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Hello to all. Has anyone actually encountered a banging Hartford loop ? All of us here were taught about the importance of a short nipple on the Hartford loop. I do strictly residential work and I have seen endless Hartford loops, with nipples of all sizes and lengths. I have never ever encountered a Hartford loop that had any banging noise. On one of the more recent boiler installations that I did, I deliberately installed an excessively long Hartford loop nipple. It was a mixture of convenience and experimentation. It was something like 18 to 24 inches. Not a sound. Zero banging in the Hartford loop or anywhere else for that matter. Would love to hear about everyone else's experiences.

@retiredguy

Smith (if there still in business) the last 28s I did which was about 8 years ago they stopped using the blend pump as far as I know. They now provide a "return temperature stabilizer". It is a perforated tube of expanded stainless steel with I think a flange on one end. It goes in the 6" tapping in the back section and goes through the top nipple port and runs the length of the boiler. The return water is now piped to the 6" tapping. The return water flows through the "stabilizer" to all sections so I guess it puts the back section under less thermal shock

I do this on every steam boiler that I am service. Just for clarity, I only service residential. Cleaning is part of maintenance. The eight way will break down the sludge. Repeated draining remove the sludge. Adding eight way after the fact, will greatly reduce the sludge going forward.

@ethicalpaul - I don't actually know. This was before I got interested in home heating, it was a poorly maintained rental, and I was vaguely recalling that's what the plumber told us (over a decade ago). I think we just came home from work and noticed the house wasn't heating. I don't recall the basement flooding in the same incident.

So all of the fear with Hartford loops etc on steam boilers yet hot water doesn't have it and doesn't even have a lwco?

Well water leaks will cause the system to use more water but that is about it in the short term. I believe you have other issues that need attention too.

If anything I'm amazed at all the comments about dry fired boilers.

1. A house I was renting had a steam boiler crack. The LWCO was broken, the boiler steamed itself dry, and then returning condensate caused it to crack when it met the red-hot boiler.
2. As part of my on-going experiments in improving (hydronic) boiler efficiency, I've settled on a scheme that immediately opens all of the zones in the house to do a 'thermal purge' cycle when the last zone is done calling for heat. This effectively means dumping a lot of cold water into a hot CI boiler, and it can drop the temperature from (up to) 180F down to 65F or so in a few minutes. I haven't noticed any detrimental side effects though, and the temperature change seems pretty gradual, as the cold water is mixing with the last-active hot water loop (plus the water + thermal mass of the boiler itself).

I'll definitely report back if I crack my boiler in half this winter!