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Monoflo cast iron diverter tees?

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GeorgeYoung
GeorgeYoung Member Posts: 3
in THE MAIN WALL
Attached are various shots of a few different radiator branch connections in my newly acquired home, dating from 1872. Could someone please help identify just where the diverter tees might be in this cast iron monoflo piping system? Thanks for your help.

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  • STEVEusaPA
    STEVEusaPA Member Posts: 6,506
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    I don't think any of those are monoflow tees. I think they are just individual branch circuits.
    Does a supply and return from one radiator come back to the same line? If so, it would be the tee from the return on the radiator at the main pipe.
    steve
  • GeorgeYoung
    GeorgeYoung Member Posts: 3
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    Thanks, Steve. Each of the photos shows the supply and return of a radiator coming back to the main line. Yes, that's what I was led to believe, that a diverter tee would be on the return connection to the main line from the radiator. But all of these tees look the same. Wouldn't you expect there to have been some markings or differences shown between a diverter tee and a regular tee or to indicate proper orientation?
  • SWEI
    SWEI Member Posts: 7,356
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    Are those photos each showing supply and returns for a single radiator? If so, a couple of them look like the piping for a single-pipe counterflow gravity system (or an early steam to gravity conversion) but the others are real head-scratchers.
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,061
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    5 of the 6 have unions between the tees. Could an orifice have been installed in the union.....that would force some water up into the first tee.....just like a diverter monoflow tee would.

    That is a lot of unions in a system..from what I've seen the dead men did not use a lot of unions...expensive part at the time. We all wish they would have used more. ;)

    But the 6th one?
  • Mark Eatherton
    Mark Eatherton Member Posts: 5,853
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    I agree with all these folks. They are definitely not monoflo tees, and I agree that there is probably some sort of orifi between the two tees, imbedded in the union. I have done this with copper tees, using a cone shaped venturi insert fitting, but never with black iron pipe. As Gil Carlson use to say, "In order for there to be a difference, you must MAKE a difference". Something other than gravity is at work there.

    ME
    It's not so much a case of "You got what you paid for", as it is a matter of "You DIDN'T get what you DIDN'T pay for, and you're NOT going to get what you thought you were in the way of comfort". Borrowed from Heatboy.
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,061
    edited February 2016
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    It just makes you want to take them apart, doesn't it?
    Just using a size (or 2) smaller between tees might have done also?
    But the one without the union? :*

    Note: there could be a flat disc placed into the tee before the nipple was screwed in. I service a power gas burner that uses that method for the gas orifice sizing in the 1" NG supply pipe.
  • GeorgeYoung
    GeorgeYoung Member Posts: 3
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    Thanks, guys. Yes, SWEI, I took these photos to show the supply and return each for a given single radiator. JUGHNE and ME - exactly what I was wondering - if the unions had something within them to supply differential? But again then, what about the one with no union? I'll go look again, but out of a total of fourteen such radiator branches, I believe there was only that one without a union. JUGHNE - Yes, I may take them apart, if possible, after awhile. I'm having heating contractors come by in the next week to discuss the possibility of installing manifolds for home-running with PEX-AL-PEX to some new steel panel radiators and the next step may be to do the same for all the existing cast iron radiators.

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