Hi,
I'm planning on having part of my home heated by under floor radiant heat and the rest with radiators. I recently spoke to a local plumber on installing a mod/con boiler w/indirect DHW unit. I'm interested in the Triangle Tube Excellence unit. Anyway, he was pushing the Burnham Alpine boiler -- says Burnham's an old company, local suppliers, etc. Anyone have any experience with this model? does it compare favorably with other mod/con boilers? I like the idea of a compact unit like the Excellence but if this fellow prefers the Burnham one and it's similar in quality and price then I could go with it.
Thanks for your help!
Chris

Burnham is certainly a venerable company and tends to garner a much deserved following. Both the Excellence and the Alpine are fairly new models. The Alpine using the ubiquitous (and proven) Giannoni SS heat exchanger used by many US companies as the heart of their ModCon offerings.

The Excellence is made by Triangle Tube (a company known for their innovative and successful "Prestige" series). They also make the remarkable "Smart" SS indirect water heaters.

I have designed systems with both. The Alpine is available in a wider input range and when more domestic hot water is needed it makes sense to use a ModCon boiler and indirect water heater.

The Execellence on the other hand has a very intelligent design with an onboard indirect with first hour recovering exceeding a conventional 40 gallon water heater! Great for two bath family of four and a house with a 80 to 100mbtu/h load.

Your contractor should provide you with a computer generated heat load and explain how he will be controlling your two temperature system. In the end you have to trust the guy standing behind the product. Get more than one bid (three is enough) and talk to their customers.