Church Indirect Heating System

nicholas bonham-carter

Is there a floor drain in the boiler room for skimming?
Or is it to be the bucket brigade?—NBC

New England SteamWorks

Bucket brigade up the ladder! No fun at all...

ethicalpaul

Maybe a submersible pump in the bucket and a hose up the ladder?

nicholas bonham-carter

This is the type of situation where some piping, specifically designed to capture the oily water in a drainable part of the system would be useful.
Probably, the drop header is a start, as all the water which gets blown up the risers during the pre skimming period will be flowing through, and the oils thus trapped in the equalizer. If there were a small drain in the equalizer at a height of just below the water level, then periodically it could be emptied of all the oil floating at the top.
Maybe the equalizer would have to be larger in diameter to keep the velocity of the flow down so it doesn’t just wash the floating oil back into the returns, and then into the boiler.—NBC

New England SteamWorks

We actually do just that: Install a drain on the equalizer to draw off the oils deposited there.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Beautiful job!! Hope the owner takes care of it

Harry_6

Beautifully done, indeed!

Just a couple of quick generic observations, since I haven't had a chance to study the drawings yet. In a building such as this, at that period, they typically would have used the perimeter radiators to account for all or much of the shell heat loss. The pin radiators would have taken 100% outside air, drawn it in via convection flow, and introduced it through floor grilles to satisfy ventilation fresh air requirements and often to make up the balance of the heat loss (if the perimeter was insufficiently sized to satisfy the shell losses). This both added fresh, warmed ventilation air to the large occupied public volumes, and served to pressurize the building - thus reducing outside infiltration through leaky windows and open doors. The pin radiators would have been designed for a delta T sufficient to go from outside winter to "comfortable" inside. Later, these things were established at zero or minus 10 outside to 70-degrees inside, but in those days anything close was an improvement.

Of course if someone thought it was a good idea to remove the fresh air source and "increase efficiency" by connecting the area below the coils to return grilles they would have removed the ventilation and pressurization functions. The flow across the coils would also greatly decrease because of the greatly decreased delta T between inlet and outlet air.

And anything big enough to get into or communicating with a number of units over an extended area (like a manifold) is typically thought of as a "plenum," and anything smaller just a box or duct.

Also, the radiator appeared to be that old system of two large pipes per radiator with two valves and radiator vents - an evolutionary failure if ever there was one. Oh, and they used to call those wall coils "trombone" coils. They eventually stopped using them because when they were a single long pipe, too much of its length was filled with condensate rather than steam, since it condensed so quickly.

nicholas bonham-carter

I would think the main problem with the trombone radiator would be in maintaining a positive downwards slope on all pipes, and lack of thermal mass.
Certainly the vent placement leaves a lot to be desired!—NBC

Harry_6

I agree about the vent! The problem with pipe coils in general is that it takes so many darned linear feet of pipe to equal the square footage of a nice cast radiator, that it becomes expensive. And in parallel pipe coils you have to worry about threads (some of which are left-hand!) and uneven expansion. It is my understanding that they stopped doing trombone coils around the turn of the century when they realized that the longer coils just condensed all the steam after a point, and you were essentially just heating with a pipe partially filled with tepid condensate. Meaning not heating at all. Interestingly, there was a time when you could buy those 180-degree elbows in a version that was really a little over 180-degrees (183?), so that gravity drainage was assured. Just like you could once buy elbows that were a little over 90-degrees to make piping steam line run-outs easier. Oh, for a supply house that still sold this stuff! And don't get me started on why no one makes eccentric bushings anymore! But this is a bit off topic.