Watching the news last night the reports on the current cold affecting much of the USA showed several people demonstrating the extreme cold by throwing boiling water into air just to see it transformed into ice crystals immediately. I can see that in those circumstances a condensing boiler might have a few problems. I have seen icicles form on wire flue guards but never on the flue exit itself. Are we going to regret having condensing boilers when the next ice age comes?
Richard
I expect we'll be regretting a lot of things when the next ice age comes - or, more accurately, when the present inter-glacial ends.
If it's condensing properly there will be little water vapour escaping through the flue.
Heh, masses of it does.
No all the boilers will be dead long before that since they are made to go phut in about 5 years. Brian
But the plume will still be very visible on a cold day.
Inter-glacials end quite suddenly too, although we're probably not quite at the peak yet. The Arctic vanished completely in the last inter-glacial (broke up and the fragments floated south as they melted). We're not quite there yet.
You are correct - it is mostly condensed into a dense mist as it exits the flue.
I have not seen condensing boilers in the US. Boilers are not common in any case, and the only ones I've seen look like what we had in the 1950's/1960's. Electric water heating is much more common than here.
Which appears to imply that the Artic will melt anyway, regardless of what humanity may have done or may do in the future.
I had gas for water heating in California in the 80s. And a rather dangerous gas appliance for heating, that I never quite got around to replacing.
Every house I lived in, in NJ, had gas for hot water, with no connection to the central heating, which was either gas or oil. Out in the countryside, where mains gas is unavailable, electric water heaters are fairly common, but I have seen some which use oil.
I watch videos from a couple of American builders, they seem to call them "tankless heaters"
e.g.
We don't know if it completely vanished in all previous inter-glacial periods, be we do know it did in the last one. We even know the paths the larger fragments took when they floated off, from the debris tails they dropped out into the sea.
So yes, we need to plan for warming in any case, regardless if some of it is man-made, because some of it isn't. Mind you, that's probably nothing compared with what happens when the interglacial ends, as historically it gets colder much faster than it got warmer.
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