Our 85 year old house has 11 large cast iron radiators. I got 10 quotes from various contractors and cherry picked discussions on this site for help. We narrowed our choice down to two contractors--one suggested a Knight Lochinvar and the other suggested a Triangle Tube Prestige. We went with the Triangle Tube because I trusted the contractor more than the other one. Both quotes were pretty close. When we were making the final decision, my research suggested that the Knight and TT Prestige were both highly recommended with little or no major issues. My 2 cents would be convert to natural gas and go with the Knight.

FYI - TT Prestige as been great so far so I would highly recommend it if you have a contractor who can install it at a fair price. By the way, what state are you in? There are several additional stimulus plans that provide grants and incentives for high efficiency boilers.

I'm in New Jersey and there is a great program through home performance with energy star. I have a link at the bottom. I believe MA is involved, but not sure about the specifics of the program.

The quote for the Lochivar was $8250. The quote for the TT Prestige was $7700. By the way, I had quotes ranging from $7500 upto $18000 for various boilers (weil-mclain, buderas, knight and TT). All quotes included new piping, gas line piping, direct venting through the wall, thermostat, circulator, and removal of old boiler and oil tank.

As an aside, if you convert to gas and vent through your chimney, you may need a new liner because the exhaust from the gas boiler is different than the oil boiler. I did not research it too much, but you may need to add the cost of a new liner if you go to gas and vent up the chimney. I would check with a professional.

This is quite wrong. Most houses with cast iron radiators were sized with much higher heat loads in mind than are currently experienced. Various weather sealing upgrades - new windows, additional insulation, sealing other sources of infiltration - have reduced the heat required. This means that high water temperatures are rarely required. And even if the house does require a high water temperature at design conditions, this is only a very short period of time of the heating season. The vast majority of winter the system will run at much lower water temperatures.

For example, my house has baseboard heating - a system that some people will say won't operate at anything short of 180 degrees. However, at 0 degrees outside, my water temperature is barely pushing 150. On a typical 30 degree day, it's running around 115.

There is a study that Brookhaven National Laboratory did about this topic (can't find a link to it right now) but they found that there is considerable "shoulder season" time that will allow condensing so you will definitely save money with a condensing boiler.

Michael

The System 2000 is a good boiler for oil, but for gas a mod con would be a better choice.

Michael