Near impossible to reach pipe burst - what would you do?

nybigapple

In tracking down a pipe that burst on a one pipe steam system for a small apartment building, we discovered it had been leaking for years. The leaking pipe was jammed in the absolute worst possible spot, and putting the entire building at risk. It was jammed almost right in the corner of the cellar above the foundation wall. Reaching the exposed pipes means all the other pipes surrounding you was giving you in some spaces less than 14 inches of wrench space.

The leaking pipe is a small steam branch that feeds the radiator on the floor above and is jammed up against the gas line. The pipe has likely been leaking for many years to the point where it started to wear the gas line. Even worse, after you dig out the buried section of leaking pipe you find that the vertical steam line was placed directly BEHIND the waste line and gas line, guarded like a football quarterback.

I was lucky to find someone who would even do the job and he was not happy as it took him 10 hours. He knocked a hole in the wall of the apartment above and had to yo-yo between the apartment and basement. Old pipes refused to come out even in the rare situations he used a cheater. He eventually had to cut pipes out including their bushings.

He also did a very unorthodox job as he could not possibly do this the way it "should" be done. Due to the age of the pipes and the near impossible space. He started by cutting out the immediately offending pipe. This led to him learning the buried section above it also had pinhole leaks. To even reach the buried pipe above, he had to use pipe play to pull it to the side, from out behind the gas and waste lines. The end result is he eventually cut out all the pipe leading from past the radiator up to the steam main. He then jerry rigged new pipe into the place of the old from the main, and used a special type of clamp to connect it to the sawed off section of old pipe. He will monitor it for the next few days, but initial results is that at least "works".

The piping of that branch is not at all properly steam designed. He also had to lift the mains several inches, so that the entire slope has been significantly reduced. A vertical riser right before the one he repaired always had steam hammer due to improper sloping, but now it's far worse.

I don't see how this could ever get properly repaired. Entire building's tenants would have to be relocated for a large amount of time. Who would even take this job and how many children would need to be sold to pay for it? I would guess at minimum the gas line and waste line needs to be removed. At least two walls of apartment wall need to be opened and the offending pipe correctly removed and replaced. Then the steam lines repiped, and then the gas and waste line placed back. More than likely this is never getting fixed unless the building gets completely gutted.

Fred

I don't understand why the pitch of the main, in the basement had to be changed to repair a riser and even doing so, why could he not drop it back down to get the needed pitch? This may be a case where you just have to abandon that riser and run a new one where it makes more sense. Even if it has to be run on the interior of the apartments, it can be boxed in, if so desired. How many floors is this building? Is there a possibility of cutting the old pipe out of a coupling or out of an elbow and then running a new riser up to that fitting? Maybe routing it in only the first floor apartment with a short horizontal to get back to the remainder of the riser, properly pitched, of course) and then only boxing it in in that apartment?

adambnyc

Special clamp? I guess the guy didn't own a ridgid 700 to thread the pipe, unless of course its larger than 2".

Group will probably need pictures to best recommend solutions.

EBEBRATT-Ed

It's always easy to say how someone should have done the job sometimes doesn't look so bad until you start on it. Easier said than done. Maybe another route could be found or a soffet built or run it on the outside of the wall and box it in. May not look as good but be more practical and less cost. There is always a way to fix it right all it takes is time and $$$$$$

nybigapple

The pipe was 1.5". Must not have owned a ridgid 700. But looking it up, the 700 needs pipe minimum 2" pipe and the ridgid head width of 9" might not have fit the space.

He was actually operating under time constraints of finishing it within the day. Went from 9 am to 6:45pm. The entire properties heat had to be turned off while working and it was something like 35 degrees in nyc last night.

The only reason the main was raised was for the pipe to properly fit. He underestimated the length of pipe needed and ran out of time. It would be somewhat easy to replace the pipe and lower the main back down. However, this guy didn't want to do it given it was quite difficult to get it to fit in the first place. The space is quite tight.

He actually has a two inch block lifting the branch (which also lifts the main) resting on top of the waste line. A 2x4 is now under the waste line to relieve the added weight.

This is a 5 story 6 floor building. The subbasement and first floor are divided into two apartments(left and right duplexes). Second through fifth floors are each one apartment.

If you imagine a square with each corner being a branch. Heat enters and follows a "n" path from southwest to southeast. The southwest corner has vertical risers which feed radiators from subbasement to fifth floor. The northwest corner also has vertical risers from subbasement to fifth floor which fills bathrooms(no radiators). The northeast branch skips to the second floor and goes to the fifth floor feeding bedroom radiators and has bad steam hammer, gurgling noises, dripping sounds etc at the beginning of the cycle. The southwest corner is two short branches, which I believe is one for each floor of the duplex's radiators. The branch that leaks feeds the subbasement radiator.

Here's something I don't understand. I'm pretty sure the leaking pipe branch only heats the one radiator in the duplex apartment above. Once you get to the 2nd through fifth floors, the space is all kitchen with no heating. Yet the radiator was originally a horizontal part of a vertical riser extends past the subbasement floor. Where does it go and what does it do? If I could simply disconnect that branch completely from the main and install baseboard heating it might allow me to solve a lot of piping issues.

I'm guessing that the only way to find out would be to knock out walls and follow the path of the pipe?

I should have taken more pictures. The video of the leaking is misleading as the leaking pipe is actually behind the pipe you see in the video. (if you look closely you can see it right above the elbow). http://sendvid.com/tw7wuu6g

One picture is the view from the opened up apartment wall. You can see he pull the steam pipe to the left. It was originally stationed behind the gas and waste line. What's the purpose of that line if there are no more radiators or heat pipe risers above?

I idiotically didn't get a picture of the finished work. But you can see in the other picture, the new 4" black pipe screwed into the main. He basically has a bunch of these pipe along with unions, going from the main, through the floor, into a tee, that connects to the radiator and then to the vertical pipe. So no more main to vertical riser with a horizontal connection to the radiator.

Ironman

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