Bad Header

Sam G.

When you said the boiler was "broken" was it cracked, burnt, or rotted at the water line? What was the cause of the failure? Take-offs between risers will usually get you wet steam, not a broken boiler.

Viki Ingersoll

How bad can it be

Okay all of you steam experts out there - we have this header on a broken boiler - Weil McLain 778. The risers come up on each end, with nice swing joints, but two supply lines go up off the header in between them. I know its wrong - Weil McLain told me so in their install manual.

I'm getting conflicting opinions from the bidders on whether or not its essential for it to be repiped as part of the repair. I want to hear all of your horror stories of the time you found one of these and what it did to the boiler - maybe then my boss will believe me!!!

Viki Ingersoll

It was rotted

above the water line on the back end section (to the right in the picture) There was a lot (2 - 3 inch stalactites!) of scale inside the boiler at that point. Boiler was installed in '95, just let loose last fall. We didn't discover it until April when they complained about the high winter gas cost. They never looked up at the white plume in the sky!!

Boilerpro_5

Those are not swing joints......

they cannot swing because they are welded. The only thing that can give is the flange connections....not the best. That header should be replaced with a header that has threaded connections so it can actually swing. Better yet would be a "drop header" as it looks like the risers are awfully short and may need to be taller. Heres a drop header on a small steamer.

Boilerpro

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Steamhead (in transit)

The header is welded

which is part of the problem. It doesn't have enough "give" to take up expansion, despite the flanges in the risers.

The rotting at the water line is probably due to a bad leak somewhere in the system, which requires a lot of fresh water to be fed to the system.

Headers should be screwed pipe, not welded. And the ideal configuration is a "drop header" if the boiler has two or more risers to the header, since it has the most "give". I've attached a link to some pages with pics of this setup. Shameless Plug: Some of these pics were my installations.

http://www.heatinghelp.com/library.cfm#Steam Piping

"Steamhead"

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Jeff Lawrence_25

Dave

What's the purple paint on the piping for?

Thanks.

tim smith

cause of leak

Looks like to me there may have been a pin hole in the casting and it rotted from outside in under canopy of boiler.

[Deleted User]

Looks like

the leak started as a sand hole in the cast. Don't see the build up of scale, inside the section, normally associated w/ a return leak.

Yes. Pipe the boiler to Weil's specs. No way the steam is dry w/ that configuration. Look @ Martin's picture. The inportant part is how, & where, the system discharge and equalizer are piped. That's where water in the header returns to the boiler & dry steam goes up.

We service over a hundred commercial steam boilers. Most w/ welded headers. Can't remember the last ceacked section. Drop headers can be a plus, but not a necessity.

Viki Ingersoll

You guys are awesome!

Thanks for all of the input. For what it's worth, there was a lot of scale at the site of the "injury", attached photo shows one of several pieces we pulled out - other sections were very clean. (They're pretty good with blow-downs, etc. at that site.) The insurance guy (Travelers) seemed to think it was a casting defect that started it. The previous boiler was 72(!) years old before it sprung a leak.

Could wet steam w/condensate running back into the boiler in that section have contributed to the scale buildup, which then caused a hot spot?

It's very possible we have leaks in the system, as the returns travel through a shallow, dirt floored crawl space (that I'm not crawling into!), but for what its worth, the weather corrected consumption hasn't varied for 7 or 8 years until this past winter, so if there is a leak, its consistant. And - like I said, the rest of the boiler was clean inside. This winter we saw a 70% increase in the ccf per heating degree day - and it shot right up and stayed there. The repair spec includes installing a water meter on the fill line which is now standard with us, as we have a lot of antique pipes in our buildings. If nothing else, I can now calculate the cost of the leaks, which justifies the cost of repairs.

I'm still watching for more feedback, but my boss is listening to me a little harder already.

Thanks guys!!

Boilerpro_5

Purple Paint

was just from the shop that cut the pipe for me. I have everything precut before hand.

Boilerpor

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