Boiler near-piping redone

68GMC

I have heat on in the house now. Yay!  And happier still to have found no leaks (knock on wood). Did I ever learn a lot, and did I ever gain a LOT of respect for pipefitters/steamfitters, both past and present. Anybody who has never used two 3 foot pipe wrenches overhead has not learned the joys associated with it. Or, for that matter, hand threading 2" pipe. Big thanks go out to everyone who helped me on this, and as well to Dan for providing this website for advice and support. I realize I am not finished, I still need to skim the boiler, redo the boiler water feed, drain valves, insulation, pipe hangers, on and on. For now I'm happy the hard parts done.

Any comments, questions, concerns, etc. please feel free to post. Although I am not a professional, so please try not to be too picky on my workmanship. I did the best I could, given a limited patience, and more limited skills.

68GMC

Ta-da!

The new stuff. Very very close to the instructions in Burnhams owners manual. For an IN6, what I have, they don't call for the second riser off the boiler, but the general consensus I got was it won't hurt at all. 2 2" risers to a 3" equalizer. It was a HUGE pain in the butt to get all the piping sloped properly. As well as getting it sloped properly, to then tie it into the existing. 

Steamhead

Nice job

especially since it's your first time. Now you know why we like drop headers- they're much easier to put together.



How much better does the system work now?

Rod

Heart Failure!

Very nice piping job!! It should make a big difference to the system.  LOL...I must have clicked on your first post just after you posted it and when I read it and then saw the pictures, I thought, "Oh Boy!, I'm not going to be the one to tell this poor guy he goofed up and will have to do the piping over again!" I was very relieved when I saw your second set of pictures!

- Rod

68GMC

I was

hoping I would catch at least one person. :-)



Steamhead- Thanks for the compliment. I looked at a lot of your installs, and a lot of Gerry Gills installs. May I ask why you think the drop header is easier? I looked at it and after studying it, I thought it would be HARDER for a novice to pull off. Maybe it isn't, but I didn't feel I  needed to overcomplicate what I was trying to do.



And I hope this is the FIRST, and LAST time to do this. :-)



The house was sitting at about 60 degrees F, I turned the boiler on and within the first cycle and probably 20-25 minutes run time the house was up to around 69 F. Ambient air temp outside was around 5 degrees C.  The rads get nice and hot more evenly I would say, and seem to heat more columns. I am surprised at how quiet it is, even before skimming. I'm still a long way from the finish line, but as $$ allows I plan to keep going. I really doubt I will see much of a fuel savings, but I hope I see some savings at least. If nothing else I know the near boiler piping is now done (more) properly.

Steamhead

The extra elbows in a drop header

make it easier to swing the pipes together if there are two or more risers from the boiler to the header. They also allow the header to deal with expansion and contraction easier.



You may save more fuel than you think. The new header will dry out the steam much better, and dry steam heats far better than wet steam.

Rod

Insulate

Be sure to insulate your header and new steam piping. I was surprised at the difference it makes when I did mine.

- Rod

68GMC

Swing fittings

Steamhead- It's my understanding that any time you have two pieces of pipe that meet at akward angles (not the best phrasing), or where you're trying to line up a union, you should use/have to use, a swing joint. So in thinking about it, by using a drop header, you're introducing 2 swing joints, where I just had one. So by having 2 swing joints, you have more room for error. Makes sense, but I still think as a novice it's harder to wrap your head around and be able to produce a drop header. I've learned that you can draw anything on paper, but in cutting/threading pipe, if you're off by a 1/2", that can make or break the union. The only reason I can think this will save fuel is because the second header now should produce more heat to the radiators it supplies, and make the overall heating system more efficient.



As an opinion, why do you think having better near-boiler piping will reduce fuel costs? I understand the dry steam/wet steam, but I can't see just redoing piping increasing efficiency that much. 



Thanks for your advice.



Rod- Yes, I plan to insulate everything, I have the straight 3' lengths, the fitting insulation covers will have to wait. I think a big part of the insulation on pipes is not only during the heating cycle, where the steam loses it's initial heat, but also because the pipes stay warmer between cycles. So if you think about it, you're not trying to raise bare metal from 50 degrees to 212 degrees, you're going from 100 to 212, or whatever. You should catch my drift. I notice insulated pipes stay warmer longer than uninsulated.

crash2009

Fuel savings

The old way you were piped was pumping water all around the mains then coming back to the boiler.  Now you are keeping the water in the boiler.  If any water does come out of the boiler it gets routed to the header and down through the equaliser and back in.  It uses more fuel to move the water than to move steam.  Plus, since you have less water in your returns, you have more space for the condensate and steam, Lets just compare it to a human carrying 2-5 gallon pails of water, first up the stairs, then around the perimiter of the house and then pouring it down into the basement.  Then go back down and get 2 more pails.  By the end of the day we sure would be tired.  Nice job on the new piping.  I recently insulated mine.  Insulation is great.  For me, I was happy with 1" for the mains because I needed some heat in the basement, but I wish I would have used 2" on the header and system risers.  Maybe next time. 

Steamhead

When we do headers

we have a couple runs of pre-cut nipples available in the sizes we will use, so if something is off, we just change the nipple.