic ignition conversion for that boiler. That way you will not waste gas with the pilots running all the time. Electronic ignition will allow the gas to turn on when heat is needed.
* If you are going to replumb the entire system, you could look into full hot water conversion of all the radiators and use a heat exchanger.
If you do go with individual units, you might look into the wall A/C units that mount up top.
Thanks for the reply!
Many valid points here. Still weighing the options, the biggest thing is since the building is so large and the school previously didnt care about the utility bills most of the heating and cooling systems in this place are really inefficient. Since I will be paying all the utilities any bit to increase the efficiency seems like would be a good call to do now instead of later. This is also one of the reasons I have been holding off on doing the water, if i cant get the heating system working before winter the pipes will just refreeze again which is not ideal.
The multiple loops are completely separate, so there is a radiant water loop for the anex, there is a steam loop for the main house, then there are multiple water loops between the main and the 3 water heaters and the different zones. So i am hoping to replace essentially just the water loops for the faucets and water heaters. I may luck out and some sections of copper pipe not blown out..... but I'm not holding my breath at this point. There are already tons of signs of water leakage and pipes rupturing everywhere, Might be a matter of time before a failure happens even if I decide to use partially existing pipes. Just want to be sure i dont wake up to a nice shower one day from the ceiling!
Mini splits are a option I am looking into too (the ac units that mount up top)
as always thanks for the suggestions!!!
I love that place! The rooms look huge!!
I get The Shining Overlook Hotel vibes.....I'd ignore all this old & probably end of life tech that designed to run a massive school 24/7 and not a house - and start new with modern more efficient solutions...
So glad you're back! Hope you're well!
Wow!! What a cluster you have there!! Good to see a new video!!
indeed it is! Thanks for watching!
I love your friend's bluntness
He definitely doesnt hold back! haha
ditch it all - scrap it and install about 2-4 mini splits after thoroughly insulating, run 1 24/7 in the basement and your pipes won't freeze - you could power them all with solar - they are so efficient you will see major savings
Looking into it for sure thank you!!!
We had to replace our hot water heater, and went with on demand. You need a fancy plumbing bit at the farthest point in the house to keep hot water in the lines, but it’s still a ton better than a regular water heater. Not sure what you mean about vents … ours is in the basement and they drilled a hole in the wall and ran a vent pipe up the outside of the house to a point above the roofline. Obviously your place is about a million times bigger than my 1800 sq ft bungalow, but it seems like the theory would be the same.
They’re more expensive to install, but cheaper to run.
The vent is the hole that was drilled through your wall. So the main water line goes through the center of the house and all the bedrooms are on the outside walls. The house was built in 1918 so natural light was pretty important. Any utility rooms are then plumbed through the center of the house. So If i were to run on demand water heater the heater would have to be placed in the center of the house essentially. I would need to vent a pipe 20 foot minimum to the outside wall to draw fresh air and vent exhaust gases from the heater. If that makes sense? I don't know If I explained that clearly. Thanks for the Comment Auntie Tara!
@@watchere Yup! Got it. I went back and took screenshots of the floor plans (because one of my favorite things about your channel is all the fascinating rabbit holes!), and now I have a clearer picture in my mind of what you’re dealing with.
Our on demand is in the basement on an outside wall right next to where the water main comes in, so it was a “simple” installation. 🙄 (You know what I mean. It took half a day, but required very little creativity to make it work.)
It SEEMS to me like you could hang an on demand unit on the boiler room wall (the outside wall) and run the water line to the unit rather than hanging it where the water heater is now and running all that vent pipe.
Or you could just replace the hot water heater! 😂
So many things to think about! 😁
This is my boiler room, where I keep the bodies. lol
Risu, have you seen the incinerator a room over? haha jokes aside its pretty creep down th ere
Afternoon yason. Pain in the ass boilers are.
indeed they are!!
That's a lot of decisions to make with the heating. Good thing you have a buddy in the business to give you advice and direction. Maybe...his professional discounts on equipment/systems when purchasing.
Even with is wholesale discounts hes sayings its going to cripple me lol. Well when we are budget constrained we learn to get creative with solutions instead of just throw money at it. Hopefully i'll come up with something!
It sounds like it's time to start making decisions about whether you want to restore the house to what it most likely looked like before the school took over the building. That's going to have an effect on decisions about heating and cooling.
I'm glad these are your decisions to make and not mine.
Mini splits you have heat and air that you can control room by room. Water heaters on every floor. Your talking about tearing out all the copper. You can do all kinds of things with pex.
brother it looks like you are about to fly an Apollo mission
Im sure my head would explode in that as well hahaha!
Keep hot water heaters if power or worse happens you still have 40 gallons of water available. Lost power for 11 days still had water!!!
I dont recall how big these heaters are but they are BIG! So maybe even more!
My understanding is that on-demand water heaters vent directly to the outside right through the wall.
Correct. Though the issue is the main pipe running through the house is in the center of the house. So If i branched off there and put it in that closet it would need quite a long pipe pro 20 feet each direction to draw in fresh air and expel exhaust. If i were to mount on an exterior wall that would make more sense, HOWEVER most exterior walls are occupied by bedrooms or bathrooms, and might be subject more prone to freezing since there is no insulation in the walls. If there were any faults in the system it might freeze in a matter of hours vs a matter of days if the house can retain some sort of heat.
Glad to see you I havent for awhile. Im sure you will figure out whats best
Those boilers are rough for sure. I do boiler water chemistry as my job so I've got recommendations on the water side of things, but it looks like you've got a few mechanical issues to resolve before worrying about water. If you do move forward with fixing up the steam boiler I highly recommend getting a simple water hardness test kit and testing your incoming water. Hardness (calcium and magnesium) in the incoming city water will become scale (calcium/magnesium carbonate aka limestone) in the boiler when it's operating and will quickly ruin any remaining efficiency you have. Not to mention it can eventually lead the boiler to failing since scale is an insulater and is inversely soluble (precipitates on the hottest surface first, opposite of most things that dissolve like salt and sugar). Scale the thickness of a sheet of paper on the boiler tubes will reduce your heat transfer efficiency by 10%, and less heat transfer means more gas to get the same amount of heating to your building which costs more money. If you get it up and running, you're going to want to get some water treatment on the boiler soon to help reduce corrosion and scale. For a small boiler like that, I'd recommend a sodium nitrite-based steam boiler treatment, much simpler and less complicated than traditional oxygen scavenging chemistry, and likely less expensive as long as you don't lose too much steam and water to leaks.
Many things are a compromise in some fashion. A central heating system like this can offer simplicity in fewer individual pieces of equipment to break or fix vs many smaller heat pump mini-splits. But you've got to deal with older equipment and the headaches that can come from not being properly maintained over the years before you inherited them.
Thanks Grant!
Awesome reply. I completely understand the situation you are describing. If I can get a probe down there maybe get a sample of what the boiler tank is made of I may try to come up with a solution to disolve the scale if possible. I do have a Chemistry background so I should be able to come up with something to dissolve the scale with out harming the original tank. My fear is that the tank is pitted and from the years of vacancy perhaps there might be a crack in the main, tank in that case it would be not cost effective to repair. I think over all I will fix this up as a temporary fix. Install more efficient systems like mini splits and then use this as a back up heat source for the extremely cold weather.
Thanks for the tips I do really appreciate it!
Another option might be to install ductwork and convert to forced air.
If you thought that anything about this house would be easy and cheap, think again. It's a commercial-sized building so its systems - like the heat - are going to be commercial sized at commercial prices. For the coming winter I'd get heat and water to just a couple of rooms and think about what the grand plan is.
Yup that is sinking in more and more. I cant even get pipes at a home depot, they dont have pipes big enough!
You got this!🤩
Money pit 2.0...!!!
I like the statement, "Call Tom Hanks."
I believe money pit 1.0 is referring to all the junk cars I own hahaha, Hey hey he didn't meet me yesterday this was expected
You are in over your head soooo far. Even if you fix that mess you'll need to hire an around the clock maintenance man with a steam boiler operator license. You have no clue how that octopus works. I guess watching how this nightmare works out is a good enough reason to keep following.
Glad I can be a source of entertainment haha thanks Cap.
Your HVAC guy is knowledgeable. You might want to start with a new source of heat for peace of mind.
So isn't owning a home fun? Just another job that will be good when it's done. Stay healthy, happy and safe always. 😊
Haha thats definately the truth! Thanks for the comment, and I hope the same to you too! Thank you!
@@watchere your very welcome
Keep up the good work!
Great update! Until the next video 🤗
Thank you! 🤗
Copper prices really good at scrap yards!!!
Not sure If i can even pull most of it but i will see what i can do!
I have run into plumbing problems with my old house. You could do some of the pipe replacement. A hot water heater per floor depends on number of full bathrooms per floor.
about 3-4 bathrooms per floor with showers. So seems like a water heater per floor wouldnt be out of reason.
@watchere I agree. Then do piping a floor at a time. Doing a bathroom at a time. I have the old galvanized pipe and filter my drinking water
You understand these are suggestions. I am not there and I am not you. Each situation is different. Have a great day
On demand water heaters are great however they need to be maintained more frequently than the average tank heater. Also you may not necessarily have to have the individual on demand in the same room that you intend to use it your hot water lines are already ran to the basement you could just have the zones set up
I been looking into it so hopefully there is suitable solution. On demand does need to be flushed out alot. But at this point If i have to blow down a steam boiler every week or twice a week, flushing out all the on demand heaters once every 6 months is going to feel like cake.
Get a bucket!
What about radiant flooring for some areas?
Would be difficult since alot of the floors are concrete would have to break it up and re pour everything
Alive and well!
Still kickin! Thanks Marissa!
This video is giving me anxiety. 🤞 good luck.
😊
Goodness, so really hard decisions to be made about, water and steam heat or new.
Just a thought for you. We recently had our hot water system replaced in our old house with copper pipes and the plumber said having copper pipes is like owning a Ferrari and to never replace them. Hang on to them if you can.
Dont get me wrong. I LOVE copper. copper is a great material. The biggest issue is They are all snaked in the walls, there is no plumbing blueprint for this place and the whole building has been through 3 winters un heated. So there are all kinds of weak spots and blow outs everywhere. For me to find each hole and cut it out and solder or braze in every failure spot might be a nightmare, plus even if i replace all the sections there may be weaker spots just waiting to blow open. Figured a replumb would be the easiest and for piece of mind in the future.
I am watching the full series and finding it very interesting. The amount of money is go to be astronomical to complete the renovation from start to end. For being an accidental purchase are you prepared for the cost it's going to take to complete this project?
Its going to be a process for sure. Many of these items I accounted for before i made the purchase, but was hoping some stuff was salvageable. Once again prepare for the worst hope for the best. The good news is, I don't have a time frame on the project so technically I can just work little by little to repair all the issues. So that helps alot. There is no pressure to move in by a certain date either since I do have another place to stay at. But I am constantly reminded every month of how much of a money sink this place is when I have to write that check to the bank!
Hi Jason... Hope you have a good day!!
I hope you do too!!!
Those of us that own a home have all heard and maybe said those words. If you can’t do gas on demand water heaters my suggestion is don’t do them at all. So what’s next? How do you start?
I think I have some thoughts planned out. Going to sleep on it for a while. Its a big project so i think lots of thought and planning needs to go through. I think first try to order the cracked part and see how much of this system still works. Then decide afterward what to do I suppose. Everything is mostly up in the air. I think an effecient system like a heat pump should be installed regardless just to decrease utility bills. Maybe keep this as a back up just incase?
Don’t do electric on demand water heaters. Trash. And maintenance is a B.
Noted
seeing $$$ 😢
oh im crying internally
❤😊
You have mentioned how old and historical importance the history this building has. Have you spoken to the Historical Society regarding the renovation. Do you plan to return this back to the original state and can you get funding from the Historical Society to help with renovations?
Not historical. Too far gone to be reverted. To be historical it would probably need the extra wing torn completely down. That may be a different story though we will see!
He didn’t say anything about the asbestos pipe wrap
Its fiberglass!
I’d come to your bar-b-que lol
wait for future invite deets =D
So. Some good news. Some bad news.
Waiting for the day its all good news!
35 year old? Or has he been doing this for 35 years? .... hes looks older than 35 😅
The job is quite rough, he tells me he feels great though!
Lots of cussing too much for me no thanks..
Sorry! There was a disclaimer in the first one, that videos with paul will need to be censored alot !
Dont fear, my firend. Last saturday i went to scrap with my old radiator, i could buy myself 4xbeer. Its gonna be ok. 🥲
hahaha atleast thats positive!
This video is giving me anxiety. 🤞 good luck.
Me and you both!!!