Gravity water boiler replacement ( Ron Jr. )

Unknown

This 7 section American Standard monstrosity was located in Babylon , NY . The asbestos crew was in there a few days before .

Everyone thought this was a 2 pipe steam system . Even me . No PRV , old style LWCO , big steel pipes . I guess the tridicator and no steam gauge shoulda been the tipoff , but we very very rarely see gravity systems . I blasted away at the cast ell in front of the boiler . When I started seeing some water dripping out where no water is supposed to drip out ....... One more smack with the hammer and I woulda been hit with a firehose stream of stangnant water .

This was one of the filthiest boilers we've ever seen on the water side . 5 - 5 gallon buckets were filled with the muck and spooge from the bottom of the boiler . Worse than any steam boiler we ever removed .

We were very lucky to have basement windows that were waist height , wide and long . We slid all the sections out the window and slid the new one through also . Going up the stairs , through the house then down 6 steps would have been a nightmare .

One of the pics is the coal bin . I was wondering how long ago the boiler ran on coal but I forgot to ask the homeowner .

Unknown

How far we got in one day

And I was shocked we got this far . Peerless ECT4 with a Riello burner . Awesome combo and a great fit for large volume water systems . Kenny , Paul , Tony and myself were here . We brought everything for steam . We were thinking of piping it all in black steel , but we had to go out for the 2 inch ball valves , reducing couplings , etc .... Transitioning to copper was more expensive but it cut down the build time considerbly .

The homeowner wanted to keep the system gravity , so we obliged . I've heard that gravity hot water has a sort of natural reset capability . I was wondering if fuel usage would drop if we used a circulator ?

Also , the pipe size . Was using 2 inch overkill for the connections ? Was 1 1/4 inch big enough for the bypass ?

The last pic is Kenny defiling my camera while I wasn't looking . Lucky for him he didn't take another pick of his pimply hiney ..... again .

Steamhead (in transit)

I don't think that old boiler was coal

there's no room for grates in there. The coal was probably left over from the original boiler. I can't count the times I've seen coal that was never cleaned out!

The device on the front- are you sure that wasn't an old tankless coil? Some of these had blow-off connections just like a LWCO has.

With the reduced pipe size going thru the ECT (as opposed to the big system piping), you may encounter circulation problems- not enough heat at the ends of the system. The solution is a circulator. But if you size the circ from the chart at the link below, it will mimic the gentle gravity flow, and the owner will love it. I like to use primary-secondary piping on old gravity jobs, it eliminates the bypass and eases the process of adding future zones or indirects.

http://www.heatinghelp.com/newsletter.cfm?Id=125

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Al Letellier_9

gravity conversion

I agree with steamhead on using P/S setup when converting old gravity systems. Used in conjunction with constant circulationa and outdoor reset, the only way the customer will know you where there will be by reduces fuel consumption. Hard to beat an old gravity system for overall comfort. The rads will stay warm like they always did and the efficiency savings can be amazing.

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Unknown

Actually , at first

I thought they had a wormdrive coal burner which might fit in there . But I forgot about the ol' 150 lb. shellhead sitting in the basement . I think the boiler was oil all along . The device in front looked like a disconnected LWCO . It had wire contacts in front . And being a gravity system , a coil would only work when heat was needed .

I was briefly back at the job on the 2nd day . Paul was there finishing the piping and wiring and bled out the system . It still had the expansion tank in the attic . It was a little chilly yesterday and presumably the heat was turned on for a bit . I'll have someone give the homeowner a call and see how the rads heated up .

Unknown

The homeowner

is a brand new customer of ours , so we don't have any fuel use data . I definitely know the fuel use will drop considrably . But do you think it would've dropped much more if we added a circ ? It pays to wander off The Wall and I read Steamhead's article and Dan's on gravity hot water . With these huge pipes the water velocity is going to be pretty fast as is . Not to mention no need to power a circ with electric rates among the highest in the country .

Steamhead (in transit)

Most of the circs I use on gravity conversions

are very small... Taco 005, Grundfos 15-42, and for those little 2-story rowhouses the B&G NRF-9. These are all little wet-rotor models that don't use much electricity. The largest one I've used was a Taco 111, a 3-piece unit which was right for the job (1300 square feet EDR or so, 45 GPM). I'd use the wet-rotor equivalent for a job like that, now that one is available.

Older boilers had much lower resistance to flow than modern ones do. Most also had at least two tappings each for supply and return. This allowed gravity flow with minimal heat in the boiler. New boilers need circs, but only to overcome the boiler's internal resistance. Once that's done the system piping will continue the circulation by itself, as it did for the Dead Men.

If the owner has to turn up the thermostat to get heat to the ends of the building, that's wasteful. The small power input of a modern circ will offset this.

Did you get an EDR count on that house?

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Steamhead (in transit)

Hmmmmmm

they might have ordered a steam boiler for that job since it would have had bigger tappings than a contemporary hot-water one would have.

Did you rescue the Shellhead? That might be a museum piece!

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B. Tice

Coal

I agree with Steamhead, that wasn't a coal boiler.

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