I GIVE UP! Help

dannyg

Okay...I have lived with this for about 10 years and it's time that I do something about it...any help is greatly appreciated



1) Steam heat...new boiler that was put in place a few years ago (the old one cracked and while it was old...I'm not sure if that was a symptom of something bigger.



2) It's a large system.   In total there are :



11 radiators on the first floor

6 on the second floor



I should add that I replaced all of the steam traps 2 years ago except for 3 (and I have shut all these of those radiators off (assuming that if the valve is off, even a faulty trap would have no effect (?).



The boiler's main pipes split off into what we will can left side of the house and right side.   The left side is toasty.   No problem at all.  Every radiator gives us plenty of heat.



But that right side is a problem.   When I turn the heat up a few of the radiators get nice and toasty and the valved off ones stay cold...but in parts of that side of the house we get no heat coming up from the radiators unless I set the thermostat up really high.   And then they will begrudgingly heat up..stay warm just until the boiler goes off and then they cool down.   And those finicky radiators might not decide to heat up at all for another few hours.  The other radiators on that side get warm but never toasty.   Only three radiators on that branch get super hot and they happen to be the three closest to the boiler in terms of the line.



So what gives?  New steam traps in every radiator on that side of the house and I still don't get enough heat.



And some more odds and ends:



a) There is a huge air vent that was installed at the end of the right side branch which was put in by a plumber to get as much air out of the branch as quickly as possible.   Didn't seem to help.



b) in the basement I can get to the two pipes for each of the radiators that stays cool or is finicky....and the steam pipe is HOT while the return is cool.   Seems like it could be a trap gone bad but they were new traps.



c) and now the one thing that makes me really suspicious...at some point about twenty years ago the previous owner decided to add a radiator to a room that was added later.   And while the entire system is a two pipe system...this one is a one pipe.   It hissed for a while.   There was a wee bitty leak.   And then I just decided to turn off the valve.   Now I did note that there was a bit of a hissing coming out of that single pipe before the valve (which I assume may contribute a bit to the loss of pressure that I see and perhaps the problem overall) but the fact is that those radiators that don't heat up are sure toasty as heck when to touch the steam pipe feeding them.



So...I don't get it.    New boiler...new underground pipes in the only place where there are underground pipes...new steam traps...closed off radiators where the traps remain unchanged.



Any help would seriously be appreciated.   I can't figure this one out.  



One last thing - the system does seem to lose pressure pretty quickly -which I attribute to that one pipe radiator slight pinhole sort of leak - but I never see any puddle there or anywhere in fact.





So...why are those radiators with new traps not allowing the heat that is surely in the steam pipe to get through?  





Thanks in advance.

Unknown

without pictures

We are stumped as much as you are without pictures..

dannyg

Pictures

1.   Huge air vent hanging about 2 feet after the point where the main the the right side loop has become the water return



2. Steam vent that was replaced at the point where the steam and water return come together....I should mention that there are technically three branches here...the left side branch is, as I wrote above, toasty.   The right branch splits into two.   The branch with the closed off radiators and the ones that don't really get hot is where picture two has the steam and return coming together.  That trap bridges across them.   The air vent is on the other leg for the right side branch.  That leg is by far the biggest and those radiators get warmish...but about midway into that leg is where the one pipe radiator is sitting, irritating the heck out of me.



Again...the steam pipes for all of the legs are blazing hot...but the radiators with the new traps don't seem to like me.   Or I got a bunch of dud traps (which i doubt).

Unknown

whats the ???

What the copper doing on the steam main(s)???? Chance are the near boiler pipings are botched up which may be the reason u not getting heat where u wanted to go.. more pixs needed

Rod

2 Pipe System

Hi - It sounds like you might be getting some short circuiting. As was mentioned we need more information about your system.  It's a good thing you shut off the radiators with bad traps as bad traps can destroy good traps. Traps should be all fixed at the same time.

Attached is a diagram of variations of the steam main configuration on two pipe systems.

Which type is yours? Are there cross over traps or Main vent(s) on the end of the steam main?

- Rod

dannyg

Pics

Main piping is here...if you look up at the top the right side branch leads to the left side of the house and it's fine.   The left side in the pick leads to the right side.



Now...keep in mind (sorry about the copper, I am innocent!) that those pipes are all blazing hot so I am not sure where the short circuiting could be.  Those pipes never come together again except in the return at the bottom of the boiler

Rod

Photos

Hi- If you could take the pictures from farther back from the boiler so we can see the piping and trace out where it goes. If we need detail, we can zoom in.

- Rod

dannyg

Piping

Can't really tell which diagram fits mine.   What I see are a bunch of returns...some coming from very low under near the bottom of the boiler...others coming back in from up high...some more pics

dannyg

Better shot

Near piping

MDNLansing

Air

If the rad risers ar hot, but the rads themselves are not, it would seem to me you have air in there. Steam can only enter the radiators if it can displace the air they currently hold. If you blow air into the return line on the cold radiators, what happens? Does the it go into the return and stay there, does it blow back out, or does it come out the radiator? If your radiators can't expel the air out the return line, steam can't get in.



Do you here water boiling or wooshing in the the main that doesn't work? I'm a homeowner, not a pro, but its my understanding that you can't pipe the boiler like that. Attaching the risers to a single T like that creates a pool of water that the steam takes with it. I do believe the to risers need to feed into the header separately and not combine like that.



Pros on here will be able to help you more with that. Be a little patient, they are real busy this time of year.

BobC

MANUAL?

Did the installer of that boiler look at the manual? The manufacturer is very specific about near boiler piping and what you have is just wrong and will do nothing but produce wet steam and high fuel bills. That boiler piping  is going to make it very difficult to get good steam distribution.



Look at the steam boiler piping diagram in the manual and compare it to what you have, if you don't have one tell us the boiler model and we will find you a manual on the internet.



Bob

Badger

Interesting

The boiler that was replaced a couple of years ago was a bit bigger but basically he used the same near piping that was there already.   So I am not sure in terms of reading the manual.



I should also mention that the previous boiler was put in sometime in the early 90s (I didn't live here yet) but when I move in there wasn't great heat on the right side of the house either.   I assume a lot of that was due to the fact that the traps were 70 years old and had never been replaced.



I will look for the manual and model number later this evening.





Thanks to all for your help!





**Edited to add that I am using an old ID here.  

Dave in QCA

Dunham Return System

You have a Dunham Return System. Drawing attached. I should be very reliable and work great. You boiler piping is all wrong and that causes problems and inefficiencies, but that is not the root of your present problem.



One of the biggest clues that I see, and this is consistent with your description of the return piping being HOT, is that someone has installed a Gorton vent on the air outlet of your Dunham Air Eliminator. That indicates that steam was probably shooting out of the eliminator vent port and rather than find and fix the problem, someone installed a bandaide. Neither the Gorton vent nor the Hoffman vent that is installed in another location are needed. All venting exits through the vent port in the top of the air eliminator. Steam will never reach that point unless something else is wrong.



Is the copper pipe in the first picture on the return? If so, copper is not that big of a problem. I wouldn't use it, but it's OK. In the Dunham Return system, the only vents for the mains are via crossover traps into the return lines. The traps must be working, if they're not they will flood the return with steam. Also, the end of main drips, which you have not shown, must not connect to the return piping until well below the water line of the boiler, otherwise, this is a route where steam will fill the returns. You have repaired all radiator traps except those that are shut off, so unless those radiators that are shut off have failed valves and those radiators are filled with steam flowing through them to the returns, we can assume that they are not the problem. There is one more possible culprit. That is the vacuum equalizer line that runs between the steam main and the return main near the air eliminator. If that check is stuck open, steam will fill the returns. It's purpose is to allow air to flow from the return toward the steam main when the boiler shuts down and vacuum starts to form in the boiler and steam piping. The last possible and VERY unlikely cause might be in the return trap itself. If there steam port is stuck open, it too will allow steam to fill the returns via the return trap.



In an effort to tray to determine the route of the steam coming into the return, perhaps you could wait until all of the piping has cooled down, and then run the boiler. Feel the pipes and see where the steam is going. Keep running back and forth and checking all of the return piping. When it starts to get warm, where does it get warm first?



With steam in the return piping, steam will NOT flow into your radiators. Period. That is the problem and it should be simple to identify what is wrong.

Dave in QCA

more pictures please

Could you take some more pictures? We need to see the low piping beside the boiler, to the left side of the current shots. Get as far back and as low as you can so that we can see the piping relative to the boiler water line.

Mike Kusiak_2

No swing joints

Aside from the wet steam problems, there is something potentially more serious wrong with the piping.



 What should be a header is piped directly into the boiler outlet tappings without any swing joints. Expansion and contraction of the header pipe on each heating cycle will place stress on the cast iron boiler sections, eventually causing failure.

ChrisJ

Ouch

That poor poor boiler.

Please have the piping fixed ASAP. As others have said besides producing wet steam its going to destroy the boiler.

Mike Kusiak_2

Piping

Yes, and it would have been so easy to do it right.



Too bad the installer did not make use of the original header by feeding the steam supply into the end which is now plugged. Right now steam is being fed into the original equalizer end, trapping any carried over water in the dead ended header.  

dannyg

More

Wow this is great so far. You guys are awesome...



I will post more pics tonight but in the meantime is fixing the near boiler piping a huge effort?





I assume it's piping as opposed to repositioning the boiler.





Model number btw is EG-75 series 4



I also wonder if that band aid mentioned above was to resolve the fact that the traps hadn't been changed since 1928?

Rod

Boiler and System Problems

Hi- You have two areas of concern and I find it helps to think of them individually,

The first area is the boiler and its attached piping and the second is the system piping and fittings (piping, traps , vents etc.)

Let's first address the boiler and piping. In that attached picture the piping in the circled area has some big problems and will need to be changed. Having opposed boiler risers with a take off riser in between, is very inefficient and is producing wet steam.

It seems like it will be a fairly easy fix. Post some pictures taken from the left and right side of the boiler. On the one taken from the right side include the top of the boiler and the piping above that and on the left side of the boiler include the piping at the base of the boiler. With these we should be able to see how best to configure the piping changes.  What is the make and model of the boiler? Do you have the installation manual for the boiler?

- Rod

Unknown

oh man

Another good boiller piped in wrong...

dannyg

more pics

.

Dave in QCA

back up a little

Please back up to take a side picture. Just like the picture above, but from the side.

dannyg

Can't

get a shot from the left...only 12 inches of clearance.

dannyg

more pics

...

Rod

Boiler Riser / Header Configuration

Hi-  I tried to put together two possible piping configurations for your boiler. I'm not sure whether this is able to actually fit as I couldn't tell from the pictures exactly what the clearances wear.  If you don't already have a copy, I would get "The Lost Art of Steam Heating", available in the Shop section of this website. One of the great advantages is that we can refer you to a section in the book that will answer your questions much better than we could.

-Rod

Unknown

hartford

Hartford loop needs repiping to close nipple... someone already replaced a nipple there

JohnNY

Check valve air vents?

Doesn't the Dunham system use one of those air vents with the check flap? Forgot what you call them.

Dave in QCA

air check

Yes, it is called and Air Check. See Dunham Diagram above. It is mounted on the top of the dunham air eliminator. Most people remove the metal check disk. In this system, the whole thing has been removed and a pipe installed, then a Gorton #2 main vent installed on that.

rmoore007ri

common steam piping mistakes

Here is a link to show you common piping errors installing steam boilers.

http://www.comfort-calc.net/Steam_Piping_Donts.html

They have been identified by all the posts above. But these diagrams will help you understand.

True Story: When I bought my house 18 years ago the one pipe steam system did not work very well at all. We suffered with it for several years and then I found The Lost Art of Steam Heat. I worked out what the piping should be. Then I phoned the Utica Boiler Company to ask for the manual. I also told tjhem I did not think my steam boiler was

piped properly. They said "They hardly ever are" . . .

dannyg

Thanks Rod...question

Rod, thanks for the possible repiping solution.   One question,,,on the diagram where does the smaller pink section terminate on the top?

Rod

Just a Typical Dropheader Configuration

Hi-

    Sorry for the confusion, the “small pink section” is just basically the same piping as the other pink boiler riser on the right side of the picture in that it comes vertical out of the boiler to above the height of the header pipe and then crosses over to the header and then drop down into the top of the header. (It’s just a typical dropheader configuration)

    From the photo viewer’s perspective,  you are looking at piping end on so it might  appear that the small pink section is separate  Look at the left green and red drawing. This would represent the over head view of the piping drawn in the photo. The other green and red drawing on the right, just shows another possible configuration of the header pipe.

     Keep in mind that this is just a very rough sketch as I wasn’t able to determine depth / clearances from the other photos. It was just to give you an idea of possible solution to the header problem.

- Rod

ttekushan_3

Something you said puzzles me.

This is in reference to the photos with the hoffman vent on the copper pipe and the crossover trap.



(Okay, so you now know the boiler's piped incorrectly, and if the old one was piped the same way, that's likely why it failed fairly early.)



But you show a hoffman vent mounted on copper and a crossover trap in the second picture, and you say:



"2. Steam vent that was replaced at the point where the steam and water return come together...."



Do you really mean that the steam main and the return are connected directly together? If so, that's a short circuit. Steam hits that vent, closes it and applies balanced pressure to the return as well. With no pressure differential, no steam will move. Air cannot exit there anymore. The air is locked in the radiators. Hence, everything is hot but the radiators.



Unless I read you incorrectly, that copper section is a big red flag to something having been changed by someone who thought this is a hot water system.



And what is the operating pressure? It should be very low.



Regardless, Dave in QCA is giving you a good rundown of that system. I only throw this out there because one section does operate well, and your troublesome section is where that possible copper short circuit is.

Dave in QCA

Maybe on to something!

I think you may have found something. I read that same thing, but assumed he meant the crossover trap. But, perhaps not. I have gotten frustrated with trying to help on this thread because I know if I was in the basement looking at it and watching it run, it would be about a 5 minute process to pinpoint the problem. But, I just can't see enough of the system in the pictures.



I had also thought that perhaps the new boiler line was low enough that steam was flowing backward into the return trap. Can't really see the piping and the elevations, but that is probably not the case.

ttekushan_3

Frustrating, I know.

I know exactly what you mean. But I had the unfair advantage of looking at this thread only now, after you guys have done all the heavy lifting!

Badger

So

Hey first of all sorry to those of you who got frustrated with this thread.   After reading a lot of the responses and dealing with my own frustration I finally decided to get in touch with some guys who might be able to get to the bottom of my many issues.  I checked out the contractors on this site and one of them - Gateway Plumbing - happened to be local to me.  VERY local.  In fact, much to my surprise, I've played softball with one of the owners (Dave) who lives in my town..



I sent them an email and very quickly got a reply that they'd be out to the house shortly.  I mentioned this thread in my email and was very heartened to see JohnNY (above) ask a question here because I knew that they were on the case.





I won't bore everyone here with the details of the fixes to date (hey, we are backing out 80 years of band aids) but let me just say that John and Dave came out to the house, looked at everything, drew up a game plan and, shockingly (to me) I now have glorious heat throughout the house after 10 years of struggling with dead spots, high heating bills and just general aggravation.



Can't say enough great things about this site, the people here and Gateway Plumbing.   



You know how sometimes in life you realize that there are people out there who just know their stuff?    I mean like REALLY live and breath their profession?  The guys at Gateway are like that.   When John grabbed a four foot long level and checked out the pitch of the pipes I knew I was in good hands.   Dave really encouraged me to make the fixes in a very scientific and cost effective way.   It was greatly appreciated and to tell the truth I was really kicking myself for being penny wise and pound foolish for so many years.  



It's currently about 20 degrees in NJ. 



And my house is friggin TOASTY!  





Thanks all.

Dave in QCA

Fantastic!

Thanks for posting to let us know how it turned out. Steam heat is great when it is working correctly, and it usually does just fine with only a little occasional maintenance and repair. I'm Glad you're enjoying your Dunham system.

JStar

Repair

Post some pictures of the repairs!