Corrective Piping:

icesailor

So, here's more on the boiler that I am slowly pecking away on between other projects.

In spite of what you see, the boiler works fine and does all that is expected of it. Understand that the owner paid an "expert" a large sum of money to help it to be done right. An oxymoron.

I've done a lot of looking at and thinking about it and the piping. It's the return piping. There's that big 3" equalizer pipe coming off the top of the main header/collector that I know isn't proper, and goes into the bottom of the boiler. Below the water line, there is a 3" horizontal pipe that goes toward the front of the boiler and that is where the boiler is fed. The other side of the horizontal run picks up the return from the condensate pump in another room, and enters into the top of the 3" pipe. The return is 2". Another fitting away is a tee, facing down with two 90's and going into the bottom returns.

I can't figure out how this is a Hartford Loop or if you brought the overhead condensate return to the floor and entered onto this pipe. The end of the pipe actually returns into the back of the boiler but doesn't tie into the rest of the returns except rising up into this upper pipe. 

The dogs are warm and sleeping so I don't want to disturb them. When the boiler is running and making steam, you wouldn't know it was running. When the condensate pump comes on, there isn't much movement (if any) in the gauge glass.

I always figured that a Hartford Loop was sort of a type on manometer, a "U" shaped device where the weight of the water in the column (the "U") was heavier than the water pressure in the boiler, keeping the steam out. Where this return, returns into the top of this pipe, that is connected into the equalizer pipe, should defeat the purpose of whatever.

There is a 2" welded fitting (plugged) on the bottom of the steam main going into the other room that could be used as a condensate drain but it all pitches down and there is a steam trap on the end of the line. I've never ever heard it pound and bang.

I'm just looking for thoughts and discussion so I can understand more. 

The photos are in a posting from July on feeding a steam boiler.