Beautiful Victorian in New Hampshire

HotnDry

New guy here! So please forgive me for my ignorance - at least for a little while. Yuk Yuk.

I'm trying to help someone out with a cool old victorian house that has mostly steam heat. It's a treasure trove of problems.. uh correction.. opportunities and challenges. It is mostly “two pipe” using baseboard radiators and there are also three columnar radiators piped “one pipe”.

Currently, I'm trying to get a handle on the vents and piping pitch. Then on to the rest of the list.

Near, the end of each of the supply headers is a valve “Dole #6B Vacuum Valve”.

Is there any way to test if these are working? I can’t hear or feel air venting when the system fires up. They have three vent holes so it’s hard to feel. I took one off and tried sucking and blowing on the vent side of the thing but nothing. Don't go there.

Is there any way to service these things? Soak in vinegar for hours?

Are there replacements or equivalents from some other brand? Is this vacuum thing real? Or really weird? Any ideas/ thoughts/ comments?

Am I oversimplifying by saying:

I should be looking for trapped air when solving for poor performance and lag

Pitching and draining problems when trying to find source of banging

Any help greatly appreciated,

Paul

JUGHNE

What would be good are pictures of the steam inlet valves showing any brand names or trademarks….same for the outlet side of the radiators be it a trap or just an elbow.
Boiler piping showing floor to ceiling.
Any unusual looking fittings around the boiler piping.

Those get the most attention and responses.

Fred

Need pictures of the boiler and piping both near the boiler and any vents, other paraphernalia on the system as well as both ends of the typical radiator/convector. It sounds like a vapor/vacuum system but the guys here will need to see what's there to determine what type and how it may have been modified over the past century. The rest of us are also interested in seeing the home, as well!

Jamie Hall

The probability of those Doles being big enough, never mind working, is pretty small. How long and what diameter are the mains?

Trapped air is not usually a problem with a steam system -- if there are working vents, that's what they do.

And no, it's not likely that your system is weird -- although it may well have had some mighty strange modifications made over time. For one thing, baseboard radiators can be really problematic.

STEVEusaPA

If you are really trying to help 'someone' out, the best thing you can do for them is to get them a steam expert from here, to go out and completely look over the entire system. They can tell you what type of system you have.
A steam system requires TLC, and one of the experts here could go over the system with the owner and explain everything to them, give them a maintenance schedule, discuss what's wrong, what's right, and fix the system so it delivers heat the way the original installers intended.

lchmb

Where are you located?

HotnDry

Thanks everyone for your responses,

JUGHNE,

I tried to attach a picture of a typical inlet valve to a baseboard and whether I click and drag or browse and select the picture doesn't show up just some file name. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.. I reduced it down to 160k and same result. Oh well.

Fred,

I took them and will post once I figure out what I'm dong wrong.

Jamie,

The mains are two inch copper shortly after the two inch steel pipe near the boiler. Length is 20 to 40 feet ish. Can I try rehabbing them with vinegar?

Steve,

The house is in Conway NH. Owner is in the SW. She seems pretty/very smart but this is clearly not her sport. Do you know of someone in our area?

To all thanks again,

Paul

HotnDry

Testing 1 2

HotnDry

OK cool,

Looks like the file name disappears and the photo appears when you click post comment so here it comes.

Jamie Hall

Conway? That is up there...

What do you mean by rehabbing the copper lines? There shouldn't be anything inside them -- steam is, after all, just very hot distilled water! -- so they won't need anything inside. The thing with copper is to check all the joints for leaks.

HotnDry

My bad Jamie. Ishould have said rehabbing the vent valves that are mounted on the two inch headers. Does that hot vinegar trick work? Is there any downside the acid?

Jamie Hall

HotnDry said:

My bad Jamie. Ishould have said rehabbing the vent valves that are mounted on the two inch headers. Does that hot vinegar trick work? Is there any downside the acid?

Sort of. Sometimes. It's usually less frustrating to get them off (though that can be frustrating, too...) and put nice, bigger, new ones on.

Fred

What is on the other end of that convector (opposite the supply valve? It looks like someone did a decent job with the near boiler piping but I do see the riser to the main is tied into the main with a bull head Tee. Also, where do all those copper pipes come from? Is there one from each radiator? Some of them look like they may tie together above the boiler water line???

HotnDry

Jamie,

I was able to get two of them off easily and tried the vinegar thing. The Dole 6B on the end of the supply line didn't seem to vent at all during the last heating cycle. I saw something on line that it's a vacuum vent??? I can't find anything on the interweb as far as descriptions, etc, etc. Did they go out of bussiness? Should there be a vent on the end of the horizontal, tilting down, supply headers? One of the other ones is a Dole 1C. Do you have any info or know where I might be able to find out about them?

Fred,

The other end of all the base boards just has an elbow. Down in the basement the return lines have a vent valve.

The copper pipes connected to Medusa are return lines except for the big one which is the end of one of the supply headers.

The water level is about at the middle of the upper iron tee. So I guess the ones above that level can all communicate/ back feed etc??

Thanks again to all,

Paul

Fred

@HotnDry , all those returns should connect below the boiler water line. Those above the water line can let steam back into those returns and cause problems with hammer and/or return flow.

kcopp

@HotnDry Did I talk w/ you on the phone a couple months ago?

HotnDry

Kcopp,

No I don’t think so.

Any advice on those Dole valves. LOL

Paul

HotnDry

Fred,

I think you’re on to something. The highest line on that tree is the one I call “hammer time” for obvious reasons.
I tried the vinegar cleaning one of the Dole 6B valves but it doesn’t seem to ever vent air at the beginning of a heating cycle. I wish I could figure out a replacement.

Thanks for the good eye and advice.

Paul

kcopp

Replace. Don't waste your time on old valves. Get some new ones.
Gorton or Barnes and jones.

Fred

If you have the clearance, a Barnes and Jones Big Mouth is your best bet for the money. Solid Brass, about 2.5 times the venting capacity of the Gorton #2 and costs about the same. If you don't have the clearance, you need to remove the nipple and use a shorter one, with the Big Mouth mounted onto it. Regardless, those Doles are way to small to vent effectively. A good portion of you heating cycle time is spent trying to push air out of the mains.

Jamie Hall

The vacuum vents were used for years on coal systems, which heated slowly -- and cooled slowly. They weren't very big (didn't have to be) and they would hold a vacuum, which has some advantages. There is one still made -- the Hoffman 76 -- but in almost all modern systems one is better off to simply replace them with bigger regular vents, as has been suggested.

coelcanth

Fred said:

...but I do see the riser to the main is tied into the main with a bull head Tee.

what exactly is a bullheaded tee and why is it a problem ?

Fred

@coelcanth , if you look at where the riser, from the header ties into the main, you will see that it connects into a Tee where steam will hit the back side of that tee. That will cause the steam to bounce off of that backside and then have to go one of two directions. It would have been better to have tied each side of that main directly into the header or, at a minimum, configured the Tee so that steam flows through it, making a smooth turn out to each branch of the Main.

coelcanth

ok that makes sense..
i am trying to pick up on the ins and outs of piping efficiently and best practices..
my near boiler piping is mostly by the book but then after that, where it ties into the two mains, i think the installer left more of the old boiler piping than is ideal... there are tees, but not bullhead.

HotnDry

The water in the gage glass was dark brown/black while running. It would clear to light brown when shut down for a while. I drained what I could from both the boiler and the return lines. Lots of red/brown and black solids so I kept going until I got all I could. Then I looked at the way the drain line for the boiler was connected. It’s a 3/4” tap at the back of an 1 1/2” concentric elbow. So I was thinking wow I’m leaving lots of mud behind. Refilled and ran. Much better, but still pretty yucky stuff. Soooo, I drained it again, removed the drain valve to get better access and vacuumed out the boiler using a hose and a copper pipe and a shop vac. Added makeup and rinsed numerous times. Got tons more solids. I would guesstimate probably two coffee cans total solids. Some of the solids were chunks too big to fit in my 1/2” pipe. Refilled and ran. Now two weeks later the water in the gage glass is only light red/brown. I know there are downsides associated with refilling the boiler, but what the heck we were going thru 30 gallons a month before I fixed a couple of leaks. Boiler is a five year old Burnham Mega Steam 513. My questions are:

Should I go back in and try to get more?
Do I try to use one of those boiler and or system cleaners?
Do I put anything in the boiler to control pH?
Do I do any testing of the water?

Any help is greatly appreciated,

Paul