Boiler Installation

Three decisions drive the project: fuel, efficiency class, and size. On fuel, most Southern Maine homes are choosing between staying on oil, converting to propane, or — where the street has it — natural gas. Oil equipment costs less up front and Maine’s delivery infrastructure is excellent; propane and gas open the door to compact, ultra-quiet condensing boilers with efficiency in the 90s. We install all three and will price the conversion honestly, including the venting and fuel-line work.

On efficiency, a high-efficiency condensing boiler extracts heat from the exhaust that a conventional boiler sends up the chimney — but condensing boilers only hit their rated numbers when the system runs low return-water temperatures, which depends on your radiators or baseboard. This is exactly the kind of detail a spec-sheet salesman skips and a Master-licensed installer does not: we look at your emitters and tell you which efficiency class your house can actually use.

On size, we perform a heat-loss calculation on your actual home. Contractors who size the new boiler by copying the old one’s nameplate perpetuate decades of oversizing — a boiler that is too big short-cycles, wastes fuel, and wears out sooner.

Installed cost depends on fuel, efficiency class, and how much of the near-boiler piping and venting needs rework, but most full residential boiler replacements land in the $7,000–$12,000 range, with high-efficiency condensing systems and fuel conversions toward the top. You get a firm written quote before we order equipment, and financing is available.

A note on how we quote, because it matters: Aces Highlands is a local Portland company, not a franchise. Our estimate is built from your house — heat loss, piping, venting — not from a national pricing playbook with a brand royalty inside it. And since we hold Maine Master Plumber and Master Oil Burner licenses in-house, there is no subcontractor markup stacked on the job.

A typical boiler replacement takes one to two days. We drain and remove the old boiler, set and pipe the new one with clean, properly supported copper, install or reuse zone controls and circulators as the design calls for, connect venting and fuel supply, fill and purge the system, and then commission it with a combustion analysis so it leaves tuned — not just running. You get a walkthrough of the new controls, and your heat is back on the same day whenever the job allows. Pair the new boiler with radiant floor heating or an indirect water heater and it can carry your domestic hot water too.