steam boiler gravity return

Mike Greenway

I have a row house in Baltimore, built in 1926, with the original steam system but modified for a new boiler in about 1999. The condenstate return line comes from the front of the house and from the rear of the house, and drains the condensate from front and rear ( about 45 feet apart ) and ties together in a T at the rear of the boiler. The front condensate return slopes with a constant fall to the rear of the house. The slope is about 1/4 inch per foot from front to rear. The boiler sets about 12 feet from the rear of the house. There seems to be a buildup of sludge in the rear part of the return line that I cannot drain due to the slope to the rear.
Should that rear section of the condensate line slope to the boiler condensate return as well as the front line? I can change the slope by shortening a verticle portion of the return to give it slope to the boiler return T.

Thank you in advance.

Mike Greenway

Unknown

steam boiler gravity return

You might,, provided you don`t turn any other rads into a dry return.
Can you get any pics?

Dave

bob young

SLOPE

A WET RETURN IS A FLOODED SYSTEM. PITCH IS NOT CRITICAL.

Jamie Hall

right

slope in a wet return is not important, so long as all of it is below the boiler water line (which it has to be, to work properly). The fact that you can't drain that last 12 feet is not important -- unless, for some reason, you want to drain out the whole system. Can't think why you would, but... there's a reason for everything.

Solution to that is to add a drain plug at the lowest point...

bob young

pumping & sucking

TO DRAIN use a pony pump or wet vac & suck it dry !

Steamhead (in transit)

Mike, our company is in Baltimore

and we specialize in steam heating. You may be familiar with some of the buildings we work on- Calvert Court (see link at bottom of this post), the Bromo-Seltzer Tower, Ambassador Apartments and Zion Lutheran Church (where they still hold services in German) to name a few. All have noted that their systems perform much more quietly and efficiently, some posting fuel savings over 30% after we've worked on their systems. But when it comes to steam, no job is ever too small for us.

If those wet return lines are original, I'd just replace them. All the crud from the system settles in these lines and eventually blocks them. New lines would save you a lot of hassle down the road.

I prefer to see wet return lines sloping toward the boiler since that makes them easier to keep clean, and easier to drain if needed. But as Bob and Jamie pointed out, they don't need this pitch for the system to work.

Give us a call on 410-321-8116 and let's talk. We're not in the office much, but will return your call ASAP if you leave us a message.

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