Whats not wrong with this steam boiler?

ttekushan_3

Doesn't look impossible to correct, but be aware of what may be occurring internally on the left side of the boiler. I've seen this enough times to bring it to your attention: The left side sections may be partially or completely clogged with mud pack. Its less likely in sections like that where the inlet is at the front and outlet at the top so crossflow occurs. The worst cases I've seen are where they are plumbed similar to that but the sections have both inlet and outlet in the same plane vertically either both back or both front.

Pictured is the final result.

Steven Gronski

Did I miss anything?

My new customer bought this house in September. Its an 1800 square foot victorian, 3 floors. Her gas bills for November and December totaled over 1100.00. She called me today because here boiler wasn,t running .She says she has been having the problem for a while with the heat and the radiators were really never getting hot like she thought they should and it seemed like the boiler was cycling.She has had two other companies at her house since the heating season has started, before calling me. And one of them changed the radiator vents. The other guy said he didnt see anything wrong but turned up here pressuretrol on the boiler to 5 psi. I showed up and started digging in on the basics. The pig tail was clogged on the pressuretrol, and the stops on the sight glass was plugged solid.The pressure gauge was plugged. You couldnt even see the water in the old sight glass it was so muddy dirty.Needless to say I installed a new pig tail totally vertical, new sight glass, and cleaned the gauge and shut offs.When I went to drain the boiler to do this work I pulled out over 15 gallons of mud and muddy water and couldnt figure out why, Ill get to that in a second. I filled and flushed the boiler several times till I got the water clear. We all know this boiler was improperly installed 16 years ago Anyway, one of the main problems of this system was the surging of the boiler,which I determined was caused by the so called hartford loop being tied into the "supply side" of the "steam header" with that "wonderfully designed equalizer". How about that "riser tie in" to the old steam supplys and those "steam returns" and how they tie in to that fabulous hartford loop. Anyway I got the boiler running where I could see the water movement in the sight glass.This boiler would pull vacume to drop the water below the low water cut off. The automatic fill would fill the boiler on this vacume pull, then it would start running again and doing the same thing. I changed the main vents on the steam return lines and this stopped the vacume effect but the boiler was still surges, but not as bad and it wasnt pulling vacume and it wasnt cycling and kicking in the automatic water feed at that point. To make a long story short, she is happy and getting steam to all 3 floors of radiators right now, but with some banging of course.She said she has not had it that warm in this house since she owned it. Its a shame that two other companies couldnt do the right thing for her or even tell her what was wrong with her boiler, yet there is someone running a thread here on the wall that steam has seen its days and why bother having Dan Holohan educating people on it. Well Mr. Anti steam, If it wasn't for Dans schools,and books, and my early apprentice days with one of those Dead Man walking types, I wouldnt be scoring myself a nice fix job, with the potential to hopefully sell her a new boiler as well, an opportunity that passed by 2 other companies before me. Im glad to be an "elite" in an area where steam still prevails. Yeah anyone can install a steam boiler, these pictures prove it, but not everyone can install it right.

Steven gronski

Gronski Plumbing and Heating

Cranston RI

Steamhead (in transit)

That installer

used Dunkirk's instruction packet for a knee pad. He sure didn't read it!

I envision two 2-1/2" risers to a 3" drop header........

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Unknown

Terrible practice Steve,

this guy knew nothing about steam!

Dave

Mad Dog_2

Steve...good work...a filthy chocolate-pudding-laden

steam boiler like that was making very "wet Steam" which can cause high heating bills as well. Mad Dog

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Mad Dog_2

Hack job!!!!

Mad Dog

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gerry gill

ohh my!

I hope she lets you replace the atrocity..my eyes are hurting and i'm sure to have nightmares now.

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Steven Gronski

Mud issue

Thanks for the input Terry,
I was wondering about the mud blocking up the left side of the boiler as well, correst me if i am wrong, but I figured if 15 radiators at 435 square feet of steam were all heating when I left yesterday,then the boiler isnt plugged up bad? Also my plan of attack on the repiping,if I dont sell her on a new boiler, was to take the return to the other side of the boiler on the bottem tapping. would that be a correct assumption, or would using the same side of the boiler work? I am trying to find an install manuel for this boiler now,HB Smith G210


Steven Gronski

ttekushan_3

The fact that its heating

is a thousand percent improvement. The boiler may be fine. Way too early to tell. Don't be surprised if continued steaming continues to churn up crud. You might want to try a small amount of Rhomar or equivalent water treatment to clean it up. There will be tons of crud tho. Watch for clogged pigtails if you do this. You're up and running, now its a question of optimum efficiency.

Usually returns are on the same side as the controls. Having the steam outlet on the other side would have the same result but give the additional benefit of making proper header piping easier.

Uh oh. My steam phone has rung. A church with no heat. I'll don my special cape for this one:-)

Terry
-T

David Sutton_6

HMMMMM

I bet he must have lost his majic steam decoder ring againand tried to pipe it from memory

David

Michael Wilson

Its gooooood!

I personally love the field goal above the so-called equalizer!

Mike