For heating the private sector, there is nothing better than an economical and powerful gas-fired boiler. But such equipment in our time is produced not only from cast iron alloy, but also from steel, each of which has both a number of advantages and minor disadvantages.
From the point of view of durability of operation, cast iron versions win, which are valuable in that they contains an increased (more than 2%) amount of carbon, due to which the metal is practically not exposed to corrosion.
In such equipment, not only walls, but also heat exchangers are made of cast iron alloy, which also allows them to work for decades. This is important, since not only an increased temperature level is recorded in the combustion chamber, but also a high humidity - when hydrocarbons are burned, not only heat is released, but also water.
High capacity cast iron boilers are often manufactured in separate sections. In practice, this means one thing - the sections come separately to the customer's place, where they are assembled into a single block using gas welding. But boilers of lower power are usually manufactured in monoblock form, which allows you to buy them, bring them to the place, connect them to all the necessary communications and immediately start heating the house!
The disadvantage of cast iron versions is that they are considered excessively expensive. And heavy. Versions with a capacity of up to 18 kW, which weigh about 180 kg, which requires a solid floor in the form of a concrete screed.
If the floor is weak and there is not a lot of financial resources, it is quite reasonable to purchase steel versions of boilers, valuable for their lower weight and lower cost. In these boilers, not only the walls, but also the heat exchangers are made of stainless steel. Corrosion slows down significantly if manufacturers install a water heating system from the return line - there is practically no dew on the heat exchanger and it lasts an order of magnitude longer.
Steel boilers are necessarily manufactured in a monoblock design using argon welding. In practice, this will suggest a high quality of equipment - no assembly on site is a priori implied, which has a positive effect on quality! You can be sure that not a single drop of water will ooze out of the case!
Steel boilers have a relatively short service life - no more than 15 years. But if we take into account that they a priori guarantee lower fuel consumption due to increased thermal conductivity of the walls and the heat exchanger, one thing becomes clear - they are considered a good choice for a private sector.
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