water heaters with oil furnace conversion

Hello everyone. I am trying to discern if anyone has experience to share regarding converting a furnace that uses oil to heat a boiler that pushes hot water through old radiators. I love my cast iron radiators and the radiant heat. I'm up in the Apalacian mountains of the East coast of Canada and winters here are long and bitter. However, this sucker ran me about 700 per 6 weeks BEFORE the prices went up last year. I've a 3000 sq ft home that's brick and siding, could be insulated better, but has good windows and I close rooms off that I'm not using and don't heat 2 bedrooms. I want to determine if I can retrofit or convert the boiler / furnace to run on any type of cheaper, more sustainable fuel. Everyone here is converting to electric or wood. I'm getting a supplementary wood stove insert but it's not a full tine plan, as we need to travel a bit and can't have frozen pipes when I can't feed the fire. I prefer to stay away from electric as I've zero confidence that it won't sky rocket as demand increases and there is a new monopoly to profit from. I also can't use electric for the radiant heaters as it doesn't burn hot enough to heat the boiler efficiently. It would be forced air and that's all kinds of horrible for health.

Anyone know of anything like this? I keep thinking back to the future - there has got to be a different fuel that can be used for this type of furnace that's cleaner and cheaper. Thanks all!

Hi Michelle. Yeah, costs have gone crazy. Ouch.

Fuel oil is a tough fuel to replicate in a way you could reasonably trust whilst away. It's sort of in the kerosene-diesel zone, with additives to prevent corrosion, gelling in extreme cold, degradation, clogging etc. Quite the witches' brew, phew.

It is possible to winterize, such as is done for seasonal cabins, where all the water lines are blown out with compressed air and the sewer traps are fortified with substances that will not freeze into a destructive, expanding plug. It can be done, but I wonder what would protect your cast iron radiators from catastrophic damage.

Sorry, no easy solutions that I can see right off, outside of someone staying on site while you are away.

A wood  pellet burning boiler might fit your needs.
You would still be dependent on an outside source of fuel, but it is at least not fossil fuel.
Outdoor wood boilers allow you to use less refined fuel, but also tend to be burned in the dirtiest way possible, specifically to stretch the times between tending.
They still need to be fed everyday.

Your house sounds large, do you have a basement?  
If so, a wood fired boiler that could feed a huge hot water storage could be ideal.
You could run the boiler wide open to get the cleanest most efficient burn possible while capturing the heat in the hot water storage.
That storage would be there to keep the house above freezing while you are away.

Indoor and outdoor wood fired boilers are common,  large amounts of storage , less so, but:here is one example of a commercial thermal mass product.

Michelle De Long wrote:Hello everyone. I am trying to discern if anyone has experience to share regarding converting a furnace that uses oil to heat a boiler that pushes hot water through old radiators. I love my cast iron radiators and the radiant heat. I'm up in the Apalacian mountains of the East coast of Canada and winters here are long and bitter. However, this sucker ran me about 700 per 6 weeks BEFORE the prices went up last year. I've a 3000 sq ft home that's brick and siding, could be insulated better, but has good windows and I close rooms off that I'm not using and don't heat 2 bedrooms. I want to determine if I can retrofit or convert the boiler / furnace to run on any type of cheaper, more sustainable fuel. Everyone here is converting to electric or wood. I'm getting a supplementary wood stove insert but it's not a full tine plan, as we need to travel a bit and can't have frozen pipes when I can't feed the fire. I prefer to stay away from electric as I've zero confidence that it won't sky rocket as demand increases and there is a new monopoly to profit from. I also can't use electric for the radiant heaters as it doesn't burn hot enough to heat the boiler efficiently. It would be forced air and that's all kinds of horrible for health.

Anyone know of anything like this? I keep thinking back to the future - there has got to be a different fuel that can be used for this type of furnace that's cleaner and cheaper. Thanks all!

Hi Michelle,
Ultimately we are all moving towards a world where efficiency must take over from choice of fuel as every source of heat is going up if not in lock step then sequentially. If I was in your situation and my oil fired equipment worked I would either look into a retrofit electric boiler to supplement the oil or mini split heat pumps to supplement/replace the oil radiators as much as possible. The big problem in older houses is that they leak air. When you try to heat one without moving air just passive radiators you have to over heat certain sections close to the radiators to feel comfortable in the drafty parts. A forced air component like a mini split will move that air around better blending the whole home temp making it feel warmer. The mini split option would allow you to keep your radiators and have a heat alternative should prices reverse again...
Cheers, David Baillie

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Hi Michelle. Yeah, costs have gone crazy. Ouch.

Fuel oil is a tough fuel to replicate in a way you could reasonably trust whilst away. It's sort of in the kerosene-diesel zone, with additives to prevent corrosion, gelling in extreme cold, degradation, clogging etc. Quite the witches' brew, phew.

It is possible to winterize, such as is done for seasonal cabins, where all the water lines are blown out with compressed air and the sewer traps are fortified with substances that will not freeze into a destructive, expanding plug. It can be done, but I wonder what would protect your cast iron radiators from catastrophic damage.

Sorry, no easy solutions that I can see right off, outside of someone staying on site while you are away.

Thank you for taking the time to reply! I'm still mulling over the possibilities.

Hi William Bronson,
Actually, you're thinking along my lines here. I have looked at pellet and dislike how costly they are. I also dislike being tied to supply chain of any product I can't create myself - especially in this economic climate. I know that's limiting.
So I've considered a few things. I've looked into exterior boilers which are a great solution for many heating needs, including hot water. But they require that I get out in the sometimes -30 weather to load them with a lot of wood, that I clean them rather routinely in said weather, that I cut or purchase and have a place to store 10 cord or more of wood per winter (long winters here) and that I can smoozle someone else into doing all this when I want to vaca.

So that's off the table..

The benefit of a wood boiler in the home is the not going out to load it up. The drawback is size and efficiency in the units I've seen, but none the less I think they are capable and a thermal mass product would definitely increase efficiency. I'd be rather independent in that if I can haul wood I can stay warm. I can stock it for a property manager to feed when I'm not here.  It would require both a boiler and thermal mass heater but would heat hot water also. I'm going to look into that more, as it's interesting to me.

Right now, as someone else pointed out, I've an old house and it's drafty. I'm doing the energy audit this season to get a read on where I can best spend to improve my home's ability to hold heat. I suspect insulation. I will then apply for the rebate to recoup some of that cost. The rebate covers electric heat pumps and mini splits but no wood products. So were I to put an electric system in, as one other person suggested, I'd be able to apply that credit and it's very simple when I'm away for guests to maintain. So I think that's a great solution, although I don't trust the gov not to crank electric prices the way they are with petrol as soon as we all depend more on it.

Then I started looking at soapstone conversion of fireplaces to capture the heat and use my fireplace more efficiently. But it's on an outside wall and the retrofit looks really expensive and specialized. Great appeal for winter guests, and lovely fixture but I"m not open concept, so it's unclear how well it would heat the place.

At present, huddled under 2 blankeys with the crazy fluffy thick socks on, I've landed on a high efficiency wood insert for my fireplace to use this season. It will be charming for winter guests and need not be the main source of heating any other winter than this. It can function as a back up to the other systems and for ambiance and to allow me to use my FP since right now it's not WETT cert.

After that I will get the energy audit and weigh the pros cons of basement wood boiler over a mini split for which I can use a rebate.  

I had one person tell me I can use recycled car oil in my oil furnace btw. I don't know if that's true but figured it's just Permie enough to throw out there!

Thanks to everyone who shared ideas!

William Bronson wrote: A wood  pellet burning boiler might fit your needs.
You would still be dependent on an outside source of fuel, but it is at least not fossil fuel.
Outdoor wood boilers allow you to use less refined fuel, but also tend to be burned in the dirtiest way possible, specifically to stretch the times between tending.
They still need to be fed everyday.

Your house sounds large, do you have a basement?  
If so, a wood fired boiler that could feed a huge hot water storage could be ideal.
You could run the boiler wide open to get the cleanest most efficient burn possible while capturing the heat in the hot water storage.
That storage would be there to keep the house above freezing while you are away.

Indoor and outdoor wood fired boilers are common,  large amounts of storage , less so, but:here is one example of a commercial thermal mass product.