Best Of
Re: Should a steam boiler be drained in the spring or left wet
For my Snowman built in 1910, (the good old days when the cast iron was an inch thick) oxygen is the coconspirator of rust! This boiler is 100 years old and going strong! Overhauled piping in 2023. Fresh water contains more oxygen. Blow down the boiler (still uses a float LWCO [new in 2023]), and leave the boiler filled. Do NOT add water which also adds oxygen. I put in a quart of Black Swan during the heating season. The two-pipe system ONLY has vents (two Watts SV-3) on the return line in the basement. No air is vented at the radiators. Any stinky air that the system does vent is vented to the boiler room(combustion room) which has a fresh air intake.
twbrkfd1
Re: Dope & tape?
TO teach is one thing to learn is another, to practice perfectly requires perfect practice. All connections require education to do it right. The hardest teacher is experience but it is the truest. But experience can be wrong. Just because it looks simple, or won't leak right away doesn't mean it won't fail. The tragedy of many failures prove that.
Anything ,wiring, welding, carpentry, piping all fail because it is done poorly. And the ways are many. Pipes are not all the same, threads, torque, materials, even what the pipe is used for makes a difference. water v chemicals, pressure, temperature, low or high. Torque applied. All thread dopes are not equal, but all dopes who use them are. The correct choice is just that choosing all the right things required to make it leak free.
Too loose, too tight. The variables in any pipe joint require not just the skill in application, but the knowledge of what is approved and proven works. If it is wrong in any way, it can leak. It's a skilled job because it requires skill. Pipe compounds have restrictions and permissions in can degrade over time. Ambient temperature changes between build and use can make it leak. Even if all that is correct, you still have material defects, and then the skill of the person, who even if they know what to use, may not know the how.
It is why training in the trades is a lifelong school of instruction as things always change! and who knows, Even manufactures, teachers can be wrong. Imagine if the advice you learned was wrong, incomplete, or it will not work in all situations. The classic sign of a novice is they have yet much to learn. And we can learn a lot from heating help.com
Lance
Cutting a concrete radiant slab
I'm adding a bath to the read of my shop space to create an ADU.
Unfortunately I needed to cut a utility trench through a slab that is only a few years old.
I do want to retain the radiant heat so I came up with a method to re-attach the cut loops.
The loops are 6" OC so it required a number of couplings, and some concrete sawing.
These 12" electric hand concrete saws work amazingly well. I used a gas powered walk behind sam for them long cuts. The hand saw was just as fast to cut, actually.
I used the wet saw to cut parallel to the loops first. Then a cut across the tube about 1-1-2" deep. The piece came out easily with a chisel. Luckily concrete doesn't stick to pex, so the tube was undamaged to reconnect. This provided just enough room to get a crimp tool around the tube.
I can slide some insulation below the tubes, some rebar to keep the pour stable.
hot_rod
Re: Webster Vent Trap??
It's a vent trap which is the same as air eliminator. Not sure what brand.
He needs to look for the bad trap that's letting steam into the dry returns that the vent trap is connected to. Just follow the steam-hot return to whichever rad return runout(s) are steam-hot.
Re: Height difference between primary and emergency low water cutouts
Well there you have it. With half a pound of pressure in the boiler it may have taken a full second to trip. Maybe. Thanks again
Gateacre
Re: Dope & tape?
What did you do yesterday?
We talked about pipe dope all night.
Maybe we should talk about a Hartford Loop or a Drop Header or something.
Re: Steam radiator valve and convector valve difference
you might try raising the valve end some to see if it pulls up the riser and takes the sag out of something below the floor.
mattmia2
Re: Steam radiator valve and convector valve difference
This might have been a better choice with a strait valve under the convector element. that way you can fill the space with convector and not have that mush empty space on the right end of the opening. But i agree with @ethicalpaul on the job. nice work!
See the strait valve on the right opening? and again it must be fully open.
Re: Has anyone seen the new piping Diagram for Dunkirk's D-250 steamer
Anyone with a pipe fitting brain is not going to pipe between two fixed points (threaded joints on both ends of the boiler) especially with larger pipe without swing joints.
In the first place you cant do it without "springing" the pipe if you use 1 union or you would have to use flanges or two unions. The return is likely to be 2",2 1/2 or 3" and it doesn't bend very well.
Its no different than the guys that don't read the manual and put in a steam header in line with no swing joints.