Emergency steamer replacement

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

This one kept me busy a couple weeks ago.  The old boiler went down right at the beginning of the sub zero cold snap.  The 17 year old WM LGB appears to have been leaking for quite some time, probably mainly due to the welded header.  As you can see we didn't take it apart, but I bet it was leaking within a year or two of installation and then all the excess water intake probably rotted the castings.  You can see the leakage at the bottom gaskets and it looks like the top connections also were leaking.  Input was 1,040,000 btu/hr

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

New boiler

We had 1836 EDR of two pipe vapor radiation, with traps,  with a number of radiators off.  The building was alot smaller, btu wise, than the radiation suggested, so we kept the boiler size down.  The new boiler is a Peerless 64-12 at 630,000 in, about 500,000 out.   We kept the original 6 inch welded header, simply capped off the one riser connection, turned the other to horizontal  and left the hartford loop as is to act as a Giffford loop or false water line.  The new 6x4x4 tee was big bucks, but saving that big header is making for really dry steam to the system.  We used both 3 inch tappings, as required, and built our drop header, which saved us alot of grief when we ended up being a little too close to the end of the housekeeping pad.  We didn't do anything with the system.  Eventually some big main vents, insulating bare steam mains and getting a stack damper on the boiler should further improve performance.  I still am looking for an alternative to the very unreliable Effikal dampers that are everywhere.

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Controls

This boiler needed a secondary MR LWCO and pressuretrol.  The 63/64 castings provide convenient tappings for dual Electronic lwco's at the approprpiate heights.  This saves alot of time over building a piping tree for the secondary controls like many boilers.  The standard pressuretrol was replaced with a 0 to 16 oz vaporstat mounted at a less turbulent area of the header to help protect it from the violence inside the boiler and nuisance short cycling.  Off to the right is our standard chemical port and skimming set up to make it easy to properly maintain the boiler.  We also add a nice blow down for the gage glass.  Things were a little tight  for the secondary LWCO when leaving an inspection port on this end, but tilting things took care of the problem.  The boiler seems to have a nice stable water line and is working quite nicely now after the maintenance main did several skimmings and flushings.

crash2009

How much

does a 6X4X4 tee weigh?  It looks like it's an inch thick. 

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Not sure....

But it sure didn't seem to weigh as much as it cost!

Jean-David Beyer

When you make those drop headers, ...

You do not like a welded header because the boiler and the header expand at different rates, right? Now if you screw them together, where does the difference in length get taken out? In the threaded fittings, or in those unions? Or some in each? I wonder because if you loosen and tighten the fittings, do not leaks develop? Or is the movement so slight that that does not arise?

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

et el.....

Welded headers are not permitted by any cast iron boiler manufacturer unless some method is used to allow movement  between the block and the header for the different rates of expansion.  I have seen some allow flanges (like this one had) but that doesn't appear to work well either.  When I loosened the flanges I was rather surprised by the piping (or boiler) springing about 1/4 inch laterally.  The threaded fittings allow some movement, but don't leak from it.

nicholas bonham-carter

where to skim?

nice job, but where is the skimming port?

and where is our favotite wika low pressure gauge?--nbc

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Skimmer

The skimmer is on the far right and has the bullheaded tee with a 3/4 inch valved line going up for chemical additives and a 3/4 inch valved line going down to drain the skim water.  The skimmer tapping is pretty high, so I expect it does a better job of cleaning the top of the boiler castings.

tim smith

Nice looking job Boilerpro

We get the joy of replacing a couple 88 series sections starting tommorow. Down appx 20 steps. Front section included. Yuck. Hoping that not too much corrosion got further down the sections. Front 2 were rotted out from leak at gaskets we suspect.  Again, good looking job.

Steamhead

Looking good!

and it'll look even better once the dead LGB is gone.



Does the Peerless come with a lo-hi-lo gas train?

Dave in QCA

Nice JOB!

What a great way to get a new boiler put in - and really fast too.  I was just looking at the manufacturer's recommendations for piping on the old LGB-9.  The called for only one 5" steam supply connection.  Even if they had used the weld fittings, it would have been much less likely to crack, assuming that there was a swing fitting in the equalizer and that the building piping had some room to move.



I have noticed that not too many of the Pros on here install WM LGB.  Their supposed to be the most efficient in an atmospheric, and have a pretty good sized steam chest and large passages between the sections.  I was wondering if you might share reasons for a preference, if there is a preference.

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Yep.....

I haven't priced them on the 64, but they are very pricey for the 211A.  They seem to have made them very complicated.  Weil LGB's use a much more sensible and easy to repair set up.  The standardon/off gas vavle is slow openingon the 64, so I figured theremust be some room for lower firing rates and I was right.  Maybe the boiler cold be fitted with a mod gas valve.  Another thing to look into!

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

yikes!!!

This one was at ground level and it still took alot of work to get the 600 lb halves up the little 4inch door sill.   Next time I will hae three men on site. Thanks for the complement. 

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

LGB

I have replaced alot of Weil steamers this way since nearly all of them are piped like this one.....two risers that meet in the middle for the take off. Lgb's and EGH.  There is a local contrator that has been putting weils in since the 60's I bet, and insists that this is proper piping.  There are lots and lots of his boilers around.  Doesn't skimp on pipe sizes at all, just doesn't put them together properly.

The Lgb's  do seem to make very good steam, test out with very good combustion numbers and even keep the combustion efficiency good when running at low fire.    There are a couple of guys here at the wall that swear by them.

I, however, don't like gasketed sections.  I see lot and lots of EGH and lgb boilers leaking at the gaskets in my area, most of them only 17 years old.  Its also safe to say, however, that most contractors in my area don't know diddley about boilers and simply don't care, so installation is probably sub par. With gasketed sections, you better be careful to get all the gaskets and seals lined up properly, or the heat from combustion will toast them.

Also the castings appear weaker than most.  I regularly see alot of nipples on the heat exchangers broken off on newer boilers.  I almost never see that on other makes.

This was my first Peerless, and I am pretty pleased with it.  However ther 211A series that competes with the lgb is also gasketed and on the few I have downfired because they were grossly oversized, combustion numbers were pretty poor.  This one tested out pretty good, with very low stack temps.  There was more excess air than I liked to see, and some of this could be eliminated by bumping up the gas input since our gas has less btu's than the design calls for.  If they tightened up the excess air in general, I bet they could get the efficiency up to about 82%.

Steamhead

If you mean

the "Modu-Pack", they really aren't using that setup much according to their tech department, at least on steam. They recommended a V5055/V4062 setup, like we find on PowerFlame and other commercial burners. Much simpler and at least for us, no learning curve.  

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Thanks, Steamhead

I was referring to the modupak, and wasn't aware of another choice.  I'll have to look into that.

Charlie from wmass

Yes many old timers would

pipe them that way. Most systems I see are piped with the system feed between the risers. By most I mean every one that I have not installed myself in the past 10 years. I confess to doing it that way as I was told by men older and supposedly wiser than me or my father that was how it was done. I have even had engineers insist on it being piped that way. I looks good now though. It is hard to do it right and work around the existing boiler.

nicholas bonham-carter

hi-lo-hi

can you please elaborate on the "V5055/V4062 setup" for the 211 a?--nbc

Dave in QCA

VERY HELPFUL INFORMATION

Boilerpro,

I read this post very shortly after you posted it.  It has some very helpful information.  1.  The 2 stage firing in an LGB is good and efficient at both high and low firing.  However, like you, I have always been wary of the rubber seals and I have seen a fair number of WM boilers that have rotted out.  Perhaps that is because we mostly have WM around here.   We have a model E set up on hot water here in the house we live in and it just keeps chugging along.  Only complaint is the popping in the cast iron burners when the boiler shuts off.



Over at the Best mansion, as it turns out, I did not get he system balanced quite as perfect as I thought I did, so I'm proceeding down the path of putting orifice plates in the valves.  This will allow me to reduce the effective capacity of the system as well as get it balanced perfectly.   Then the eventual boiler replacement will follow in a few years.  I like the specs of the Peerless that you installed in this project.  Also found it interesting that they are still using a cast iron base leg on the end sections.  Wonder how it does at reduced firing, if a 2 stage valve was installed.  Of course, it would always be an option to install 2 Slantfins as you did in a project similar to mine.  Or, perhaps, a couple of Megasteams??? 



I like the near silence of an atmospheric system,  A friend recently put in a Burnham steel firetube boiler set up on water in her 1904 home.  It fires at around 450K BTU, has a powerflame burner, and its LOUD!  You can very clearly hear it in the room above.  I know that some of the residential burners have an acoustic cover over them, and I'm sure that helps a lot. 

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Noise......

Yeah, power burner noise is an issue.  In that other big house where I installed two, the home is essentiallly sound and fireproof (all masonry walls ans floors), so no sound made it upstairs.  Otherwise it would be a problem.  I hope to test the 64 at a reduced rate to see how well it fairs efficiency wise. 

Steamhead

It's

a Honeywell Fluid Power gas valve setup. V5055 is the valve, V4062 is the 2-stage actuator. There are several variations of each of these units. 

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

I suspect...

Just switching out to the gas train and iginition that the LGB uses is probably less costly.  I pull enough lgb's out that I usually have a couple lying around.

Dave in QCA

2-stage valve

Why not something simple like a Honeywell V4944B1018.  It is slow opening, regulating, and 2 stage.  Each stage can be dialed in as to the desired firing rate.

Dave in QCA

Found the Peerless Modulating Controls

I finally found the Peerless Modulating controls.  Under the resources tab, then Technical Information, then Electronic controls.

There is information on Modulating controls and the Modupac controls.  It appears that Modulating control is a 2 stage set up.  The Modupac control is a 3 stage.  They use a separate valve for each stage, with the reduce firing stages being controlled by a fixed orifice in the piping.

Boiler Pro, I didn't see your earlier post until I had posted my comment.  We're both saying the same thing.  WM-LGB uses that Honeywell 2-stage valve.  They work slick.

Ron Jr._3

Very nice pipework

I love how you worked around the old boiler . And I know firsthand how much 6 by 4 tees cost now . Or I should say , in September . Had to use 3 on a big steamer . 



But a 6 by 4 by 4 ? Hard to find ?   

Dave in QCA

Similar to my place

I have the same type of construction, but the problem with sound is that I have a couple of big indirects in sheet metal boxes hanging from the boiler room ceiling.  One discharges directly upward into what was originally the living room.  With my current hoffman condensate pump, I can even hear that run very clearly from that room.  I suppose some soundproofing on the sheetmetal box might help.

However, it appears that the effeciency of the Peerless 64 series is pretty close to the slantfin and the megasteam.  Their efficiencies are shown for oil, and looking at other power burner boilers that are marketed for oil or gas, I notice that the gas efficiency is always 1-2% lower than the oil.  Now, if the Peerless operates well at 50% firing, as the LGB does, it seems like that would be ideal for my setup.