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Bull Tees

ALIGA
ALIGA Member Posts: 194
in Strictly Steam
Why are they frowned up, I am assuming the deadmen were the ones that installed most of these systems in residential homes.

Comments

  • MTC
    MTC Member Posts: 217
    The dead men

    most likely didn't install any bull tees. We usually run into those when knuckleheads replace boilers and near boiler piping.



    You want one long continuous flow of steam. Slamming into the bull of a tee disrupts the flow. Coming into the end of the tee and splitting is ok, the flow in both directions remains smooth(ish) and constant.



    There's also the opposite problem, when the risers off the header are between 2 boiler risers. Steam colliding head on with itself and trying to merge into one pipe is no good. Turbulence, wetter steam, etc...
  • ToddB
    ToddB Posts: 75
    If I understand...

    what you are saying, then it is acceptable to have a single riser off of a header end at a tee that splits to two mains? I have that situation and I thought that it was less than ideal. It looks like the tee in my piping is original to the system and that the mains were always split that way. When the boiler was replaced by the previous owner the riser was re-piped to that tee. See attached photo.
  • Steve Nichols
    Steve Nichols Member Posts: 124
    no bull?

    I can attest to this b/c I have one in my boiler that was recently installed by a so-called "steam expert".  They photo shows the way you don't want the steam connection to be done.   Imagine that steam chugging along straight up and all of a sudden "wham", it slams straight into the bull of the tee (I think that's what they call it).  Now, it needs to make either a right hand or left hand turn AND it's just become very turbulent. This also affects stability of the water line (mine moves a bit). 

    The way you can have a tee would be if you brought the steam in from one end and had it exit out the midde and other end. Not so much of a collision there. I hope I am getting this right.

    When I am in doubt, I imagine what would happen if we ran water through the lines.  Where would it be smooth?  Where would it be turbulent, etc. 

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  • JohnNY
    JohnNY Member Posts: 3,291
    Never mind that.

    You can't reliably pitch both sides of the run properly when you bull-feed a tee.

    The best you can hope for is both sides being level or you'll backpitch one end.

    Granted, the dead men, or in my father's case, the alive man, they did something with a wedge stuck in the pipe die to off-kilter the threads to create pitch when they needed to, but that's a whole 'nother story.
    Contact John "JohnNY" Cataneo, NYC Master Plumber, Lic 1784
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  • Steve Nichols
    Steve Nichols Member Posts: 124
    smacks his head in amazement (smack...ouch)

    Thanks JohnNY, I just learned something new that should have been obvious. That might explain why my back main behaves a bit differently than my front in terms of quality of steam, gurgling vents, etc.  Something is probably out of pitch there.  I've got my work cut out for me when I repipe parts of this over the summer! 

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • MTC
    MTC Member Posts: 217
    I may have been a bit unclear

    I didn't mean to imply that this was ok. You never want steam to bullhead like that, for the reasons mentioned already. You also don't want steam to enter both ends of a tee and combine into the side, such as when you have a header take-off between the two boiler risers. The risers should come up and join together, all steam flowing in same direction, and then the riser up to the main comes off after steam from both boiler risers has joined in the header.



    This does bring up one case where you sort of bullhead a fitting... if you have 2 risers from boiler, the first one will elbow into the header, second one will be a sort-of bullheaded Tee, but its not the same b/c there's already flow from the one side... the only natural way for the steam to go is the other direction. It sort of functions like an elbow due to this circumstance. I've often wondered if it wouldn't be better to use a wye for that second fitting, but I guess its not important, or they'd have been doing it for years. It would also make the whole near boiler piping take up a lot more space.



    Your picture shows a few problems. The riser bullheading into 2 directions is problematic for various reasons, as explained already. This should be 2 risers off the header, or at least one main that flows straight through a Tee with a side offshoot, rather than bullheading as it does.



    Also, it looks like your riser comes off the end of the header. Do you not have an equalizer? Normally there would be an equalizer at the end of the header...
  • MTC
    MTC Member Posts: 217
    As far as pitch

    it looks like they addressed that problem relatively well by installing an elbow immediately after the bullheaded Tee... so that you only have a few inches pitched improperly before the elbow then pitches it correctly again (in theory).



    But its still not the way you want that to be piped.
  • ToddB
    ToddB Posts: 75
    Piping...

    I know that the piping is far from ideal, but I inherited it when I bought the house and the system does run very nicely. The water line is stable - at most +-1/4". Pipe pitch is fine too. There is an equalizer to the right of the piping shown - I just did not get it in the photo.



    The original piping of the remainder of the system is by the book. I am not sure why this was originally bull headed.



    I'm thinking about having this re-piped off season along with some other work.
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