On top of that waste of money is the environmental disaster that bottled water is. That’s right, a disaster. If you fill one of those small bottles close to 1/3 full of oil, that will represent how much oil is consumed in the manufacture and distribution of that bottle. That’s crazy, especially when you think of how much we rely on foreign oil and all it’s attendant problems. look up bottled water on Wikipedia and read down to the environmental costs of all this bottled water consumption. Your throwaway water bottle contributes to that.  Plus, those bottles are clogging our landfills and showing up as pollution islands in the ocean. These bottles will last for thousands of years. Google water bottle landfill and read some of the articles. It’s amazing.

You can have an under counter water filter in your home and buy a refillable water bottle to carry with you. I use a stainless steel one that will last forever and is easily cleaned. It would actually be better than the soft drink companies filter, because they use reverse osmosis, which wastes 3 gallons of water for every gallon produced. That’s crazy too, and we won’t install them for that reason. We can install an undercounter filter in your kitchen,

a whole house filter and also a  chlorine removal shower head.

It makes sense in so many ways that I’m surprised everyone doesn’t have one!

In my house I also have an Instant Hot water dispenser, so I can make one cup of tea or coffee without using a coffee pot or boiling a pot of water. The water for the instant hot is filtered, so it tastes great as well.

Lifetime Hot Water Tank

You know, it’s really funny that I’ve already written about high efficiency oil fired boilers, and about steam boilers, when the majority of the boilers that we install aren’t either one!

Nowadays, with the cost of fuel escalating, and with our country’s reliance on foreign energy products, we feel it’s really our duty to recommend installing high efficiency boilers whenever it’s possible.  It’s in everyone’s best interest.

A boiler is a large and long term investment, and to not install  the best, most efficient  product available at the time of installation usually leads to regrets within a few years. Make no mistake- fuel costs will go up. While it might cost more to install now, you’re savings will be that much more in the future.

Our favorite boiler to install is the Buderus GB142 series of hot water boilers.

This is a modulating, condensing boiler that can deliver up to 95% AFUE, especially in the shoulder months when the heat is not needed to full capacity. Even in colder weather you’ll get 90% or so. Your heating system will be more comfortable and you will get even greater savings, because the boiler comes with an outdoor reset control that will adjust the water temperature in the system based on the outside temperature. That’s designed right into the boiler system.

Lately we’ve been experimenting with turning the temperatures down on our systems to further enhance savings. With this type of boiler, if you can keep the system return temperature below 150 degrees, you’re going to get that 95% fuel usage. We can just about guarantee a savings of 30% off your gas bill, and one of my clients has saved over 50%! Since he was smart enough to have us install this boiler 2 years ago, he’s way ahead of the game on energy usage and savings. As are a lot of my folks, as you can see from my pictures.

When we do install these boilers, we  also reccomend installing an indirectly fired hot water heater, usually a Superstore 40 or 60 gallon one depending on the size of your household. It just makes sense to take advantage of your 95% AFUE boiler by using it to heat your hot water, in a tank that is guaranteed for life! That’s right, no more burst tanks to clean up after. That will add to your long term savings!!

Dennis Foley Plumbing is a flat rate plumbing contractor. That means that we will give you a price in advance for just about anything that we do, and we expect to get paid the same day.

Standard Water Heater

To help illustrate what a flat rate contractor is, let me tell you a few stories.

Here is a typical burst water heater call that many of you have put in to a plumber in the past. Let’s say he’s a good one and calls you back promptly. He comes to your house, takes a look, maybe makes a few phone calls, leaves and returns either that day or the next, with a new water heater. He disconnects the old one, installs the new one during which he realizes that he’s missing a part. He leaves to get that part, returns promptly, finishes the job, takes the old water heater with him and leaves. Hey, I said he was a good one. He called you back, did the job promptly, took his trash with him and completed the job in a timely manner. There is one big problem though. You have no idea of what the bill is going to be. You don’t know if you’re going to pay for the first visit, the return visit, the extra trip to the supply house, you don’t know what was included and what was extra, you don’t know if taking the old heater costs more, and you have no idea when you’ll get a bill in the mail! Sound familiar? If you’ve used a good plumber it will. I know, because I was that good plumber. My customers used to call me up and ask for the bill! When I was busy I wouldn’t bill for more than a month for smaller jobs, sometimes more. And my customers didn’t know what I was charging them, and when. Often I had to go back and figure out what I was charging them myself. I didn’t know either.

Contrast that to what we do as flat rate plumbers. First, we strive to always have our phones answered by a person. Sometimes it might be an answering service, but they always let us know when someone calls. Then we explain that there is a $49 dispatch fee, and that the plumber or technician will tell you the cost after they look over the problem. He arrives, looks at the water heater and gives you a price. You know the cost in advance. Many times he’ll have what he needs to do the job on his truck, and will do it right then, and you know the cost in advance. He explains what is included in the job, and let’s you know if any thing not included needs to  be repaired. And you know that potential extra cost in advance. He starts the water heater and realizes that his truck is missing an essential bit of hardware. He has to go to the supply house to get it, but you know it’s not costing you anything extra, because you know the cost in advance. He finishes, cleans up and takes the old water heater, which you know was included in the cost, and collects the money. You knew at all times what was happening, and what the cost was. That is flat rate. Hey, we’ll show you the prices in the book anytime you want!

I can tell you  more stories. Here’s another one about water heaters. One of our customers decided to have Home Cheapo install a water heater for them. Hey, it was 30% less than the cost my plumber quoted. I do understand that motivation, I’m not rich either. To keep the story short I’ll tell you the outcome. He didn’t have hot water for 2 weeks. There were many trips to his house, and many extras, to the point where the cost ended up being over $300 more than our quote. Of course, they would have hot water in few hours if they had given us the job. Just check out Yelp to get some feedback about Cheapo Depot plumbers. You do get what you pay for.

Here’s another one. We had to replace a back outlet power flush toilet. We hate them, and our toilet company doesn’t make them. We quoted the job and installed the new one. There were so many problems with it that we had to return the first one and install another one. There were so many problems with that one that we returned it and installed a third one from a different manufacturer. The customer paid the original quote for the plumbing. That’s it. Hey, we gave him a price and we stood by it

In the price book there is a list of value rates. Those are the discounted rates that the The Denny Club members pay.

Thanks for listening. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of money!

That’s an expensive inconvenience! And dangerous because the oil tank was under water as well.

I don’t know yet what this latest episode is going to cost her. She was lucky to have caught it. The oil burner needed to be cleaned and a few electrical components needed to be changed.  She had a battery backup sump pump, in addition to her main sump pump, but at some point both had failed and no one knew it. I did get the main pump working, but it failed a few days later again, so I temporarily put in one that we have on hand until we can install a Nexpump.  This time she noticed the steam coming out of the chimney, turned off the boiler before it was flooded and pumped out the cellar with another pump and hose out the door. Talk about water problems! This is a person that spent thousands of dollars putting in an exterior drain system, and the house had been water free for a few years, but the whole system depends on the sump pump working. As you can imagine, this is very upsetting for her.

Line drawing of a Nexpump installation

The solution is called a Nexpump, and it is the ultimate sump pump. It has automatic battery backup, automatic self testing, dual high capacity pumps, a battery charger and pumps 5600 gallons per hour. The system monitors it’s own condition and emails and phones both the home owner and me if there are any problems. It uses a logic board that detects plumbing problems, sensor errors, checks it’s own components and exercises the pumps if they haven’t been needed to make sure they still work. There are two high capacity pumps, and it can be hooked up to two batteries if long power outages are common in the area.

There are quite a lot of these systems installed in the Chicago area (which is where they come from), but they are new to New England.

It’s as close to peace of mind with a sump pump as money can buy. If anyone has a sitution like my friends where the pump operation is critical, they need one, it’s as simple as that.

G125BE Low-NOx Residential Oil Boiler

I just spent 8 hours learning the ins and outs of Buderus’ new oil-fired hot water boiler. It has a new kind of burner that uses a special set up, hence the 8 hours.

This boiler is amazing. They offer it in 2 configurations, a non condensing version that is rated at 89% Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE), and a condensing version that is rated at 94% AFUE. This is good news for those of you that don’t have gas available, as we have been installing 95% AFUE gas fired hot water boilers for a few years. Now they are availble for oil fired applications.

It’s not just the AFUE that makes these systems so energy efficient. Yes, they do convert over 90% of the potential energy in the fuels into heat energy, but they also utilize outdoor reset controls that modulate the temperature of the water in the system based on the outdoor temperature. This ALONE will save a minimum of 10% of your fuel bill, even on an old boiler. With a boiler that can handle low temperatures, you are able to save even more! This is because the lower the temperature you can run, the more money you save.

By the way,  Buderus will only sell this boiler to someone who has taken the class, and we are the only ones trained in its repair.  It is state of the art technology, backed by one of the best boiler and cast iron makers in the world.