Best choices for electric boilers?
I am currently adding a second floor to my house in Massachusetts. My old oil boiler is at the very end of its life and we are exploring many options. Here are some more details….
– We have forced hot water baseboard throughout the first floor. We have a few options on the second floor, the easiest of which is to just install similar baseboards. The current copper on in the basement is setup for 2 zones so it will take minimal effort to tie into the old system.
– We primarily use a large Pellet Stove to heat our home now and actually didnt turn the oil heat on last winter at all. We know we will need to increase the heat to the second floor, though much of it will travel up from the pellet stove to begin with as it is capable of heating the full size of the home with ease.
– As part of the addition we are adding a very large solar electric grid on our roof. We have calculated that this will produce nearly 65% more electricty than we used last year. We also have substantially upgraded the insullation and quality of the windows throughout the house, all siding and Tyvek house wrap has been replaced so I anticipate little to no increase in my electric usage most of the year after the second floor is completed
– We have two Central A/C units installed, one in the attic to cool the second floor and one in the basement to cool the first floor. We did not plan to set either of these up for heating coils so they were fully installed and would require substantial retrofit to do so
We believe our best choice is to install an electric boiler and tie it into the existing dual zone copper that is run to both floors. I would like to know if there are contrdicting opinions to this, recommendations of brands/models of boilers to consider, anyone who knows of an HVAC company who specializes in this type of installation locally (Metrowest Boston area), etc?
Thanks!
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Replies
Dan,
In most cases, an electric boiler doesn't make much sense -- you end up with all of the disadvantages of hydronic distribution (the need for pumps, the possibility of freeze-ups or leaks) with none of the possible advantages (e.g., the ability to use an inexpensive fuel).
After all, if you like electric resistance heat, just install electric resistance baseboard units. They're cheap and they don't need pumps.
By the way, I hope your local utility will pay you for your excess PV production. If they won't send you a check for the extra electricity, it makes little sense to oversize your PV array.
Thanks Martin, the oversizing of the array was largely to cover the potential increase in adding an electric boiler. NStar in MA offers Net Metering so we can store credit from reversing our meter and carry it to later in the year, essentially self budgeting by over producing when we are not using it. To your first point, we are using the cheapest fuel there is to power that boiler, the sun. And with the SREC market in Massachusetts we are financially benefitting from the ability to sell the credits should we choose to buy out of the PPA in advance.
Regarding the electric baseboards, we considered them. However, we would either have to retrofit our entire first floor system with electric radiators, or run two fuel sources and STILL need to buy a new boiler for the first floor in which we are stuck with oil as our only fuel option other than electric based on proximity to the nearest gas line.
Go with electric baseboard and scrub the other systems out. On top of Martin's benefits you can zone every room which is a major plus. And almost anyone can install the system and pull out the old. A great DIY project. Sell the copper and boiler.
Get going.