Best Of

Not to bust anybody but im case everybody forgot ' How could 212 water turn into steam unless the additional 970 btu are there as the latent heat which the change of state from 212 water to 212 degree steam . Also lets not forget when it turns back to water -970 btu and a 1700 times less volume ie vacuum forming bang .This is not happening out in the system it's happening at the burner where heat is input . Unless physics has changed Einstein's theory you are not getting that latent heat which is energy input from a pipe which is exposed to surrounding ambient mere fantasy . Plain and simply impossibly we cannot understand paul logic being i can't see how a pipe weather insulated or uninsulated is going to have enough energy to apply another 970 btu of latent heat to change from water to steam unless you have a flame under it . Lets me not presume that everyone knows sensible from latent heat right? ps i am not as smart and bright as other may think if so i would be wealthy instead i'm poor and slightly stupid so please explain the pseudo science or better yet take a quick review of commercial steam and power plant generation before ya throw some bs thoughts out there because i know that steam in a power turbine is not adding steam to the turbine the turbine is using the steam as a prime mover and leaving condensate when its work is done ie turning into condensate . Most of all this stuff has been in use centuries so as smart as i think i am at times i surely know that i am not just observate and have seen all the things some say are not required but it amazes me as i think about the masses of job i ve seen that did not work and they usually had had everything done incorrectly and missing stuff . remember 212 water plus 970 btu = 212 steam without the 970 latent heat ya just got 212 water and ya aint getting that 970 btu from a pipe w no heat source unbless FM . Spin on

I post not to make anyone feel inferior or that i'm so smart i guarantee i'm not that smart it s the result of ions of mistakes n plenty of lumps and a constant life time of reading and also mostly working alone so ya get real good at smell sorting and removing nonsense and bull at least that's how i feel about it .

please remember ain't so smart and it's hard flying to the sun of wings of pastrami

peace and good luck clammy

Excellent discussion on this thread! However, this thread is above my physics education or knowledge

BTU defined for those of us less educated that may help to follow debate:

"A Btu was originally defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by one degree Fahrenheit at a constant pressure of one atmospheric unit. There are several different definitions of the Btu that differ slightly. This reflects the fact that the temperature change of a mass of water due to the addition of a specific amount of heat (calculated in energy units, usually joules) depends slightly upon the water's initial temperature. …"

All the best,

RTW

I am enjoying this debate of wet vs dry steam and which is more efficient for heat transport. Dry steam by definition is water entirely converted to gas, carrying with it 100% of latent heat(of evaporation), whereas wet steam is less than fully saturated and consists of steam mixed with liquid water sans the latent heat . Dry steam will transport more heat per unit mass to the rads than wet steam at a constant pressure. My counterflow system takes a beating even with a small amount of wet steam. The rads take longer to heat. Water quality is very important in my case, all other factors being equal.

So what is the complaint?

What happens at the end of the mains? Is there a vent then they connect separately to a return below the water line? If they connect above the water line I'd fix that first.

The boiler is definitely piped wrong but it might work ok if the water quality is good and it isn't doing any surging or priming.

I can only see 1 main leaving the boiler but i see 2 ends to it, how does it split?

Do the mains slope toward the returns at the end opposite the boiler the whole way? If they slope toward the boiler at any pont they need a drip at the boiler.

thanks all- didn’t think I’d create a small wind gust.

didn’t think I’d see a grammar crackdown either 😀 I always get tickled inside when I see grammar faux pas on national tv😀

“chimney gone” those are not her words. She has an interest in not using the chimney—-I didn’t ask why. I feel like I don’t need to talk her out of that desire.

Steam—dry vs wet: I didn’t think that was a debate but seems like it is. I’ll have to read the Lost Art again- darn it!

my latest national TV spelling boondoggle - (please don’t bust me in politics)

Let me try this one other way:

Wet steam is steam that contains more than 2% water. It is the latent heat in steam that heats the building. In wet steam, there is not enough latent heat to heat the radiators; not enough BTUs carried in the steam.

Someone we all know and respect in this field has said "Wet steam is garbage".

Don't throw out those 3-inch dies yet, Clammy.

Oh my. Well, first, the steam we are dealing with is what is called saturated steam. What that means in practice is that the steam — the water vapour — is at the temperature at which it will condense at that absolute pressure. This has a number of consequences, some of which are a bit weird, but for the present conversation what it translates to is that anytime energy is removed from the steam, such as by coming into contact with a surface which is cooler — a pipe or a radiator! — it will condense into liquid water, and the released heat energy will be transferred to the whatever the steam was in contact with. The resulting liquid water will, in the contact case, by found on that surface and will collect and form identifiable liquid condensate. Not a problem. There are other ways that energy can be removed, causing condensation. The most common is at an expansion, which is very handy in a radiator: the steam expands as it enters the radiator and condenses into very hot liquid water (in fact, steam temperature) and that water collects on the radiator and you get a nice hot radiator. Expansion in other places may not be so good. In some cases, it can be effectively neglected, such as the expansion for a riser into a header or steam drum. In others it can really cause some odd problems, most notably if a reduced port valve is used — the steam will condense on the downstream side of the valve and that will reduce overall steam flow downstream and produce a good bit of condensate.

But in any of these cases, the water droplets are tiny — and at steam temperature — and are not a problem.

The other use of the comment "wet steam" is when actual large droplets of water are carried over for one reason or another from the boiler. These droplets are below steam temperature and will cause some of the steam itself to condense, bringing them up to steam temperature. This can amount to a fair bit of the steam you thought you had coming off the header, and if the carryover continues into the header, can reduce the amount of steam available for the radiation. It also means that there is more condensate present than there should be, and this can be a headache, particularly in counterflow piping.

In power uses, the steam is almost always superheated — that is, the actual temperature of the steam is above the boiling point at that pressure (sometimes well above) and condensation just doesn't happen, and the energy in the steam can be used by expansion in a turbine or piston engine (note that very early steam engines did extract the energy by condensation, not expansion — but that all gets very tedious…)