Best Of

I added an edit. The piping diagram from the manual and a mock up of what is there. That boiler will flex at the riser tappings. You may catch it in time next summer, OR it may be too late. To be sure, that you get it right next summer, take all the sections apart and install all new "O"ring at all the section connections. you will also need new sealer and maybe new rope gaskets. Part numbers 592-800-010, 592-800-007 and 591-641-865.

You will need a set of o rings and rope gaskets for each section you take apart. OR… You can try to redo the piping without changing the O Rings and hope you get lucky.

Since you have low head room in that location, I strongly recommend a Drop Header in order to get necessary rise in all the vertical pipes. Here is an example of a drop header

Make a special note of three things.

• The header is lower AFTER the boiler risers go above 24" before the elbows turn to make a U turn back down to the Header.
• the system riser is not placed between the two boiler risers.
• The Hartford loop uses a close nipple (#16) that is connecting the equalizer (vertical pipe at the end of the header) at about 2" below the water line, to the wet return piping. Wet return means the return must drop below the boiler water line before it rises up the the close nipple (#16)

Good luck with this project.

Read

The

Fu**ing

Manual

I agree, it’s like they want to do a poor job. Anyone, in any industry, that doesn’t read the manual, is automatically a hack in my world. I learned how important the manual is when I was a teen assembling my parents new propane grille. Missed part of one step and had to disassemble almost the entire grille because I couldn’t put the last part on. I also work for an OEM manufacturer of industrial HVAC and refrigeration equipment and I can tell you first hand, even on the multi million dollar installs of our equipment some “experienced” contractors screw it up, and screw it up HUGE. It’s sad when there is a manual that will make most of these mistakes, essentially, impossible.

For the OP, I’d start with a radiator survey. If one is going to touch anything you need to know how big the mistakes are. I’d bet money they didn’t size it correctly and on a two pipe that can be a much bigger problem. After that the entire boiler needs repiped. I’m not a two pipe expert, but there are definitely details of each system that need to be correct for it to function properly and that needs to be verified to see how extensive the repipe needs to be.