Hi George. I’m in Central New York. Yeah, that blower is horrible, but it’s what I had. It does have a rheostat but it’s cheap xx xxxx. I think it was the cheapest blower I could find.
Frosty, the burner came out of a Navien NCB 240 combination boiler. That was the first burn and I was messing with the gas and the blower. At standard household gas pressure they run around 97% efficiency and it’s just a small panel of blue flames. It’s designed to fire down through the heat exchanger. They’re reliable, if they’re serviced annually. https://s6e1619fceb451b6f.jimcontent.com/download/version/1512634722/module/11899834199/name/Navien Gas Boiler NCB-Service-Manual.pdf
Also, the metal mesh was cool to the touch 30 seconds after shut down.