This one was still running on gravity

Steamhead

an old American-Standard atmospheric. It ran well and wasn't leaking, but the owners were ready to upgrade.

We had replaced the old floor-standing expansion tank last year- the original was a D&T I believe, which was a bear to drain. The system originally had an open tank on the third floor- we think the basement tank was installed with this boiler.

And when we got the old boiler out, we found the pedestal it sat on was in bad shape- so we went with a new concrete slab.

The new one is our first Burnham Series 3- a 308. This is similar to the ES-2 series, but is not as finicky regarding chimneys. It has our usual boiler-loop primary-secondary setup, which keeps some warm water returning to the boiler as the system heats up. They did have the chimney re-lined, and we used B-vent for the chimney connector to further reduce the chance of condensation.

Oh, and there was no good place to vent a mod-con.

The last pic is, believe it or not, a very old fuse block. It is mounted on the main beam that supports the joists. I did not see any scorching around it, so they were real lucky back in the day!

SWEI

Nice work -- as usual. Is the boiler the only appliance using that flue?

Paul Pollets

Nice work. Have you tried using the flexible polypropylene chimney vent kits? They make mod-cons easier to vent in this situation, unless there is a shared flue.

SWEI

My sentiments exactly

Don_197

Beautiful Steamhead! What are those old fittings off the top of the American Standard? Some kind of compressible union? Never seen em before...........

Steamhead

Don, those are Dresser couplings. There was a contractor who put in a lot of American-Standards that way around here, on both steam and hot-water- not sure who they were, but they did a lot of boilers like that.

Paul and SWEI, the water heater also uses the chimney. It's fairly new so they did not want to have to replace that too. Also this is a 3-story house with high ceilings, so developed length could be a factor. But we'd use either PP or SS if we were doing a mod-con... never PVC or CPVC, for reasons I've outlined in earlier threads.

They will get better efficiency from this Burnham.

matthew_rogers

steamhead.... would you mind schooling me in something... i thought i should never mix copper and steel in a steam system. i've looked the brunham you used up and it seems to be a steam system if my links/linking were thorough.

where am i miss understanding your pictures?

Paul S_3

the above pictures are from a gravity hot water system not a steam system....I think he may of used copper from the equalizer down to wet return....basically below the water line...you should never use copper on the steam header and supply piping....the soldered joints cannot take the rapid expansion and contraction of the piping like a threaded steel joint plus its poor steam fitting and looks unprofessional

hot_rod

Great work, it's nice how you cleaned up the area and took time to make the job the best it could be.
Good job to get a testimonial from the owner.

Steamhead

Paul S said:

the above pictures are from a gravity hot water system not a steam system....I think he may of used copper from the equalizer down to wet return....basically below the water line...you should never use copper on the steam header and supply piping....the soldered joints cannot take the rapid expansion and contraction of the piping like a threaded steel joint plus its poor steam fitting and looks unprofessional

Right on all counts. This was a gravity hot-water system, not a steam system. And if a steam boiler is piped properly, no steam will ever enter the equalizer, so copper is not a problem there.

Steamhead

hot rod said:

Great work, it's nice how you cleaned up the area and took time to make the job the best it could be.
Good job to get a testimonial from the owner.

Thanks, HR- coming from you that means a lot.