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Professional Colonia, NJ on May 11, 2012

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This is a photo of the recent boiler Combi unit I installed.

This boiler makes both heat for two zones of baseboard and 0ne zone of radiant heat for the house. And makes the domestic hot water for two and one half baths. Cost? $8 grand. Took two days to remove old cast iron boiler and hot water heater, mount on wall, pipe and bleed out the air. Client loves it. Cannot hear it run, is 98% efficient and is warranted for 10 years. Only draw back is they must install a water softener system as the hard water will calcify to quick in the heater area and lower its ability to heat the water in an efficient manner.

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NTI Combi boiler. Top of the line. Takes up a lot of wall space to install properly. Boiler heat exchanger is only as around as a five gallon bucket and deep as ab...

12 Comments

Cooper S Ashland City, TN

WoW!!! pretty costly. Is this the no water tank system??? should one always consider the addition of a water softner system or is it automatically a part of the systems instillation? If the system is adequately maintained, how long will it last and what does it cost to replace such a unit? I would like to have one in my new construction someday.

on May 11, 2012 · Like 0
Home Repair Tutor Pittsburgh, PA

Woodbridge,
That looks awesome, great job. If you lived closer and I had to replace my system I'd give you a call. Do you recommend a certain brand of on demand hot water heaters?

on May 11, 2012 · Like 0
Jeff C Broadview Heights, OH

For a moment, I thought this was going to be a picture of a bad installation or someone cutting corners but it looks like this is actually the way it's supposed to be installed. That's a lot of pipes.

on May 11, 2012 · Like 0
Woodbridge Environmental ... Colonia, NJ

The cost varies with what your looking to achieve with the unit. They make heating only, or hot water units only and in this case Combi units where they heat both the water for the house heat and for the domestic hot water use. They come with warranties from 10 to 15 years depending upon manufacture and what your doing with it. This model is 10 years. It comes with outside reset control which limits how hot it gets when delivering the hot water to the baseboard system. Warmer out, ...»
cooler water. This helps the system keep the costs down even more. We charge around $8,000 for this, but with local rebates, manufactures rebates and energy star rebates, they end up paying only about half that amount. We also foamed the house attic and basement sill areas which qualified them for 0% finance charge for 10 years and the combined savings with the loan they ended up still paying less for all of it then they did when they just paid for the heat and hot water bill alone with the old system.
As far as brands, I do not recommend one over the other. It is dependent upon local supplies. The system we installed is common in our area so local suppliers stock parts for this. You would need to check your local supply houses for what they would suggest that you purchase.
And Jeff your right. Lots of pipes. In fact less the PEX to the heat radiators and domestic water there is over 70 of copper in this photo from sizes from one and half inches to half inch combined. Some of the larger copper fittings were close to $10 each! Talk about sticker shock at the register.
There are some draw backs to this system. Your water supply needs to be properly maintained. Meaning if you have hard water, you need to control this. As hard water will scale up inside the heat exchanger in no time lowering the ability of the system to work as it should. Part of the plumbing is lots of shut off valves with boiler drains so the system can be acid washed every few years to remove this hardness. Also the domestic hot water that comes out of the faucet, does not come out quite the same as it does with a free standing hot water heater. What happens with a standard hot water heater is that it is already hot so when it comes out of the faucet after it gets there, its the temp you set the heater at. With on demand, although it does get hot quickly, it does take a few seconds to warm up to temp at the faucet. So if you use the hot water a lot, you need to wait for it to come up to temp before you get your desired output. External storage tanks can be used to prevent this but that adds another $1800 to the cost.

on May 12, 2012 · Like 0
Home Repair Tutor Pittsburgh, PA

Thanks Woodbridge for the great explanation. Especially the tip about hard water issues with on demand hot water systems. We have hard water and if our existing hot water tank goes I'd like to explore the on demand systems. Thus if we go that direction we'd have to budget for adding a water softener, too.
The system you installed boggles my mind because there was so much planning involved before ...»
the actual installation. Makes me sweat just thinking about it.

on May 12, 2012 · Like 0
Woodbridge Environmental ... Colonia, NJ

If you do have hard water, and want the current heater to last longer. Change the sacrificial rod that is within the heater and you will get many more years out of the heater. For those who do not know what this is or where it is. If you look at the top of your heater, you will see a large nut all by itself. This nut is connected to a special coated rod that prevents electrolysis within the heater . As time goes on this coating gets smaller and smaller until is gone. Once gone the water ...»
then begins to attack the heater itself. Until it begins to leak. The primary difference on a heaters warranty is the size of the rod within the heater itself. Those with longer warranties have larger sacrificial rods installed.
Here is a link about these rods that explains it better then I.
http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/pages/WHRpa...

on May 12, 2012 · Like 0
Home Repair Tutor Pittsburgh, PA

Woodbridge,
Thanks so much for the great explanation and changing the rod is a great option for us. I've never done it before-do you think a plumber should be called in or do you think a good DIYer could do it themself? For example, we have a 40 gal AO Smith Hot Water tank (here's a grainy picture). It's from 2000, so we've gotten a lot of use out of it. Great article, too.
on May 13, 2012 · Like 0
Home Repair Tutor Pittsburgh, PA

Woodbridge,
Out of curiosity I went to This Old House's website because I vaguely remembered watching an episode where they replaced the anode rod. The video they have is really great and answered a lot of my questions. But I'd still like to hear your opinion. Here's the link to the video for anyone interested. ...»

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,200...

on May 13, 2012 · Like 0
Woodbridge Environmental ... Colonia, NJ

Could not add much more then that. The only thing I did learn about was the sausage type rod. Not seen or ever heard about them. But great idea as there is normally not enough height above to change out the rod in most basements of older homes.

on May 14, 2012 · Like 0
Home Repair Tutor Pittsburgh, PA

I don't think we have enough room to change the rod without having to cut it. I would have to use the sausage link rod. The TOH video was interesting because he really have to crank on the old rod to loosen it. And that tank didn't even look bad!

on May 14, 2012 · Like 0
Woodbridge Environmental ... Colonia, NJ

Its not uncommon to see those screwed on tight. One must remember however, if you have a really old heater, the metal jacket may be weak and the result can be damaging the top to a point that you will need to replace the heater anyway. So be prepared to do that. With the sample shown on the video, I would assume that this heater was replaced with something else and it was just a left over from another project that they had sitting around.

on May 15, 2012 · Like 0
Home Repair Tutor Pittsburgh, PA

Good tip on possibly having to replace the heater. If I have to really crank on it I might just call it a day and wait for the tank to just go bad.

on May 15, 2012 · Like 0