Is this worth re-piping?

Dan_NJ

This the second heating season after this was installed. The first (mild) winter I had surging (at least once to the point of low water cutoff kicking in), hammering, and wet steam blowing out of the main vent. It's been much better this season thanks to this site, "The Lost Art ... " and other info I've picked up, and a some flushing, skimming etc. No more hammer. I also replaced the main vent with a B&J Big Mouth and a few shady radiator vents. I'm wondering if I would be using less fuel if this were piped correctly and if so how much? I don't have numbers going back far enough on this since the boiler this replaced had a nice sized hole in the top for at least a year before it was diagnosed, probably longer.

Mike Cascio

There is NO equalizer, 2 inch copper connecting to the mains. That install is terrible, not even close to following the installation manual. You are absolutely producing wet steam. It looks like you are in NJ, you should contact Dave0176 to straighten this out.

Fred

It is really piped wrong and should be repiped. Will it save on fuel costs? Maybe some but it certainly won't increase the fuel cost to have it work like it is suppose to. As @Mike Cascio said, contact @Dave0176 , @EzzyT or @JohnNY and have them do it right.

Dan_NJ

Well I can't disagree with you, I don't do this for a living and even I can tell it's incorrect but it's been running way better than it was. It behaved pretty well during the last deep freeze but I would feel better about the whole thing if it were correct.

The Steam Whisperer

Peerless has got a good sized steam chest on that boiler and the boiler riser looks like 3 inch keeping the exit velocity down on the boiler.... I am guessing about 112,500 input. Water will fall back down a 3 inch riser up to about 200,000 but/hr input, so that's probably why its working pretty good. You are probably getting some steam/water separation on that 3 inch horizontal pipe and the water is slipping back down next the the steam in the boiler riser. Probably a big improvement could be had just by extending that horizontal pipe and putting the equalizer at the end of teh header

gerry gill

i would think it would be in your long term best interest to repipe that near boiler piping.

Dan_NJ

Thanks for the comments. Agreed on the re-piping. If nothing else the whole thing has lead me to knowledge, well beyond "blow down this and this once a week and add water if it goes below this line". I didn't know to boil after adding water for example. When I discovered last year that the contractor walked away with the pressuretrol set to max cut-in I took it upon myself to get up to speed.