My unit is 25 plus years old. Efficiency is 78%. I had a plumber add abn AO Smith electric water heater to it with a wired tyco pump for recurculation hot water from the coil to the AO Smith 40 gal. tank. The tyco pump runs constantly and is humming. My oil company said clean the coil before you replace the Tyco pump. Your imput please?
Cleaning old coils isnt a good idea, If the boiler is in good shape replace the coil. If the boiler has seen better days it may be a good idea to replace the boiler. Or you could add a indirect water heater but you alread paid for the storage tank. I would replace the coil. Also it may not be wired right, is the water hot enough or to hot?
I cleaned the coil and the outer system, added some Ts with shut off valves for future cleaning and relpaced the Tyco steel pump. I had the Weil Mclain 24 year old unit serviced and it tested at 80 % efficient which is up 2% from the prior year test. All other test including smoke we OK. It cost me $285. Franks Coil Cleaning in Dover NJ sent their top tech as instructed by my Petro Oil company. My maintenance contract covered the cost ($79) Tyco pump. The coil cleaning tech said he was suprised at how clean the coil was. He told me that the formula used to clean a coil and the length of time spent running the cleaning process is very important. If it is not done correctly you could ruin the coil.
PS The coil costs about $1000 to replace and the boiler is about $5000.
