Need help or advice on an old Steam system

51161

I work for a wholesaler, and occasionally visit job sites for customers. I have been in the industry for 30 years, and have never seen a system like the one I saw yesterday.

The homeowner has an old Crane 14 series oil fired steam boiler. My observations and questions are as follows.

The system appears to have been a 1 pipe system. Sometime in the past, a partial conversion was done to some of the tube and column radiators. They were converted to 2 pipe. It appears that the second pipe is allowing the return condensate to drain to the basement, where the boiler is located, to feed 6 tube radiators as a gravity water loop. from there the water returns directly to the bottom of the boiler. There is no Hartford Loop. In addition, every steam radiator has the air vents located in different locations. some are at the top of the radiators, and some are positioned very low. The boiler is firing at 1.75 GPH, and the main complaint is that the boiler runs constant thru out the heating season, There is never enough heat on the upper floors, and the boiler never shuts off. I did a heat loss based on the installed radiation, added a factor of 15% for excess piping, and come up a requirement of 312 SQ Ft of steam. I recommended a steam boiler that fires up to 1.05 GPH, with a max Sq Ft of steam rating of 375. I did state that a new boiler would be worthless without addressing the issues at hand.

Based on what I have seen, I told the customer to re-pipe back to a one pipe system, and to use the domestic coil in the boiler for his hot water loop. I also told him that he would probably be better off at that point to just re-pipe and convert to a water system. The homeowner is resistant, and wants his steam.

So, my questions here are,

Does anyone have any experience with this type of set up, and am I missing anything? Is there anything else I can recommend, as far as a fix to this issue?

I did recommend addressing the air valve issue first. Of further concern, the oil company in question has stated that they might just install a new boiler without addressing these issues, because they believe that it will work, and no need for a Hartford Loop, because of the "water" radiators. I am ready to walk away from this sale based on this fact alone.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

John D.

51161

reply

Strictly sizing by the radiation, 1.05 GPH would be sufficient.



The problem here is that the Oil Company Tech "claims" he cleaned the system before last season, which I don't really believe.

The pressuretrol is set at .5, but there is an iron pigtail, which I told the customer to change to a brass pigtail. Oil company tech claims the existing pigtail is not clogged.

As far as a combustion test, the tech did not do one at the last cleaning.

I did not take any pictures of the piping, there is one 2-1/2" riser off the top of the boiler into the ceiling, and there is an 1-1/4 return directly to the bottom of the boiler.

I recommended that the job be turned over to a larger oil company, with qualified personnel

Steamhead

Actually

what you need is a Steam Man. The oil company obviously does not have one.



Those hot-water return rads will work up to a point. There is still plenty of heat in the condensate. But you can't control them individually from the steam, though TRVs would work with the proper piping.



Where are you located? We probably know someone who can help out.

51161

location

Steamhead

The job is located in Jamaica NY.

Thanks

Steamhead

Jstar is a great choice

the travel time would be excessive for us to do it.



;-)

JStar

I'd be happy to help. Call or email any time.