Megasteam Y

Tinman

Why does Burnham Megasteam's piping schematics show/spec a Y fitting at the Hartford loop instead of a tee?

Fred

That Wye is called a Gifford loop and is a newer design that is not sensitive to being below the water line, like the Hartford loop
EDIT: I should say "Not sensitive to being above the water line" Sorry

ChrisJ

Fred said:

That Wye is called a Gifford loop and is a newer design that is not sensitive to being below the water line, like the Hartford loop
EDIT: I should say "Not sensitive to being above the water line" Sorry

Eh?

A Gifford loop is above the water line.

Burnham shows a wye at the Hartford loop because it performs better than a tee, IF you can find one.

Most of us cannot, so we go with a tee and a close nipple, or even better a street 90 into the tee.

As far as I know, Burnham shows a Hartford loop.

Tinman

Interesting.

Danny Scully

@ChrisJ is correct, the wye has nothing o do with a Gifford loop. A Gifford loop claims better stabilization of the waterline and can act as a false waterline in some cases. The wye is a nice touch though.

Fred

@ChrisJ :

kick in (Figure 5).
THE GIFFORD LOOP
A
Gifford Loop is like a Hartford
Loop, except that the bottom of the in
side of the close nipple is located above
the boiler waterline rather than below
it. (The waterline is defined by the
level at which an automatic feeder
would start feeding water.) What hap
pens if we install a Gifford Loop? As we
mentioned, in a Gifford Loop the bot
tom of the close nipple is at least
1⁄2 in. above the water level where the automatic water feeder starts feeding.
Here's the entire article: https://heatinghelp.com/assets/Uploads/HPACGiffordLoop.pdf

ChrisJ

@Fred
I know what a Gifford loop is.

Burnham has a Hartford loop with a wye.

Fred

If that's Burnham's current layout, I guess it is still a Hartford Loop with a Wye. I thought their new drawings put the Wye above the water line, making it a Gifford loop.

ChrisJ

Fred said:

If that's Burnham's current layout, I guess it is still a Hartford Loop with a Wye. I thought their new drawings put the Wye above the water line, making it a Gifford loop.

That's a negative.
It does look like it at first, but then if you look over the NWL is marked really high up.

Fred

ChrisJ said:

Fred said:

If that's Burnham's current layout, I guess it is still a Hartford Loop with a Wye. I thought their new drawings put the Wye above the water line, making it a Gifford loop.

That's a negative.
It does look like it at first, but then if you look over the NWL is marked really high up.

Agreed

Steamhead

Burnham includes the wye in their MegaSteam piping kits.

AMservices

I will be piping a Burnham mega steam in a couple of weeks, I plan on using their piping kit and the wye that comes with it.
My question is should I go Gifford or Hartford?
I'm all for change as long as it's for the better. If anyone can tell me a problem I might run into putting the water back in 2" above, rather than below the boilers low-water line, I'll probably stick with Hartford.
But then again, I like what Gifford put at the very end of the article

CONCLUSIONS
The rock steady waterline achieved
by a Gifford Loop thus has several
benefits:
• drier steam
• elimination of boiler flooding
• elimination of pumps in many cases
• reduced risk of hammer when dimen-
sion A is tight.
Old habits die hard, and bad steam
piping habits die hardest of all. Try a
Gifford Loop on your next boiler in-
stallation, and you’ll probably never
put in a Hartford Loop again.

I mean what's Gifford gut to gain? His name written at the back side of a steam boiler drawing.
It's seems better and if we were to stay so close minded as to never try new things, I doubt we would have stopped putting circulators on the return.