Rant: I think the push for all stainless steel boilers is overblown

I was up in Buffalo last week on a job where a customer insisted on ripping out a perfectly good carbon steel boiler to put in a new stainless one. The salesman told them it would last forever. Yeah, maybe, but the old one was 20 years old and still running fine. I've seen stainless crack from bad welding just as fast as carbon steel rusts from neglect. We get so caught up chasing the newest material that we forget proper maintenance matters way more than what the drum is made of. Any of you guys had to deal with a customer who got sold on stainless and regretted it?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancy_ross20h ago

Oh boy, another "stainless or bust" true believer. I mean, I get it, stainless looks pretty and shiny, but come on. I once saw a guy spend thousands on a stainless boiler only to have to dump more money into it because the installer didn't purge the lines right during startup. All that fancy metal didn't save him from a rookie mistake. So yeah, maybe the salesman oversold it a little, right?

johnson.jason1d ago

Did a guy REALLY pay to rip out a boiler that was still working? That's just throwing money away.

anna_ross191d ago

Is this guy planning on heating his house with wishful thinking and extra blankets? I bet he's the same type of person who buys a new car right after fixing the old one's flat tire. Some people just LOVE burning cash for no good reason.