Before & after

Henry

Here are a few pictures of a sick puppy destroyed by chemical treatment and negative pressure at a local golf course. They use the steam boiler year long to provide heat and hot water. We replaced it with a Smith High Efficiency 28. I was at a wine tasting there last night and took this picture of the completed job which we did during February. We welded all the pipe! The boiler was running on low fire with a flue temperature of 400F and a lovely flame. BTW, we disconnected and threw out ALL the chemical treatment. The golf course has two 10,000 water tanks and performs its own water treatment. Water quality is not an issue.

Rod

Nice Job!

Nice looking installation. I imagine it now works a lot better without opposing risers going into the header!

= Rod

gerry gill

Very Nice!

I would also suspect that the fuel bill will be much lower now that its piped right.

Henry

New

Notice how small the new burner is compared to the old! I am waiting to get the oil bills to compare. We had an in as our company president is the boards chair. But, I presented them with a simulation using their annual oil bills, regular efficiency boiler, high efficiency boiler and lowering the pressure from 14 PSI to a max of 8 (fin tube heating with thermostatic controls). They used to keep the door to the boiler room open which created negative pressure as it was not isolated  from the very large kitchen. They added a mechanical fan that was NOT connected to the combustion air duct. They added a draft assit, but it did not help. The boiler was full of soot! I missed the chance to take pictures of the water passages of the boiler. My men said that there was at least 1/4 inch of hardened chemical in all the sections!

We connected the blower properly to the combustion air duct thus pressurizing the boiler room. It is interconnected with an air switch to the burner circuit and boiler safety circuits. No fresh air, no burner firing. Our oil codes are not up to date with the gas code requirements!

It was a strange fall/winter that was milder than normal but we have kept our Smith agent very happy with the number of steam boiler replacements.

Dave in QCA

A thing of beauty!

Excellent installation all the way around.  Sounds like you have addressed all of the issues that caused the previous problems.



One additional thought, even though you have significantly reduced the operating pressure, you may find that 5 psi works just as well as 8 psi.  Most commercial/institutional heating systems where steam pressure is maintained and space control is via pneumatic thermostats and valves, are designed to operate at 5 psi.  Overiding issues that might require a higher pressure might be situations where drip leg traps do not drain by gravity and have an unusual amount of lift and therefor require more than 5 psi to push the condensate up to the return, but this would be a LOT of lift!   The second situation is if you have an air handler that has a fresh air mix, or 100% outside air.  In this case, it all depends on the design of the coil and the supply valve as to what pressure is require to keep it property heated an therefor avoid chance of freeze damage.



If all of the heat is actaully fin tube, and you have no unusual condensate lift situations, then 5 psi is more than enough and you will find that the system will work better and the individual temp controls will be able to maintain a more even space temp when operating at lower pressures.

Henry

Thanks

There is a fresh air make up due to the large kitchen. That is why we kept the 8 PSI pressure. I usualy keep newer fin tube to 5 and all cast iron at 2. One large condo building where we replaced a Smith 28A-9 that was torn apart due to improper installation, we installed a 28HE-9 high efficiency. it has only 3% increase in efficiency. We lowered the pressure to 5 PSI. Since the install in September to the end of February, they saved 30% in volume compared to all of the previous 12 months! BTW, we also banned any chemical additives as city water is good.

Henry

Thanks

There is a fresh air make up due to the large kitchen. That is why we kept the 8 PSI pressure. I usualy keep newer fin tube to 5 and all cast iron at 2. One large condo building where we replaced a Smith 28A-9 that was torn apart due to improper installation, we installed a 28HE-9 high efficiency. it has only 3% increase in efficiency. We lowered the pressure to 5 PSI. Since the install in September to the end of February, they saved 30% in volume compared to all of the previous 12 months! BTW, we also banned any chemical additives as city water is good.