New Boiler - Steel or copper pipes?

sbmfj

Hi,



Ill be updating my hot water boiler furnace, and am wondering if the connecting pipes to the main and return of the system should be copper or should they be steel "connector pipes"? Does it make much of a difference? Im referring to the shorter pipes that will connect to the main piping infrastructure of the system and to the hot water boiler Im getting installed by the heating company. One contractor mentioned he used copper, and the he uses some sort of adapter to connect to the main pipes. All of the main pipes, and the current pipes that connect to my existing furnace are black steel threaded pipes. Do these connector adapters for the steel to copper work well, or should I push for full steel threaded pipes to re-connect my new boiler?



Thanks!!!

Gordan

Either will work fine

With copper, supporting any heavy items such as the circulator, the expansion tank, etc, becomes more important. Brass or bronze adaptors should be used between copper and iron. Di-electric unions are frowned upon, as they appear to cause more issues than they fix.

sbmfj

Thanks!!

So guess when you say, "With copper, supporting any heavy items such as the circulator, the expansion tank, etc, becomes more important. ", do you mean that when using copper pies, I may need a little extra support for the expansion tanks and what not?



Thanks again for your help.

Brad White

I agree, that is what was meant.

Not to step in, but yes, iron pipe is capable within reason of supporting more weight including ancillary items such as circulators, air separators and expansion tanks. Copper can too but not as much. If you DO use copper, I recommend a hanger on each side of an item such as a circulator or expansion tank, allowing very little cantilever.

Brad White

But I bet

nobody bothered to get him a torch for Christmas, eh?

Brad White

Fully appreciated...

My house was built in 1913 and has at its core a gravity HW system starting at 3" pipe and predominantly 2" and 2.5" pipe in each direction. Massive stuff held up with wrought iron staple brackets. I imagine the dead man who installed it had wrists the size of bricks and hands the size of eggplants. By hand with no Ridgid 1224 either!



Real men indeed.

MikeyB

Gravity System

Brad, can you post some pics of your system someday? Would love to see it

Brad White

Thanks, Mikey!

I think I will, probably start a new thread. Everyone likes pictures... I appreciate the suggestion!



Brad