When is wrong, not really wrong?

TRob

The attached is a working boiler that I met doing a house inspection.  It looks like a bullheaded connection to me.  I observed the system steaming and never heard the expected water hammer. So it seems to be working OK, as it is.

A lucky installation, I suppose.

Mark Eatherton

Steam and Hydronics are VERY forgiving...

I can't tell you how many times I've stood, looking in pure amazement at a conflagration of systems components surrounding a boiler, and realize that it "works". In other words, it puts out heat, but heat is just one component of comfort.



There are many ways of doing things wrong, but only one way to do things right. And as I've said a million times, these systems are EXTREMELY forgiving.



ME

JStar

And...

...is that a 1 inch equalizer? That would be the second one I've seen this week.



I bet if you tried to "fix" this piping, you'd have to come back at least once to change something that was worse than before.



P.S. It's not a bullheaded tee, but the header is piped wrong. The take-offs should be after the leftmost supply riser from the boiler.

Jim Pompetti

Piping

see it all the time . The customer always believes the cheapest price . Pay cheap get cheap . Once was told by a home owner that he PAID extra for the good Copper header.

TRob

Additional photo

You might find this view interesting as well.

Big-Al_2

Mine is wrong too.

The header on my Burnham IN-6 is piped only about 18" above the normal water line, not the required 24".  It was like that when I bought the place in 2007.  I even found the sketch and instructions from the boss to the guy who installed the boiler back in 2001, specifically requiring the 24" dimension.  Apparently it was a little difficult to pipe it that way, so the installer cheated.



I get no water hammer and have no evidence of wet steam.  (The main is about three feet higher than the header, so maybe that's working in my favor).  My inner steam stud begs me to get it re-piped, but my inner frugality freak says, "if it's working well, leave it alone."

Unknown

Not right but it appears to work

My 13 yr old Burnham V75's 2" header is about1" above the boilers top, it goes across and then drops down and reduces to the 1-1/4(?) equalizer. The main comes off the header about half way across the boiler and goes up 40" to the main that feeds all the radiators.



It steams fine with no banging, has about a 1/4" bounce in the sight glass and shows no signs of wet steam in the sight glass. I've considered raising that header up a couple of feet but never bothered because it seems perfectly happy the way it is. I can only assume the 40" between the header and the main is smoothing things out.



Now if there was a way to fix the fact the boiler is three times as large as it should be. Oh well I'll attend to that when it dies.



Bob