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steam unit heaters

cliff dennis
cliff dennis Member Posts: 10
in THE MAIN WALL
have come across steam unit heaters in a plant with nothing on the return side but a swing check valve. They appear to have been added in recent years, older units have bucket traps and they do have to lift condensate. Problem is the check valve units work and some of the bucket trap units dont.My thoughts are the units with check valves are screwing up my pressure diff and the system in general along with multiple system leaks. Has anyone seen this work as is? Also, would it be worthwhile to go in and put steam air vents at the outlet of all of these bucket traps?
THANKS GUYS

Comments

  • Christian Egli_2
    Christian Egli_2 Member Posts: 812
    Can't touch me here, can't touch me there

    I would have to say that very often steam piping is touched by those with only water or air in the head. Pipes all look the same. That's a big problem. And more often than not, new piping gets added on with totally incorrect ideas: improper size, improper pitch, improper layout. I've seen it and it doesn't work.

    The wrench is... that when a mistake is made in one part of the system, the foolishness appears elsewhere and so, the culprit is usually very happy and defensive of the work.

    Sizing traps for the hole on the unit is always comical. No traps make for that much more fun. (It could be that you have either orifice traps or thermodynamic traps in there - both of these don't really look like ordinary traps, but more like check valves. This could explain a lot of things)

    Is major hammer noise an issue?

    Are your units individually zoned? If so, there is a bunch of other stuff that you need as well. So add traps, check valves with lifts and possibly vacuum breakers. It's all in the book.

    To end, I want to add how in a system such as yours, you can't beat steam for effectiveness and efficiency. In spite of however large your plant may be, the steam heat comes on with nearly zero thermal inertia and it delivers heat with all the punch you can feel.

    Thus, repairing your system back to full operation will be very rewarding and will reduce waste, plus, it totally non-disruptive.
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