Near Boiler Pipe Insulation

acl10

What is the best thing to use for Near Boiler Pipe Insulation and where can I get it?

BobC

pipe insulation

See crash2009's reply to this question in this thread -



http://www.heatinghelp.com/forum-thread/132995/What-type-of-pipe-insulation-should-be-used-on-the-near-boiler-piping



Bob

BobC

Duplicate

Duplicate posting

Jean-David Beyer

That is for a steam system.

I have a hot water system with outdoor reset. One zone runs between 75F and 120F; this is the zone that requires the most heat. A smaller zone runs between 110F and 135F. These ranges assume the temperature outside goes don to 0F, and since the design day is 14F, the water temperatures will tend to be at the lower end of these ranges. There is also an indirect-fired hot water heater that runs with 170F water. My (former) contractor put no insulation on any of the pipes.



I went to a big box store and bought 1/2", 3/4" and 1" black foam insulation for these pipes. I also got some  1 1/4" fiber-glass stuff for the largest pipes. These seem adequate for my system; it certainly heats my garage less than my old oil burner did. These are all 1/2 inch wall thickness and I imagine they would be inadequate for steam systems.

acl10

How thick shoud the insulation be?

How thick shoud the insulation be? Is 1 inch fiberglass adequite for 2 and 2 1/2 inch pipes

Charlie from wmass

Best bang for the buck

is 1". More is better but cost of product out weighs gains in efficiency. Fiberglass will not harden as foam insulation does.

crash2009

1" seems to be the most popular

I used 1" on all the pipes in the boiler room (including the returns)  I wanted to let some heat get through to heat that room, but more importantly I wanted to keep the steam hot while its on its way to the upper 4 floors.  I also like the concept of keeping my condensate hot too (boiler steams faster, uses less gas, and there is a corrosion reason too).  Most of our walk-out basment (my living quarters) is done with 1".  1" allows a comfortable amount of heat out while at the same time keeping the steam energy in.  I did use a bit of 1/2 " here and there in places that I wanted more heat.  We ended up with a good balance.  I can always add another layer if I want to reduce the heat some more.  Next time I think I would use 2" on the boiler, header, equaliser (our boiler room is a little too warm).

You guys think you got problems, try balancing the heat with insulation.

acl10

Pipe size

How do you size thediameter of a pipe? If my pipe mesures 3 inches is it a 3 inch pipe for insulataion purposes? If my pipe mesures between 2 1/4to 2 1/2 what size is that pipe?

BobC

Pipe size

This chart should allow you to figure out what your trying to insulate.

crash2009

Circumference

Ther is a couple ways that I can think of. The easiest way for me was to take a cloth tape measure and measure the circumferance, then look it up on a pipe chart.  The second way is to look on one of the elbows, it usually is stamped on it what size pipe its connected to.

crash2009

wow

Just what I was looking for Bob. 

acl10

Batt Insulation

Can you just wrap fiberglass batt insulation around the pipes?

Big-Al_2

Yes

Fiberglass batt insulation will work fine.  I've used duct wrap insulation . . . the kind with the foil facing.  If you wrap it neatly and use silver duct tape to seal it up, it can look OK too.