Backflow Preventer Piping - Ouch!

Big-Al_2

The water feed line to my steam boiler has a Watts 9D backflow preventer on it, with an atmospheric drain.  It's on a horizontal water pipe about 7 feet off the floor, pretty much directly above the manual feed valve.  There is no drain pipe hooked up to the drain port..  It's just wide open right overhead. 



The guy who installed the boiler says that the local inspector doesn't want to see any sort of pipe attached to the drain connection of a backflow preventer.  This seems unsafe to me.  If somebody opened the boiler fill valve while the boiler was steaming and there was no water pressure, the backflow preventer could shower them with boiling water.



Since the inspector is long gone, I plan to pipe it down to about 6" off the floor anyway, just like the relief pipe on a water heater.  Doesn't  this sound like a better idea?  What are the rules in your area?

Jamie Hall

My recollection

of the Watts 9D is that there is no real provision for a drain pipe.  However...



Code around here requires that there be no obstruction, not any possibility of obstruction to either air or water in the outlet from a backflow preventer and that, among other things, there is no possibility of the outlet becoming submerged.  If you can manage that... maybe you're OK

Al Letellier_21

BFP discharge piping

Please do pipe it to the floor, ASAP. You are 100% correct that someone or your boiler can get hurt if a discharge occurs. What kind of an inspector would say that?? UPC plumbing code states that the discharge of any safety valve or device (which the 9D is) must be piped to a place of safe discharge, either to the floor or to a proper drain if finished areas or stored goods can be damaged by a discharge.

I do a lot of work investigating property losses for the insurance companies and I have seen damage in excess of 6 figures because the p&h guys failed to pipe the drip of a BFP, including one where the boiler was on the second level of a barn, directly over an artist's studio....big time loss !!!

PS: this is a great place to use up scrap PEX tubing !!!

Big-Al_2

Drain Connection

Thanks.  There is a 1/2" NPT connection on the drain port of the 9D.



Maybe I should install some sort of larger standpipe, open on top, and direct the drain into it . . . kind of like the setup a washing machine would have.  That way it couldn't back siphon from near the floor.



PEX sounds like a good idea, but I already have enough copper lying around to do the job, and  since I'm doing it for myself, I have the time to be a neat freak.

Big-Al_2

Thanks Again! . . .

 . . . as always!



We had a major snow storm here in Wisconsin overnight, so the office where I work was closed today.  I took advantage of the time off and added a copper drain pipe, terminated 6" off the basement floor.  It looks so purdy . . .

Charlie from wmass

Fuuny how it goes

Inspectors i mass insist on copper for that as the pex fittings restrict the cross area of  the pipe. They also require it terminate off the floor I think at least 3 pipe diameters.

ScottMP

You need to call back

the installer.  What he has told you is not true. Mass code requires that the relief from all devices be piped to 12" off the floor. NO Inspector would say that. It IS a safety issuie.

Sounds like this guy just dosn't want to come back.

Scott

Big-Al_2

I don't know why.

The guy I was talking with works with the company who installed the boiler about five years before I bought the place.  He's their steam guy, and supervised the work.  We also work together on a lot of industrial HVAC projects where I work.  After I bought the place, he volunteered to come over and explain the system to me.   While we were doing the walk-through I asked him about the open BFP drain.  He just shook his head and said that's the way the local inspector wants them.  It's a small town.  I'm guessing that the inspector knows nothing about boilers. 



The original installers are long since off-the-hook for any reasonable responsibility to correct things. But now anyway, it's now piped to about 6 inches off the floor, to a spot where it probably won't splash on anybody, and will run into a floor drain.  It cost me about $15 and an hour of my time stuck at home during a blizzard, so no biggie.  If we get more than 6" of water in the basement, we'll have bigger problems than the possibility of potable water contamination.