Steam Pipe Insulation

Brad White

Not to contradict Dan, but that approach is, IMHO, better than nothing. I think it looks sloppy no matter how well it is done; that is just me.

The fiberglass faces the pipe. The foil can remain and keeps the fibers from abrading, so I would leave it.

The right way (again, IMHO), is to use moulded fiberglass made for piping. Knauff, Certain-Teed, Owens Corning among others. At least one inch thickness although model energy codes say 1.5 inch thickness for up to 1.5-inch pipe size and 2 inch thickness for 2-inch pipe size up to 4 inch.

If you have over 4 inch pipe size, I would not want to pay your property taxes let alone your heating bills.

Rob Pickard

Insulation Question

I read in "We Got Steam Heat" that it's appropriate to use ordinary fiberglass wall insulation and duct tape on steam pipes. Should I remove the paper/foil backing on the insulation before putting it on the pipes? I'm thinking the answer is yes but would like to confirm.

Bob Flanagan_3

elbows

and what is the best way, if at all, to insulate all the elbows and will you derive the same benefit?

Brad White

Best Benefit

for insulating is to do all of it of course, but the mains will gain you about 90% of the benefit for about 40 percent of the time.

In other words, say it takes about 16 hours to insulate an entire home steam system basement piping, it will take about 6 to 7 hours of that to do just the mains. The peel-and-stick insulation goes on pretty quickly over clean piping. Extra sealing tape at joints is a good idea and make sure the surfaces are dust-free.

If you stopped there after finishing just the mains, you would have about 90% effectiveness in my estimation. Fittings are fussier and more time consuming (another 9-10 hours in my example) but done well, make for a first-class job.

To do fittings the "routine way" these days, there are PVC covers ("Zeston" is a popular brand among others). These go over fiberglass diapers -I call them- and sealed with white PVC tape.

The "right way", if you can find them, are moulded fiberglas fitting covers which cover the elbow and tee bosses and really make for a nice job. Hard to find though.

These latter fittings can be PVC covered or painted with white insulators covering cement. This same cement is used to seal raw cut ends of the peel-and-stick insulation used on the mains.

A third way is to cut (miter) the moulded insulation around the fittings. This is an art. Try it if you like and use an old fish fillet knife kept sharp.

Insulation in my opinion is "easy to do but hard to do well".

Good Luck.

gerry gill

or in my opinion

do the fittings with high temperature cement, then childers mastic and scrim cloth..same as the old days with an asbestos cement substitute.

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Rob Pickard

thanks

Thanks for the advice; I live in an old apartment building converted to condos, and right now many of the pipes are just bare metal. As long as I'm not causing a safety hazard I think I'll do it the ugly, cheap, quick way with wall insulation, since most of the exposed pipes are in the boiler room anyway.

Brad White

I like that, Gerry

Makes perfect sense, is simpler and you get the benefit right away.

What product do you recommend? The finishing cements we specify (Childers, Benjamin Foster 82-07 and Flintkote 230-04) but had not thought of these as a "to thickness" product. Rather more as sealants.

Thanks for the tips though!

Brad

gerry gill

we use

standard high temperature cement to cover the fittings up to the same height as the fiberglass insulation..coat in a thin layer of childers mastic, lay in scrim cloth, (chesse cloth works just swell). then recoat in mastic.. we get the materials locally at Clark Insulation who sometimes have different manufacturers of ht cement..we get whose ever they have that particular moment..the old timers around here like to see it done that way, except they used wall paper paste before mastics became available.

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Larry in Elkins Park_4

FWIW--I did all my basement piping last year using rolls of 4 ft x 16" unbacked insulation available at the home center--took me close to 30 rolls. It works fine. The year before we ahd tremendous warmth in the basement (we had moved in that winter) and extra first floor heat. Now there is barely any excess baseemnt heat - I can't really feel anything theough the insulation unless I squeeze it down - and the second and third floor rads are needless to say getting their heat much quicker. This insulation can also be worked around fittings very easily.
I will agree that this is PITA job, especially with the fibers that get loose from the cutting, and I went though several pairs of latex gloves, along with close to 2 rolls of duct tape. Nd it doesn't look great. But unless you are using the basement as liivng/working spave, i see no need to not do this, and the cost is about 80% less than the fabricated pieces.

TomK22

fittings cement on steam system

In response to Gerry Gill's or in my opinion

Could you tell me what type of high temperature cement and where to get it?

Also I have never heard of scrim cloth? Where can I get it?

Is there a step by step explanation of how to do those elbows etc.

Sorry, new to this.

Thank you!

Tom