Supply piped into wet return

Levie

Can anyone explain me if there is any good reason to have the supply piped into the wet return even though I have equalizer going into what I guess you could call it some sort of a Hartford loop on the other side of the boiler.
I know there are many things wrong with this boiler but that pipe looks original I can't understand why it would be there.

I would also mention there is one of those banana shaped air eliminator devices on the dry return so it looks like it is the remnants of some sort of a vapor system

This is a two-pipe system that definitely had a knucklehead install it

AdmiralYoda

Something tells me that header is also not 24" above the water line. AND the main is not supposed to take off in the middle of the header, it should be left of the leftmost riser coming out of the boiler.

**Out of curiosity do you have a cistern in your basement? Is that stormwater or sewer drain I see there to the right of your chimney?

delcrossv

It's a drip to remove condensate from the main. Guess is that a few boilers ago, there was a wet steam problem and that was the attempt at a fix. Is your system counterflow? (i.e. main is pitched back towards the boiler)

I'd leave it given your present header setup. Probably saving you a lot of noise and grief with your present near boiler piping.

JUGHNE

If that steam main on the right runs uphill away from the boiler then it is counterflow steam pipe.
If so then that tee is a "drip" to return the condensate down into the wet return as it flows back towards the boiler. The idea is to keep the return from running back into the boiler header.

The steam main could go counterflow for any distance (possibly to get under that door header beam) and then 90 up and the remaining main be parallel flow where the steam and cond water flow then the same direction and return by other means.

Levie

The first length of pipe seems to be pitched towards the boiler and the rest is pitched towards the end. So I guess you could call it a counterflow and non-counter Flow system ;( and it's a 2 pipe system

I know all the piping is wrong was just curious about that connection.
That's sewer connection is for a washing machine believe it or not they make knucklehead plumbers too!

Jamie Hall

Ah... if at all possible, the supply for new feed water should be piped into the wet return. You don't have a problem -- that's the way it's supposed to be.

And yes, it looks as though it might have been a vapour system, once upon a time, and probably would work better at very low pressure -- but it's also probably been pretty well mangled, so who know what's out there.