Butterfly or Kink?

DeeJay

I've got a 2-yr-old Peerless Boiler running a one-pipe steam system in my 3200 sf house in CT.



I get condensate in the kitchen rad, which was moved from MBR years ago.



When the plumber moved the rad into the kit, he said there is a butterfly valve controlling it and if I ever closed the valve, it wouldn't reopen. The conduit to the rad is kinked (see pic), but it doesn't look to my layman's eye that the pitch of the kink would interrupt the return.



But my boiler is running a lot, adding water a lot (I've drained 15 gals in the past two days) and not cranking a lot of heat to the kitchen and causing the two rads furthgest from the furnace to spit steam and overheat those rooms.



Any thoughts?

jpf321

pics please of the rad and valve...

please post pics of the rad you suspect is the problem and the valve you suspect is a problem .. water only flows downhill .. everything must be pitched accordingly



you say the boiler adds water and that you drain water .. so all the water the boiler is adding is eventually coming back?



shut-off your auto-fill for a few cycles and see what happens. it could be a problem at the boiler side regarding LWCO, auto-fill, timing delay, etc.

DeeJay2

spewing

Here are the pics. The unit spewed about 2 qts of water this AM. This has happened before, but usu only when temps are in the single digits.



BTW, I keep having to re-register for each post, which is slowing me down.

Unknown

Radiator Slope

You have way too much slope on the radiator!  When it is cold and the radiator is condensing at a high rate, the large volume of condensate will pool at the intake end and block the steam from entering and the steam will block the condensate from escaping. You have to remember that radiator laterals are "counterflow" meaning that the steam travels one way in the top half of the pipe and condensate (water) travels the other way in the bottom half of the pipe. You want to avoid doing anything that can cause interference between these two flows.



When I shim a radiator I start out using quarters ($.25) for shims. I shim the radiator level and then add a quarter under each leg at the opposite end to the steam pipe. The idea is to have enough slope to "encourage" the condensate to flow out the pipe and return to the boiler. Too much slope can cause problems! I add quarters to the height till I feel I have the optimum slope. I live with that a day or two, adjust as necessary and then cut a permanent shim to replace the quarters.



The other thing that needs to be considered is that your venting might be too fast as this can build up too much condensate at one time and cause an interference in the flow. This is especially critical if you piping to the radiator is undersized.



As to your "kink" piping - I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking at in the picture. I see two pipes (one with foam around it let's call that the "foam pipe")  In the direction we are looking in the picture is this towards or away from the boiler?  In the lower left hand corner of the picture, the "non-foam" pipe seems to have a fitting attached to it, what is this?

- Rod

DeeJay3

slope

Rod--Thanks for the reply. Who knew more slope was harmful? I will test lower shims.



The photo in the first post is of the two conduits to my kitchen, which travel over the freshwater pipes, into a crawl space and then up to the rads. The conduit which appears on the right in the photo goes to the rad with the steep pitch.

DeeJay3

CLARIFICATION

Rod, I'm sorry I left a partial answer.



What you see as a fitting in the photo is the end of the insulation. The perspective is from the boiler end of the conduit.

Unknown

Radiator

i don't know how long the pipes are going from the steam main to the kitchen radiators. You might want to insulate them (1 inch fiberglass pipe insulation gives the biggest bang for the buck) as copper transfers heat a lot faster than cast iron. You want to the steam to get into the radiator and not condense in the copper line. Also condensing in the pipe causes "interference".

Are you sure the adding /draining boiler water is related to the kitchen radiators?

- Rod

Charlie from wmass

That copper is also too small

a radiator that size needs 1 1/4" iron supply pipe to work well. I am betting the water issue is another issue. Do you have any near boiler piping pictures?

DeeJay3

Rod and Charlie

Thanks for the questions, guys.



Rod, the conduit off the main to the large kitchen rad runs 27 feet, the last ~10 of which are uninsulated. As far as being sure the excess water is coming from the kitchen, that is the spot where excess water emerges, so I'm guessing guessing that that is where the excess water is accumulating.



Charlie, I attach two pics. One of the pipes coming off my boiler, the other is a pic of the two conduits coming off the main. Taken from directly underneath, the conduit on the right, measuring 1 1/2", serves the large kitchen rad (27 feet away). The conduit on the left, measuring 2", serves the smaller kitchen rad (21 feet away).

Unknown

Boiler Piping

Hi- Looked at your pictures and was wondering if you could post some more of your boiler piping . Try to take them from all sides and get the whole boiler plus the piping going to the mains in the picture. Don't worry about it being small as if it's high resolution we can then blow them up to see detail. What we need to be able to trace where each pipe is routed.



Your header and exit riser is a bit odd. From the picture it looks like the loop in the exit riser coming out of the boiler would hold water and this would give you wet steam.

- Rod

Charlie from wmass

is that tee flat in the second picture

If it is coming off horizontal it will blow lots of condensate with the steam. also the 1 inch is small for the edr of that radiator.

jpf321

1.25"?

Charlie -- in looking at the valve in the 3rd picture above post with radiator .. it's stamped with 1-1/4" .. is that large enough for the rad?

DeeJay3

Answers

Charlie--The conduits off the main are at ~30 degree angle. Here are pics of the piping off the boiler.

DeeJay3

Update

I had a trusted contractor, JR's Heating and Plumbing, Norwalk, CT, come over for a consult today. We replaced a broken vent near the boiler, three faulty vents on 3 rads and are in the midst of a 4-hour "skimming." I'll be insulating the pipes in the crawl space tomorrow.