Pipe in from and Pipe out to F+T Trap both slant upward

Unknown

how do <i>you</i> feel about-it?<BR>I mean your paying for this,, does it work OK?<BR>There are always 2 sides to every story, but from what I see, this will always be a problem.<BR><BR>Dave

sreja

Pipe in from and Pipe out to F+T Trap both slant upward

A contractor working on radiator work in our building has replaced the end of main F+T traps.

For one of them, either because they added piping to add strainers (as recommended by Dan), or because it was always this way, BOTH the pipes coming into the F+T and the pipe going out of it are slanting upward.

That is, the F+T trap now lies at a valley in the pipe line as before it leads into boiler room condensate line.

So basically this F+T and the pipes coming into and out of it are going to be filled with water always.

When i talked to contractor about it he said obviously it's not the way we'd like to do it but because of the other piping it would be hard to correct.

As the time i thought, well it's not such a big deal because water will eventually flow out of that when enough water comes in.

But then recently i got to thinking about the actual PURPOSE of the F+T trap -- that it should be CLOSED some of the time to prevent steam from coming through.

So now i'm thinking that because there will always be water in that F+T and pipes, its going to:
1) always be open, thus letting steam through, AND/OR
2) always contain water and thus be very prone to water hammer, etc.

So the real question is, how big a deal is this? should i be worried about it? etc?

sreja

seems to me now that in effect with the F+T being in this valley (and thus constantly filled to brim with water), we've basically got a worse situation than if there was no F+T at all -- because now we've created an always open line, but we've filled it with a reservoir of water for the steam to slam into.

hopefully i'm wrong?

Steamhead (in transit)

It's wrong

and the contractor should come back and pipe it properly.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

sreja

The contrator has said it's not the way they'd like to do it but it's not so easy to fix.

What i could really use is some information and knowledge about how bad it really is -- how concerned to be about it, how important it is to have fixed, etc.

I think this is one of those things us mere mortal consumers have trouble with.. even when we read all of Dan's books -- we know what an ideal system would look like, but we don't know how when something that is imperfect is bad enough to really demand that it gets fixed.

What i need to figure out is if this F+T configuration is just unacceptable and i need to insist it gets fixed, contrary to recommendation of contractor, or whether it's one of those things that's not *that* big a deal.

It's a little hard to see, but here are pictures of the F+T.
You can see that they added nice isolation valves and strainers which weren't on the old F+T, but that extra piping is what may have brought the whole thing below grade:

http://mouser.dcmembers.com/boiler/fta1.jpg
http://mouser.dcmembers.com/boiler/fta2.jpg

gerry gill

Steamheads correct

it needs to be changed..if the distance between the inlet and outlet is the problem, then an Illinois trap is almost straight across and should allow plenty of room for pipe pitch. http://www.statesupply.com/content/col/categories/pdfs/IllFTTrpSpecSheet.pdf

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Unknown

The valves & Y strainer,

are a great service friendly feature to have but,,,
it obviously adds too much length.
It appears there is a 90 & sediment drip(nipple & cap) before all this and it would not be needed with the new Y strainer added.
Could the 90 before this old drip be removed, add an eccentric coupling here then enter his assembly straight?
That should give you more height.
PS-I don`t see that CV helping at all unless he vents the trap another way!

Dave

sreja

I can't tell you all how much I appreciate the help from this forum -- both Dan's books and this forum are absolutely invaluable -- I don't know how any homeowner survives this kind of work without them.

But can i push my luck and just ask for some help in figuring out how i explain to my contractor why we need him to take this apart and repipe? In other words, how do i explain why the current piping is unacceptable? It's fine for me to say "hey my friends at heating help says its no good" but i'd really like to have something specific to explain about why the current setup is just not something we can live with.

gerry gill

well, try this

if the discharge pipe slants the wrong way enough to allow water to fill the beginning of it by the trap, than the air that the ''t'' part of the f&t is trying to vent won't be able to get out until the system has built up some pressure which slows down the advance of the steam and will consequently raise fuel bills.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

sreja

thanks gerry, that helps.