The importance of near-boiler piping in a steam system

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The importance of near-boiler piping in a steam system

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Uthrid

Here is a youtube link of that tradeshow boiler in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovFq-RPdK1M

halnwheels

Dan, I am not a professional but when I had my old American Boiler replaced in the '90's with a 3 section Smith, I had a ferociously gurgling radiator and the installer told me that my base-ray radiator didn't have enough incline. That wasn't it. I did research and came to the conclusion that you have shown here. The problem was that they didn't do the piping near the boiler correctly. It took a lot of persistence and I showed them articles and then FINALLY they got an engineer to come to the house and he directed them to do what essentially you have described here. If I remember correctly, they didn't provide a Hartford Loop, as you reference here. When I bought my house in 1985, a man I knew named Jack Shultz (NJ area) was so excited that I had oil fired steam. He told me about Vari-valves and he gave me magazines from the 1040's that had articles he had written. There were pictures of him working on systems in a shirt and tie! I still love my steam system although it is now fired by gas, but that's another story! Thanks for this terrific post.

Laars66

Laars66

my steam boiler return line was horizontally in one room, below the water line. I raised it vertically( more than 28 inches below the water line ) to then go horizontally around 8 feet then come down vertically with a t and then horizontally all the way to the boiler. I ve been having a lot of water hammer , could this be the cause and would putting the return line to the initial location fix the issue ?

EdTheHeaterMan

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1815023#Comment_1815023

probably.

So to completely understand you, there is (before you changed anything) a wet return on the floor and that pipe was in the way of something. So then at the end of the main you cut the pipe that made it go to the floor so that it became a dry return for some distance then you put a 28" vertical pipe to lower the return below the water line back to the floor level like this.

If you add a vent where indicated and have proper pitch so you don't trap any water in the dry portion of the new horizontal piping, this should work fine.

EdTheHeaterMan

On the other hand, if you raised the wet return above the water line after it was lowered to the floor, then returned it back to the floor, this will not work.

There is no way for the condensate water in the return by climbing over the new piping that has trapped the condenate on the wrong side of the new pipe. there is a story about this happening that @DanHolohan tells and the result of this is that you could hear the banging and clanging from outside the building.

Hope these illustrations help

And if you have this second diagram there is a way to fix it in the boiler room by creating what is called a FALSE Waterline, so that the red pipe is complete below the NEW FALSE waterline

Laars66

Thanks the diagram looks more like the second one . how do you create a false waterline ? The hammer is driving me crazy. Just trying to find the easier solution to tearing the walls and repiping, but it seems that will need to happen. What kind of vent do you suggest.

Laars66

or could I do something like. picture 1 by raising the horizontal pipe to a level higher than the relocated pipe, connecting this relocated horizontal to the pipe in the second pic at the same level with at . Eliminate the lower return on the left circle of the second pic , then dropping the relocated horizontal pipe we discussed in the first pic at a 45 angle into the return pipe that is causing the problem . Would this technically raise the water line before it was lowered , but then we would have to add a vent

Laars66

would something like this work..?