Please help the Franciscan Sisters of Kansas City with their boiler.

DanHolohan

An update. Would you like to sponsor a radiator? :-)

Mr. Holohan,

I have had two long, interesting, and informative conversations from a boiler engineer with 40 years of experience (he read our newsletter and goes to a chapel we have visited before.) We would like to add some thermostatic valves to certain areas of the house to maintain lower temperatures, areas where there will be no conflict with the temperature sensors (we have one sensor per zone.) I did not realize that we had some of these already, and that they were actually meant to control the room temperature. I thought 1 meant a little water and 5 meant a lot of water, even though I knew they were called thermostatic. We would like to add automatic radiator air bleed valves to some of the "trouble spots," and trade out some of our attic bleed valves with different ones as they go bad. We know what to check in the pump that keeps tripping, and we have some other things to check.

Don't laugh too hard, but maybe someone would be able to sponsor a radiator? Ten dollars should cover a bleed valve. We do not need to do all 250 radiators, but at least 50. That's only 500 dollars, plus the cost of the 1/4 inch street L (don't know how much that is.)

I will be away from November 21 to December 3. I hope to send a few photos and a tour of our boiler room and some interesting features of the outlying areas before I leave, but at minimum the sisters will send an update on how much we have earned. Thank you again for everything.

In the Immaculate Heart,
Sr. Mary Clare

DanHolohan

I am not sure if a person can zoom in or out on this photo, but it is the plans we had to draw by hand on butcher paper and shows all of the main lines and their sizes. It gives an overview. We were not sure how to show something going vertically on a two dimensional surface. The boiler room is probably not accurate, it shows the way it was.

DanHolohan

This shows four of the five "major" zones and the sixth zone that has to be opened manually. the first three go up to the attic, the two-inch is the "sixth" zone (goes to the chapel) and the last one going 90 degrees on the far end is the big chapel zone. You can barely see the Belimo motors to the right and the two-inch black pipe that comes out from these. To clarify from something I mentioned earlier- there is one butterfly valve per zone operated by a motor with an arm. when the butterfly valve is closed, the water gets sent through the bypass.

DanHolohan

This is our heat seeker on his favorite radiator. His name is Chino (short for Cappuccino. The Capuchins, after whom the drink is named, are a branch of Franciscans) His sister's name is Penny.

DanHolohan

This is a vertical shot of our pumps. I hope the top and bottom come out on your end. To the right of the tee is the flange where we hope to install the new compression tank.

DanHolohan

This is a slightly different angle of the picture of four of the major zones and the manual zone... you can see two of the valves for the zones to the left, then the big line that goes out to zone 5, which reduces a number of feet from here. The two-inch pipe on the top right of the photo is the line that goes to the twin steel bladder-less compression tanks in the attic. It is nearly impossible to move this line to the new location, which is one of the many reasons why we decided to go with a new compression tank that sits next to the pump in the basement.

DanHolohan

The flues for the four boilers go into a big box that ties into the "chimney." Hot water boiler flue goes in there too. I don't remember what the other smaller flue is for...

DanHolohan

Here are two of the four boilers. That's the hot water tank in the background. You can see on the top right corner the suction and discharge lines for the "hangar queen" boiler, not pictured, but to the right. Each in and out is side-by-side, one after the other, on the big circulating line. The zone valves shown before are up and to the left of these boilers. The brown box on the wall houses the new controller.

nicholas bonham-carter

I think we should sponsor Dan for a ticket to KC, (remember the KC barbecue!), to get a good overall look at this system, and make a list of things to do in the future. Has anyone got any unused airline miles?
If I understand correctly, it seems as though the boilers are hooked up in series, and I’m not sure that’s Kosher, unless they are all on a primary-secondary loop.—NBC

DanHolohan

Thanks, Nichols, but I’m happily retired and staying away from TSA. Happy to help there. 😊

DanHolohan

Update!

Mr. Holohan,

We have raised around $5,500 locally and online, and have added another $2,000 to it from our necessary daily operating funds. We have spoken to the engineer and contractor and our new friend out west, and will ask to get the new tank on order with everything we need to put it on. We will have the old tank cut in the attic and put an air vent on the pipe, and get the new fill valve put in without relocating the whole works yet, as we hope it will not be critical to do so. When the weather warms up, we hope to get the other work done that we think is necessary, depending on funding. So this is our last update! I will let you know how everything turns out! Work would start January at the earliest. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude again to you and to everyone who has donated and prayed for this project. We think we will solve most of our big problems with this change. We wish you all a very Holy and Blessed Christmas.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for us!

In the Immaculate Heart,

Sr. Mary Clare, OSF