What's Wrong with This Picture

SMichalczyk

I've been lurking for a while and trying to soak in the knowledge here. I bought a house with a single pipe steam system about 3 years ago. I've been struggling with it ever since. The first winter was rough and I could barely get heat to all of the radiators on the three floors of the house. I replaced many radiator vents and that helped a bit, but not much. I then turned my sights to the burner/boiler.

I learned that the previous owner did a last minute oil to gas conversion in the summer before they sold to me. The install was done by a fly-by-night contractor and they installed an undersized Wayne Combustion gas burner. I had another contractor come and install a properly sized Carlin burner. This helped a lot and the house was mostly comfortable.

My next problem was my Nest Thermostat fighting with my Hydrolevel Low Water Cutoff. I can't remember what model LWCO I had, but it would cut power to the burner to perform a the test. The Nest would detect this, then wait for a while before calling for heat again. Apparently that's a feature of the Nest to prevent short-cycling, which cannot be disabled. I worked around this by replacing the Hydrolevel LWCO with another model that didn't cut power to perform the test. This also helped quite a bit.

Now here I am and this system is still not living up to the commentary from friends, family, and the previous owners about how great steam heat can be. I perceive two obvious problems with my system:

1) No pipe insulation at all in the basement.
2) No main vents at all.

I'm not super handy, but I figured I can tackle the insulation problem. I hit a few plumbing supply houses today and I showed one of them the attached photo of my boiler and piping. The guy said that the header piping is all wrong and no insulation is going to help the system in its current state.

They referred me to a contractor that will come tomorrow to take a look. My question for you guys is, looking at this photo, do you agree that the piping is all wrong? If so, could you recommend how it should be piped? Also, what kind of cost should I expect? I am in Northern New Jersey.

I guess I'm just looking for your thoughts to make sure I don't get ripped off going forward and am able to enjoy steam heat in all its glory. Your input and feedback would be much appreciated.

kcopp

Yes it is all wrong.... Interesting. Looks like there is a gas conversion burner on this... Burnham frowns upon that.
@EzzyT is your man.

EzzyT

Yes that near boiler piping is indeed all wrong.

SMichalczyk

I run the risk of being too needy, but are you able to crudely draw how the piping should run so that I can be sure that the contractor coming tomorrow knows what he's doing? The other hard part of my steam journey has been finding contractors that understand these systems well. Clearly whoever installed this didn't know what they were doing.

Fred

Yes, it's all wrong. First, copper shouldn't be used on any steam piping except returns below the boiler water line. Expansion and contraction will cause the solder joints to give and eventually leak. Use Black threaded pipe.
- Each of those three mains (red pipes) should drop individually into the header after both of the boiler risers. It should be Boiler riser, boiler riser, steam main, steam main, steam main and then equalizer.
- Your first riser out of the boiler should not continue on up into the main.
- The equalizer pipe can be smaller than the header but it sould be reduced on the vertical, down, not on the horizontal, like yours. Being reduced on the horizontal will cause water to be held in the header, causing hammer.
- I can't tell from this picture if you have a Hartford loop or not. If not, you should have one that ties into the equalizer, just below the boiler water line. That loop will keep a leak in any of the wet returns from draining the boiler and potentially dry firing.

WEhere are you located? Check the "Find a Contractor" tab above and see if there is a steam Pro in your area. Do not let just anyone talk you into making the required changes just because they talk a good story or because they are cheap. IT IS NOT CHEAP TO HAVE TO REPIPE IT YET AGAIN.
We don't talk $$$ here so we can't give estimates that may be misleading.

neilc

you could have tomorrow's contractor sketch you what they know to be correct near boiler piping,
post the sketch here,
and get comments pro or con
or, who's stopping by tomorrow?
there are a few regulars here that you would do well to have,

Fred

SMichalczyk said:

I run the risk of being too needy, but are you able to crudely draw how the piping should run so that I can be sure that the contractor coming tomorrow knows what he's doing? The other hard part of my steam journey has been finding contractors that understand these systems well. Clearly whoever installed this didn't know what they were doing.

@SMichalczyk , @EzzyT is your man. He is one of the best. You are lucky he services your area.

SMichalczyk

@EzzyT Where are you located and what is your service area? I'm in Newark near Branch Brook Park.

EzzyT

I’m in Woodland Park, I’m about 10-15 minutes from Branch Brook Park.
I work all over the NJ.
You can contact me at
201-887-8856 or at Etravismechanical@gmail.com

SMichalczyk

Contacted @EzzyT . Thanks for the input everyone!

Ironman

You won't find anyone better than Ezzy.

Sailah

You're in good hands with Ezzy, search here to see some of his work he posts pictures of his installs regularly.

BobC

This is the piping diagram for Burnham, it costs a few dollars more to do it like this but it works much better. Ezzy will do a great job for you, make sure you write down all your concerns so he can address them.

Bob

JBFBMech

> @Fred said:
> Yes, it's all wrong. First, copper shouldn't be used on any steam piping except returns below the boiler water line. Expansion and contraction will cause the solder joints to give and eventually leak. Use Black threaded.

If soldered with silvabrite or probably even 95/5 and the person soldering it knows how to solder, the joints are never going to leak. Every time I bend a piece of copper to fit it in my scrap barrel it breaks at the pipe or the fitting never at the soldered joint itself unless it’s 50/50 then it pulls right out of the joint. I’m not saying I use copper on steam because I never do. But the joints are not going to leak if soldered properly. I have ripped out plenty of copper headers and they are never leaking. I also have seen many copper convectors that are soldered and not leaking, and tbose convectors were soldered long before we had the types of solder we use today.

Fred

@JBFBMech , I appreciate your success with copper but, there are too many examples of copper, on this site, where copper was used above the water line, on a steam system that leak over a few years of expansion/contraction. It may well be the type of solder that was used but who knows, what that might be in any given case and a Homeowner isn't going to know to insist upon certain types. The current best practice for piping, above the boiler water line, on steam systems is threaded black iron.

JBFBMech

> @Fred said:
> @JBFBMech , I appreciate your success with copper but, there are too many examples of copper, on this site, where copper was used above the water line, on a steam system that leak over a few years of expansion/contraction. It may well be the type of solder that was used but who knows, what that might be in any given case and a Homeowner isn't going to know to insist upon certain types. The current best practice for piping, above the boiler water line, on steam systems is threaded black iron.

I don’t have success using copper on steam systems because I don’t use copper on steam above or below the water line. The only copper I install on a steam system is the water line feeding it. I was just making a point that properly soldered copper joints will not leak because of expansion and contraction.

ethicalpaul

OK so the joint holds, but the copper adjacent to it gets work hardened and cracks. A distinction without a difference?

Grallert

Somethings gotta give.

JUGHNE

Do we ever see copper headers piped correctly by the book?
That is size, height, location of risers, equalizer w/o reductions, etc. with the only issue that the material is copper verses blk pipe?

I think the copper that shows up here is just the least of piping issues.

It seems to be indicative of a bad installation with multiple problems. IMO

Dave0176

When I read the head line what’s wrong with this picture I thought to myself “Everything” lol Yeah unfortunately a lot of heating men don’t even bother to open up the installation manual.