I upgraded to a System 2000 about 13 years ago, best decision I ever made (next to marrying my wife). We also have a Toester in a wall mount enclosure in our laundry room. It was the only way we could get heat in there. I clean the dust off periodically but for 13 years it's run very quietly and keeps the area warm.

I would take care of the insulation, windows, etc first, then go for the new boiler. And stay with oil. LP prices sound really good until you take into consideration that the heat content of a gallon of LP is only 2/3 that of a gallon of #2.

The only time I'd use radiant in my house would be to warm my bathroom floor, not to heat the house. I believe your oil man is correct about the efficiency.

Thanks for your advice dapoppa. I guess I needed to hear from someone else that the system is as good as our man says. It's hard to believe a 21-year-old system can't be beat by today's energy efficient boilers. Thanks, Deb

There are now oil fired boilers that are over 90% and qualify for the $1500 tax credit. Peerless, Buderis, and efm are three.

I would personally go for radiant floor heat if it was new construction. It feels much more comfortable, but baseboard is the next best heat.

That being said, I would never replace an existing, working, heating system without hard facts that I would save enough money to pay for it. A 20 year payback is no bargain for me.

If we were twenty again and just moving in, I agree with you, baymee, we'd put in radiant floor heat. Though I've never felt it, anyone who has says it can't be beat. As it is, we are replacing the original floors, which were beaten up when we moved in and have suffered from country traffic of countless dogs and farmers. We thought now would be the time but the price tag is just too high. If we just modify the registers to account for removing the south side of the house and put toasters in the reclaimed laundry room, staying with the existing boiler until death us do part, we will spend less than $2,000. If we go radiant, with new boiler, the price tag is in the ball park of $25,000. Silly me, I thought with a 820 s.f. house the cost would be half that, but apparently it is all those manifolds that drive up the price. With the money we save from standing pat we can pave the driveway -- a 40-year-old dream, since we moved in -- and replace the floors. But thank you very much for the names of those boilers; I'll save your note and pull it out when our system starts coughing. Deb

Radiant heat can be added anytime. If you're tearing up floors, why not install it? It's a DIY project, except for hooking into the boiler lines. Even in Mass, it shouldn't even cost $1000 to hook up the lines and add a tempering valve. Instead of circulating water through the baseboards, it's going under the floor. You're abandoning one loop for another. You don't need a new boiler for that.

Your boiler is probably WAAAY oversized. Get someone to downfire it to it's lowest firing rate while keeping your chimney temperature above 350 degrees. (or add a liner)

Keep what you have and get a CO2 detector

I think you mean CO detector. With oil heat, you would be driven out of the house by smell, long before you'd ever be poisoned by CO. I doubt that many oil users have CO detectors.