Balance issues

ChrisL

This is a Weil Mclain steamer (lgb9 I believe), that I am having balance problems.  I am guessing this problem existed for many years, and is only apparent now, because I now have temp sensors in different parts of the building.  My problem is the fron half of the building is substantially warmer than the back half. 

Note that there are two take-offs from the header.  The first one is a tee, and the second one comes out with an elbow.  The front that runs hotter is the branch coming off the elbow.  So, am thinking the steam goes up through the branch with the elbow mostly, until it develops enough back pressure to start steam going up in to the elbow.  Does this seem correct, and if so, should I try to resolve this with a piping change.  My guess is this piping probably served well in the coal burning days, but its lopsidedness is accentuated with an on/off modern boiler.



Thanks,



Chris

ChrisL

Picture clarification

Just to make it clearer,  the 2nd picture is the header, with the tee (serves the back half of building that runs cooler) on the very left, and on the very right is the elbow that goes to the front half of building.

Chris 

Charlie from wmass

I think that the plug in

the second picture would be in want of a drip to the return. can you take a photo from a bit further away so we can see how the returns come back? Also do you have an EDR survey of your building? The boiler may be poorly matched to the system. I can see it is poorly piped. I am curious just how poorly.

ChrisL

Re:

Yes, its very hard to get good pictures of it all, as the view is obstructed.  On the first picture, the supply takeoff pipe comes from the left of the picture.  There is a T halfway along that goes up into the header in the 2nd picture.  If you go beyond the T in the first picture is the equalizer back to the boiler. 

I included a farther out picture, that is a little hard to follow with.  The four vertical pipes in the foreground are the returns from the end of the mains.

If you look beyond the four vertical pipes, you can see the complete supply with takeoffs.

crash2009

I was just browsing through the manual.

Page 18 http://www.weil-mclain.com/en/multimedia-library/pdf/weil-mclain-pdf/products/boilers/commercial-boilers/lgb/lgb_boiler_manual.pdf  Looks like it should have 5" risers, 5" header, 2 1/2" equalizer.

ChrisL

re:

Pipe sizing is correct.  Just the layout of it that I am suspect of.

Thanks,

Chris