In this paper, a new kind of hot water boiler with inorganic heat pipes as heat transfer pipes is introduced. The experimental system of boiler was established. The Fluent software was employed to simulate the temperatures of pipe walls and the temperature fields of each area in the boiler, that include the central heating water area, furnace cavity, ring-shaped flue area, and ring-shaped water area. The experimental results show that the thermal efficiency of the boiler can reach to 93%. The simulation results show that under the same conditions as the experiment, the temperatures of flue and hot water in the outlet of boiler were almost consistent with the experimental ones, which verified the correctness of the simulation method. In order to optimize the arrangement of heat pipes, the influences of the center distance between two adjacent pipes on the temperature distribution were studied by the simulation method. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.