Whole New Steam System

SeanBeans

The old boiler in this house was covered in asbestos, as well as all of the steam piping.
The basement floor was all dirt and gravel. The owner decided to tear all of the piping out so he can remodel the basement. Along the way all of the radiator pipes were cut flush with the bottom of the floor joists.

..So I finally get to play "DeadMen", for real.

I decided to run two counter-flow mains, the radiation on both the north side and south side are almost identical.
We cracked all of the nipples going into the first floor radiators out of their prospective valves. second floor radiators were subject to the megapress gun. This one was particularly tough to get, the megapress jaws are huge!





Went with two risers even though the boiler was only an IN4, into a 3inch drop header. Man, I love this stuff.

I attached a video I took so I could remember my thoughts in between that job and other jobs.
I think I nailed it. but if you guys have any pointers, that is why i am here on this forum, to learn.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXY2eMoUnJo


for some reason i cant get my images that are labeled .heic to convert to .jpg..
so the rest are attached

Hap_Hazzard

My only pearl of wisdom is, since you have a short boiler and a lot of headroom above it, you should still make the risers as long as you can, because it prevents carryover from getting up into the header.

SeanBeans

@Hap_Hazzard my computer skills are slim to none. i have photos that im trying to upload but im on a mac and it wont let me for some reason. i came out with like 4' risers

Hap_Hazzard

Just to illustrate, here are two possible ways to pipe a drop header using roughly the same amount of pipe:


The second example is the way to go, and it only requires a little more equalizer pipe.

Hap_Hazzard

SeanBeans said:

@Hap_Hazzard my computer skills are slim to none. i have photos that im trying to upload but im on a mac and it wont let me for some reason. i came out with like 4' risers

There's a program you can download called GraphicConverter that will let you open those high-efficiency image coding files and save them as anything you want. It's way cheaper than photoshop, and it's a great little image editior/converter for most purposes.

SeanBeans

@Hap_Hazzard the photos are attached now. i did the second illustration

Hap_Hazzard

I see them now.

4 feet is great. I don't think water droplets can go any higher than two feet, but I can't remember where I got that number. I always figure more is better, and it gets the header up out of the way.

SeanBeans

I agree with you @Hap_Hazzard. I always go as high as possible. Why even tiptoe around the 24in mark when you can fly over it?

Intplm.

That Mega Press sure does come in handy doesn't it?
The job seems well thought out.
Are you moving the CW pex line that is in one of the pictures.
And , knowing you, you will be insulating too.

Really nice looking job.

SeanBeans

Thanks @Intplm.

I didn’t insulate it but someone else at my company has. Yeah the CSST and pex tubing were there before and I ripped out all of the clamps and moved it out of my way..
it has since been re ran so it won’t be near the main.

I caught my forehead with one of the nails from the pex clamps..

Intplm.

RRR!!
Well. You do nice work.
Is that you pictured in the background or the pink panther?
Or both !?

Hap_Hazzard

Yup. Here's how I did mine for comparison.

I put the unions at the bottom of the risers and included king valves on the takeoffs, but same school of thought.

SeanBeans

@Intplm. nope that was one of my helpers, who has now grown wings and flown away.

Danny Scully

All that cutting and threading and you used a coupling on the equalizer @SeanBeans? jk looks great.

SeanBeans

Yeahhh..... I only had the threader for two day. I wasn’t too happy about it. But I went over budget for the job and didn’t have the threaded anymore the day the boiler went in.

When I’m rich and famous I’ll go back and change it @Danny Scully

jhrost

Looks beautiful. Just curious, since you put in all of the mains where did you decide to locate the main vents ? How did you determine how many you needed and what brand? Seems like you could use the Big Mouths with the really dry steam you will probably get.

SeanBeans

@jhrost there are tees x 3/4 there for main vents. That was day 3 of the job where I got the pipes all in to the boiler room. Day 1 was all measuring/planning and gathering materials and equipment.

SeanBeans

He’s going to the finish the ceiling and leave an access panel. So big mouth are out of the equation. I can’t be that guy who gets a bad big mouth.

The rule of thumb here has been for every 20’ of 2” pipe you use one big mouth or two #2s... IIRC

EzzyT

Nice job @SeanBeans

SeanBeans

Thanks @EzzyT