New Boiler Recommendations

I'd be inclined to keep the 20 year old unit - unless there are other factors at play - like insurance issues or huge rebates on the replacement unit. I doubt that the improved efficiency from 2005 to 2025 amounts to much. Perhaps have an independant serviceman in < someone who doesn't sell them > for a routine inspection and pick his brain about it. John T.

Listen to them. I replaced the boiler in my last house in CT with it. Oil use when down by 38%. Was trouble free the entire time until we moved.

Wish I had done it sooner and saved a bunch of money. I kept track and it paid for itself in oil savings.

How efficient is a 20 year old oil boiler? A 20-year-old boiler can be significantly inefficient, often operating at around 60-70% efficiency, compared to modern condensing boilers, which can exceed 90%. This inefficiency can lead to higher energy bills.

If your current boiler is one of these:

Personally, I'd get is serviced and run a stress test. If all well then wait for it to fail, but get some quotes and be prepared. I'm not sure what counts as a decent brand in the US. I think Bosch are generally regarded as a good balance of value/engineering - not sure if you can get those in the US, or how tariffs are affecting things.

In the UK we're variously incentivised to fit Air Source Heat Pumps to replace traditional oil/gas boilers. They convert heat at roughly a factor of 4 -

Around 86 % from a quick web search :

Same here in Ontario Canada re: heat pump installations -

- some serious rebates were offered but the program has ended. John T.

Can you have an oil fired condensing boiler? I read that they need very clean fuel, meaning gas, because otherwise the exhaust is acid vapour, quite corrosive. If I remember correctly, because of the sulfur content.

Hence they use corrosion resistant flues, even plastic...

You didn't say where you live, how long you plan to stay there, how cold a typical winter night is, how much you need/use air conditioning in the summer, how expensive your electricity is per Kw/hr, or whether your electric wiring and service panel could support a heat pump. With circulating hot water heat, you probably don't have whole house air ducts/central air conditioning. So, the expense of installing air ducts would probably preclude amortizing the savings from a heat pump in fewer than 10-15 years. But, in the event you do have central air conditioning, and it's realistic for you to plan to stay in your home for that length of time, a heat pump should be a serious consideration for you.

Oil burners are likely much better than the one I had back in the late

ASHPs in the UK are mostly used in wet heating systems, and directly replace conventional boilers - no ducts.

On 10/18/2025 7:50 PM, David. R wrote: > New Oil Boiler Recommendations . > Seeking advice on installing a new oil burner. >

Current Boiler is a Thermo-Dynamics S100 with a Beckett head which is all > about 20 years old, still running fine at the moment and has served me > well. > The house is about 1500 sq ft and has 3 zones. > First/second/basement and is all hot water baseboard. > So as I approach retirement, I'm looking at possible future expenses on a > fixed income. > My fuel/burner service company is recommending an Energy Kinetics System > 2000 boiler. > TBH this thing looks to me like an overly, computerized, complex system > which will require some expensive care and feeding. > It is however very efficient from what I am reading so I will save on fuel > cost which of course I am interested in. >
> I'm old school from the Weil-Mclain, Rheem, era so I admit I'm a little > behind the times. > Also, the current boiler is tankless coil and my wife and I have no need > for a sperate hot water heater. >
> So, any and all advice is very much appreciated. > I'm in NYS if that matters and gas is not an option where I live. >

This is just a quick glimpse at the spreadsheet I have showing the savings with my Energy Kinetics boiler. If you want to nerd out on it, I even have the degree days to assure the accuracy of old vs new in oil use.

Savings will vary with price of oil, but you can see the difference in consumption of old vs system 2000.

Oh, the tankless coil is a terrible monstrosity. You can live a more quiet life of hot water luxury with the insulated water tank heated by this too. No more boiler kicking in on a summer night to heat up the tankless coil for water you don't need for hours.

Old boiler would have used 838.4 gallons Actual use 501.1

Old boiler would have used 723.2 gallons Actual use 468.9

Please define ASHP. I assume the HP refers to heat pump, but what's the AS? Also, if there aren't any ducts, how can someone take advantage of the ability of heat pumps to provide hot weather cooling in addition to cold weather heating? If you cool by blowing a fan over circulating chilled water, how is the air de-humidified? The circulating water is a closed system. Do you require a separate fan, condenser and condensate collector and connection to a drain in each room where such a device is located? Seems less energy efficient and noisier than a central system. The cost of installing a condensate drainage connection in every room might equal the cost of installing air ducts. The only advantage I can think of is that you can control the temperature individually for each room.

Air source?

I agree with John. Put the money you would spend on a boiler into a good investment account and wait for it to give trouble. That 20 year old boiler will still be puttering away LONG after the new one will have failed and gotten too expensive to maintain. In this case the "they don't make them like they used to" is definitely true ---

How old was your old boiler you replaced?

When I replaced my 30 year old furnace back in 2003 with the highest efficiency non condensing furnace I could buy (80+%) with DC variable speed blower and my gas consumption did not change AT ALL. My electricity bill DID drop. During the AC season the heat not produced by the fan motor reduced the AC load as well as the current draw - a double win - while in the heating season the heat not priduced by the blower motor had to be made up for by burning gas - and the small increase in efficiency from my old to new furnace was "eaten up" by that extra requirement. Several friends who sprang for "high efficiency" condensing furnaces at the same time have had to replace them TWICE already!!!!! and we've joked he (my OTHER neighbor who bought the high efficiency unit)needs a dedicated parking space for the service truck. I had to replace the eductor fan motor within the first 2 years due to noise - My neighbor who installed the same furnace at the same time replaced his 3 years ago when the bearings failed. I also had the hot plate ignitor fail once (silicone carbide) and replaced it with a silicone nitride unit. Other than that - 100% trouble free.

If mine fails now I will have no choice but to go with a condensing furnace since non condensing furnaces are no longer sold in Ontario

About 20 years. Like any piece of equipment, it is easy to replace a motor, pump, control, but once things like fire box, water tubes, heat exchanger start to go, time to replace. Especially if you can save on operating costs when you do.

Air source. There's also ground source, but they're less common due to the need for land, and expense installing. There's plenty of air - even in the UK ;-)

Yes, that's one of the controversies. To take advantage of any incentives, and I think comply with building regulations, even though the ASHP units are AC in reverse and therefore capable of cooling and warming, they don't. Just warming. And are therefore mainly used in wet systems, to circulate warm water.

So it's just one unit outside the property. Apparently noise levels of newer units is quite low.

Quite why they don't cool is linked primarily to environmental concerns, supported by the current government (but not the opposition). And I'd imagine it'd be quite complicated - as you say - to fit ducting.

I'm thinking of getting a standard AC split system that'd serve just one floor of my home, with the compressor outside. Not sure yet. Like the OP, I have an old boiler that just limps on.

When my boiler in my Madrid flat broke, I bought a condenser model. The guys from the manufacturer insisted that it needed yearly maintenance: cleanup and change a large rubber gasket. Otherwise, there was risk of total destruction (the gases can be corrosive). They also made an offer for that maintenance with a fixed price subscription.

Then, about two year later they offered to install a remote monitoring unit. I can control the temperature via an app in my phone, probably program on/off hours and temperatures, or simply adjust a knob in the thermostat. And, they look at the parameters remotely. The advantage was that the maintenance was switched to by-yearly, so I went for it.

The boiler runs on very clean urban gas.