Would this pass inspection in your area?

Timco

The sight glass plugs on bottom tap because I’m not blowing down each LWCO separately I’m thinking. Each BV just lets them all drain?

EBEBRATT-Ed

It's one reason why the code calls for low water cutoffs in separate tapings now. But they are piped in separately from the gage glass so I don't think that's your issue.

As far as it passing inspection I have never herd that it could not be piped that way

Steamhead

Wouldn't fly here. Each LWCO must have its own tappings. Also, there has to be a blowdown on the sight glass rather than a plug.

Timco

If one LWCO is actually blocked, it would just pull from the others. Worded wrong, lol. Saw that. Seems without independent tappings they just pull from all.

ScottSecor

I've seen it done that way in NJ on cast iron and steel boilers and pass state inspection annually for many years (grandfathered in?). Then the "new guy" gets hired and fails it for not having dedicated valves on each lwco. Until recently, they never failed for sharing the same common piping coming from the boiler.

With regard to the blowdown in the lower gauge glass cock, don't think we've ever been asked to install a valve on one here in NJ.

EBEBRATT-Ed

In the past the older boilers did not in some cases have multiple tapings for multiple low water cut offs and pump controls. The problem was if 1 pipe plugged up you could loose the boiler because with all controls were connected to the same tapping.

Several years ago, most codes started mandating 2 low water cutoffs on commercial jobs installed in separate tapings (varies by state law MAss is 200,000 btu). Some insurance companies have mandated upgrading older boiler controls to have 2 LWCO which is usually possible. On steam 1 must be a manual reset.

Maybe I read the question wrong.......... but I was assuming the question was posed relating to having the drain side of the ball valves for multiple low water cutoffs piped in a manifold to a floor drain. As far as I know there is no restriction on that

JUGHNE

How would you know which LWCO you were flushing?
If one is a feeder pump that would be obvious.....but the other, only if it is a manual reset would you know you dropped that float.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Only by watching the float mechanism would you know. That's why the want separate tapings. Even so 2 lwco and a pump control you may still end up doubled up

JUGHNE

A reason this is of interest to me at the moment is that a have a pair of resi boilers on a commercial job. The feeder/lwco is piped on the steam side into one of the boiler risers and the wet side is connected into the lower 2" inlet of the boiler.
The feeder pump puts water into the opposite side lower inlet.

When I flush it is the water coming from the 2" of the boiler or the 1" of the control?? It will activate the pump/lwco, but then is that water chamber really getting flushed?? After taking it apart it was full of sludge with only a small opening allowing the water to drop. So most of the water would come out of the bottom of the boiler.

I don't have any easy ports on the boiler as you might have on a commercial model. I can only justify leaving it as is after extensive cleaning because it has a probe manual reset LWCO below that level.

EBEBRATT-Ed

That's always an issue and their is no fix on a steam boiler.

Low water cutoffs (float type) are not "supposed ' to be piped into any piping that has flow (which could cause the float not to act right) and should be piped into the boiler with it's own separate tapings but many are because of the lack of tapings.

On a hot water boiler MM used to sell "test &checks" don't know if they still make them that if you drained and flushed the cutoff it somehow isolated the boiler. I know that doesn't sound right but I can't remember exactly how they worked.

But back to steam, can't put valves on anything, so separate tapings and regular cleaning are the only answers I know of