Best Of
Re: Bell & Gossett Circulator
That circulator was an add on for some reason. It certainly isn't original. The loop is probably air locked because of the leak and shutting off the water.
HVACNUT
Re: indirect tank deterioration
@archibald tuttle said "this hyrdronic circuit receives actual boiler water from the cast iron steam boiler"
Their in lies the rub…. Steam boiler water is an open system, therefore lending itself to constant oxygen infusion into the boiler water. That nipple may have been made of material that is less resistant to the perils of oxidation lending itself to a greater instance of corrosion that other parts of the hydronic system. Or perhaps that was the only fitting that rendered a small leak to allow the rust to make itself visible on the exterior of the pipe whilst the rest of the wet portion of the system has only interior signs of rust and corrosion. This is typical of steam boiler systems below the water line. Perhaps a boiler water treatment plan can be implemented to retard the corrosion process, as is done on many steam boiler systems.
Re: Dunham valve rebuild?
I walked the entire sytem yesterday.
It does have 2 crossover traps, original Dunhams from 1930. YOU guys told me to ad main vents where there weren't any,on my similarly setup 2-pipe system from the same era.
Reeplacing 90 year old traps is a no-brainer. I'll replace all the trap innards and see how it all works before adding the gorton on the main.
And before anyone chimes in with "get a pro to do it" we live in a remote new mexico town, there are no pros, just hacks.
I came in here to ask about the valves, I'll figure it out myself.
Thanks
Re: Help - replacing broken indirect radiator
Doubt you can find one. You can take the plenum apart and put something in its place. They make steel fin tube for commercial jobs or a CI radiator etc.
Re: Spray Foam Pipe Insulation
Why did that make my stomach feel strange? 😏
Yours, Larry
Re: Vapor Steam Heating System?
I would probably re duct the indirect return duct to inside the house and cap off the OA intake.
Re: Piping from scratch
I have been in your situation so I would recommend the following:
- Try to get your customer to agree to a less expensive radiator like euro panel radiators
- Once you have the radiators selected, do a room by room heat loss calculation and select the proper size radiator for each room.
- They will most likely be in the same location as the previous radiator but a little smaller
- Determine the riser and return pipe size for each radiator
- Since the old system was most likely gravity and the new system will be using a circulator the pipe sizes will be smaller
- The least amount of piping work will be to use a Reverse Return parallel design. That looks like this:
- You start at the boiler with 1” or 1¼” copper, depending BTU requirements of the zone.
- 1” piping will move 80,000 BTU of heat to the radiators.
- You can then select the pump required to move that much water thru the radiators.
- At some point you can use a common return for both zones and increase the shared piping as required
These steps will keep your cost down so you don't need to spend more $$$ on oversized pipes and extra pipe runs that will be doing the same job right next to each other. Example below:
You can see in the first diagram on the left there is not enough heat in 3/4" copper to get all the baseboards hot
You can fix this with two zones as illustrated in the center diagram, with two sets of ¾” copper running the length of the house to accomplish this task.
The left diagram is a less labor and less material cost is illustrated by using a 1” copper shared return from the far side of the house.
PS: EDIT
I have actually done that job in Wildwood NJ many years ago. A nice elderly lady on a fixed incom asked several contractors for a price of a new boiler because the old boiler was not big enough to heat her home.
The replacement boiler prices she received were way out of her price range and the replacement boilers would not fix the problem anyway. I offered to put a 1" copper return pipe and common supply pipe from the center of a baseboard loop back to the boiler room for less that 15% of the price of the lowest boiler estimate. Took about 5 hours from start to finish and she had great heat in the entire house. No new boiler needed!
Re: Solution Single Room Heating
What is the actual heat loss of the space? It isn't really all that big… so it shouldn't be too much. And what is the space inside? Is it in another building, or is it free standing?
Second question: what is the actual outside conditions and temperature like around the building? Unless it gets really really cold outside, I'm thinking that a minisplit heat pump is going to be simplest and cheapest way to go.
Re: Solution Single Room Heating
Electric heat should be fine if sized and installed properly. I am talking baseboard not space heaters. If you need AC then go minisplit.
Re: knocking sound on gas water heater?
If I designed this bathroom, I don't think we would ever have installed the Jacuzzi tub simply because we'd probably never use it, but yeah this is just what I have now.
I will look into the tankless water option. I don't know how long the water heater and bath tub have been up there but I think it's got to be at least 26+ years, and I feel like if the weight caused issues, it would have already caused it?
orioncyg