Heating Before & After Photos

How do you bring an old hot water heating system that uses cast iron radiators into the 21st century? Do like this client and call Alber Service Company for a 95% efficient Bradford-White Brute Combi boiler. This boiler replaces and old 65% efficient cast iron boiler so it is going to cut the heating bills by 30%. But it also produces domestic hot water for showering, dishes, laundry, etc. So the hot water heating bills will also drop by 30%.

And comfort is improved because it uses outdoor rest. This means the water to the radiators only gets as hot as needed to offset the current conditions outside. The old system would deliver 180-degree water even if it was 55-degrees outside. This resulted in the radiators getting too hot and the room temperature soaring above the thermostat set point. Not good!

Outdoor reset also adds savings to already 30% savings by minimizing back loss. Back loss describes what happens in back of the radiator when it is pushed up against a cold outside wall. By only heating the radiator as much as needed for the conditions at any given moment, the amount of heat driven through the wall to the outside is greatly reduced. 

Oh, yeah. And it looks great! Like a little NASA science project.

The furnace in this old house had run for 42-years! That's a remarkably long life for a furnace. It was a Trane furnace manufactured by American Standard in 1983. And while it had led a long and productive life, it had also wasted thousands of dollars gas because it was only 60% efficient. That's not good.

The client elected to replace it with another American Standard furnace but his one is 97% efficient. It has two other great features: it is a two-stage furnace and it has a variable speed blower. Two-stage means it can deliver 100% or 50% of its output depending on how cold it is outside. For 75% of the winter it will run at 50% and deliver nearly constant, gentle heat that really improves winter comfort. The variable speed blower uses 66% less electricity than the old furnace. That saves money n the summer as well as the winter since the blower is also used to deliver air conditioning.

You'll notice we turned the furnace 90% so it doesn't face the wall. Regular maintenance will be much easier now. And it's placed on plastic feet to lift it up off the concrete floor so the bottom doesn't rust. Attention to detail matters! We try to think of everything when proposing a new system.

This is a dramatic Before and After. This facility had an old cast-iron boiler that was only 65% efficient. It was constantly breaking down and had recently started leaking water onto the floor. It was also a 1,600,000 BTU boiler! We knew that heating capacity was ridiculous as soon as we saw the boiler and the space it needed to heat. A careful analysis of the heating load showed the facility could be heated with only 500,000 BTUs. The last heating installer was only off by 1,100,000 BTUs (this crazy stuff happens all the time).

The facility trustees wisely settled on a modular approach for replacement. We installed (3) Bradford-White 95% efficient Brute boilers each with a 199,000 BTU input. They can each run as low as 20,000 BTUs. An outdoor sensor and boiler water sensor talk to the boilers and tell them how hot to make the water based on how cold it is outside. The boilers then ramp up or down to achieve that set point. Can you image the savings this facility is going to have in the coming years?! What a beautiful difference.

This old house needed a new furnace badly. The chimney had collapsed and the inefficient furnace couldn't operate safely without it. Plus, the second floor was always hot in the summer because the blower in the furnace couldn't deliver proper air flow. The solution was an American Standard two-stage variable speed furnace. It is 97% efficient so it saves a boatload of money in the winter. And the blower uses 70% less electricity than the old blower while delivering adequate air flow for second floor cooling. It qualified the homeowner for rebates and 0% financing from his local utility. It also qualifies for a 2025 Federal Tax Credit of $600. Alber Service Company works with all utility incentive programs so it's easy to say, "YES", when we present you with the solution to your problems!

The homeowner in this house wanted to upgrade the gas furnace in his house. Because the house was built on a slab, the furnace and duct system were in the attic. The furnace was only 12-years old, but the client really hated it. It was noisy enough that it would wake him in the night. And the gas bills in the dead of winter were more than he wanted to pay.

The solution was an American Standard 97% efficient gas furnace that features a variable speed blower and two-stage operation. The blower uses 66% less electricity than the old furnace blower so there are electrical power savings all year since the blower also delivers the air conditioning. The two-stage operation means the furnace can deliver either 1005 heating capacity or 50% heating capacity. For the majority of the winter, it will operate at 50% providing ling "ON" cycles that really improve comfort.

We also properly sealed and insulated the attic ductwork so it no long leaks conditioned air into the space nor does it draw harsh attic air into the system. Efficient, healthy and a beautiful installation!