Burnham Mega Steam with a Drop Header

The Wire Nut

"Joan Rivers",

As a person whose work has also been "attacked" I would venture that if you have to hide your vitriol behind a nom de guerre you don't deserve to be taken seriously, nor should you waste our time.

Considering the praise this installation has received from well known and experienced experts, and from a representative of the manufacturer, your comments are unwarranted, unprofessional and just mean spirited. They contribute nothing.

Come out of the shadows, show us some of your work, we're all happy to learn. If you have to hide, go back to watching TV and stop wasting bandwidth...

JMHO...

Alex

Pete C.

Burnham Mega Steam with a drop header

We finally got to install a Mega Steam boiler from Burnham in a residence in Hempstead, NY. The customer was the rare type that was willing to pay a little extra for a quality job and a superior product. I am convinced that Burnham has a winner with this Mega Steam boiler. It has exceeded our expectations. What a beautifully designed boiler. After we set it up, we were able to get 87% efficiency.

We follow the principles of the "Lost Art of Steam Heating" on every steam job and have always had great success with our installations. We upsized the header from the Burnham specified 2" and used a 3" one instead along with a 2" equalizer. It adds to the cost of the fittings and it's so much more labor, but, we wanted to do right by this customer and think that with this installation we did. Unfortunately as you guys know, it is getting harder and harder to compete with guys who slap pipes together like as if it is forced hot water and those who use copper headers on steam boilers. For us, this job will be signed off by the local inspector and he was adament...no copper headers! No problem for us since we never use anything but steel pipe and cast-iron fittings on our steam boilers. My customer was impressed with the amount of work involved in this installation and the performance of the new boiler. He was so happy with the job, would you believe that he even tipped the Boss?

Will_5

Awesome

Awesome looking job!!! I'm jelous, I've been dying to install a Megasteam and haven't come across an oil steam job lately.

C

gerry gill

very nice indeed!!

please ask Dan to put it in the drop header pictures in the library section of this site..it deserves a permanent presence.

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Unknown

Superb!

Very nice installation Pete and thanks so much for sharing it for all to see! Would it be OK to borrow your picture for our archives? Thanks again.

Glenn Stanton

Manager of Technical Development

Burnham Hydronics

U.S. Boiler Co., Inc.

Boilerpro_5

I've been wanting to do one too.....

but, alas, there is very little oil here in northern Illinois and gas isn't approved yet (Glenn....Hint, Hint!) I am going to be doing a gas fired Slantfin Intrepid (usually oil fired)steamer in the next month and I expect to get mid 80's efficiency.
Just one comment on the header. You would probably get even better performance if you left a little more pipe between the last boiler take off and the feed to the system. This will give the steam and water more time to separate. Im think the general recommended minimum length for this pipe is 3 times the diameter of the header. Longer should give you even cleaner steam to the system.

Boilerpro

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JohnNY

Critique

Why would you put the water feeder below the water line?
Why would you install those long horizontal run outs to the header?
Your equalizer is oversized and the water looks filthy.
Where's your skim port?

Someone please tell me why this is an install worthy of such high praise.

There is no reason I can see why a drop header was used on this little boiler. In fact, the job was made much more comlicated, and I have to assume more costly, to install it less well than if it were done simply according to specs.

Norm Harvey

Theres really no such thing as an oversized equalizer. It should be the same size as the header right down to the hartford loop.

I agree I would have used closer horizontal nipples to the drop header but its not necesarily "wrong" though I could dig out the books to check.

The job is done according to specs, the MST literature shows optional drop header piping.

The feeder below the waterline, I wouldnt have put it there but, whats wrong with that? I dont see an issue.

And the skim tapping is located on the rear of that boiler.
Yes the water is dirty but we dont know when the pic was taken. I give them the benefit of the doubt that the picture wasnt the last thing they did that day.

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Mad Dog!!!!!!!!

That's funny Joan....

go get another tummy tuck and face lift and stick to gossip. Very nice, neat job, Pete. We all have our own styles and trademarks. An electronic water feeder doesn't '"know' where it is installed and doesn't care. Hey does Scotty Patpoe happen to be your nephew? Hey Pete was that Village of Hempstead? Mr Bravo Marshall? I didn't know it was a heating crime to take a picture before you are 100% done....kinda of like the picture I posted a few years ago where I hadn't yet piped out the DRIP piping on a BACKFLOW PREVENTOR. Mad Dog

Unknown

Nice job Pete

Don't worry about the critics who nitpick your installs . Keep posting your jobs .

Was it tough maneuvering it into the basement ? Did you have to take the jacket off ? And what's in the big blue box on the right side of the boiler ?

Steamhead (in transit)

Pete, that's one fine-looking install

I'll second the call to include it in the Drop Header part of the Library.

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Norm Harvey

The blue box on the side is kind of a circut, of sorts.

All the components, burner, pressuretrol, LWCO, feeder have quick connects that plug into it. I assume that the circut board takes care of all the series wiring and you just plug in each component.

I too wonder if it does anything else.

I had a chance to check out a MST when another contractor in my area was installing one and invited me to have a look. He had said that the boiler was shipped broken down and he needed to assemble the jacket, doors, etc.

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Pete C.

To the "Joan Rivers of Steam"

The long runouts to the header are required by Burnham for swing joints...they insist on a minimum of 18". The pictures are deceiving because they look longer.

To be a critic, you must be an expert. An expert while critiquing would while investigating this, have noted in my original post, that it was just recently installed. Any expert steam boiler man, such as yourself of course, would know that a new steam boiler installation requires that we return to the job after a week or so to skim the boiler and boil it out which is what we plan on doing. If the boiler water is dirty I am pleased because the chemicals are working and will help us to clean out the system when we return in a week for that very purpose.

We installed a gate valve on the system side of the Hartford loop and that will help us to clean out the returns and boiler by closing it and flooding the system while emptying it and replacing the foul water with clean water. We figure the cost of doing this on every steam job.

The Water Feeder is activated by the Low-Water Cut-off so it does not matter where it is installed. This one won't automatically feed unless the LWC calls for it to.

The skim port is on the rear of the boiler. If you install these you'll see where Burnham tapped for it. We even put a brass cap on it so future critics won't have a hard time removing it to skim it. How can you possibly oversize an equalizer?

Cosmo_3

Nice reply Pete

That's the way to handle'em

Anonymos posters are pansies, no reason for ruffled feathers.

You very eloquently countered his/her/it's critique with facts.

Nice work!!!!

I'd be proud to have that install in my basement....

Cosmo

Pete C.

Thanks for the response. It is a very heavy boiler for its size so yeah it was kind of hard to maneuver. We have an Escalara Stairclimber handtruck so that makes it much easier. The blue box which contains the transformer and plug-ins,etc. is field installed so it's not in the way when you are bringing it into the jobsite unless you install it first.

JohnNY

OHHHH!!!

Those are SWING JOINTS!!! Of course!

And the feeder doesn't know...blah blah blah.

Give me a break.

Really, dude.

Nice first boiler install.

My advice? Keep practicing.

Long Beach Ed

Ward Fittings

Hey Pete!

Don't those fittings say "WARD" on them? Wow, those are expensive. We buy the ones that say "CHINA" and we used to save about $18 per boiler. Now the supplier charges the same price for them though and says they are just as good as Ward.

The mechanic would have to come back for a day or so to change out the ones that leaked, and I have a bucket of elbows threaded at 87 degrees, but look at the bucks I save! Oh yea, when you tighten the big 3-inch ones sometimes the threads pull right out of them. But hey, the bucks saved buys me a big cigar!

Nice job, Peter.

Clemuel Boougah

Al Corelli_2

Nice Job, Pete

Is that blue box able to be mounted elswhere on the jacket?

I run into many installs that require fitting in tight spaces, and the ability to mount the blue box somewhere else would be great.

Hey, Ron Jr., How many boilers did you do last week? We did 7 AGAIN.

This week has us doing A Burnham V85 water (started and done today), a WM EGH105 gas/steam, a Smith 19-4, and we have to swap out a couple of 50 gallon water heaters.

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DanHolohan

I can do without

the nasty nature of your comments.

Unknown

You did how many ?

You might want to think about leaving a few installs for summer

Last week I personally installed 4 boilers . I took a sick day Thursday . Good mix of stuff - a hanging GE , a steamer , a floor model GE under the stairs , and a warantee V75 . Looks like you had a good mix , like us .

Al Corelli_2

Great mix

Yeah, we never really know what we'll run into.

And I like it that way.

Took out a Fitzgibbons 400 today. Big Beast. Customer wanted it changed to something more efficient. Barely fit out the door. The coil in it must have weighed 50 pounds without the brass headplate.

Thank God we have the Escalera. That thing ROCKS!

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Pete C.

Joan, it's not my first boiler install, it was my first Megasteam boiler install. I just wanted to make a positive comment about the unit because I felt it was warranted. I think any company that will invest the time and energy into engineering a product and producing it in the USA, such as what Burnham did with this, deserves praise.

We all hear about the superiority of European designs. We have installed quite a few Viessman and Buderus boilers which are great products. Here is an American product that in my opinion, will be the Viessman of steam.

Pete C.

I would say you can mount it someplace else but the jacket has a large square cut out of it where the box is mounted. If that's not a problem, and your willing to possibly add your own wiring and plugs ( the factory supplied ones may not be long enoough if you mount the box someplace else), why not.

bob_50

Nice work

Pete, I hope your boss shared that tip with you. bob

Weezbo

Joan,if you haven't made any mistakes ...you haven't done much.

this is coming from someone who doesn't Know steam *~/:)

yesterday evening, i was mellowing my copper hydronic pipes with 260 F water

to me, that looks to be plenty of dry steam making its way to the rads from that Burnham...

Brad White

Jeez, Weez....

For a simple photograph, what a thing of beauty, that copper. 260 degrees? Yeah, you know steam. Liquid steam.