Single Pipe Steam Questions

Xter9

Hello all,

This is my first time having a single pipe steam system. I have a few questions regarding my system and how I can better it to hopefully make my home more comfortable come winter and hopefully save on the 375 dollar gas bills. 

I just bought this home almost a year ago and last winter the system was good enough to manage through and keep things alright. 

Here’s a diagram of my system roughly. 

I know the cast iron baseboards are a no in these systems. The one in the back bedroom works great and keeps the room really warm compared to the rest. Upstairs bathroom is good enough. Middle room was good too. My front bedroom was always about 7-8 degrees colder yet was one of the first to fill with steam I believe. Would a swap in air vents help?

now for my downstairs, the kitchen, mud room, and front living room baseboard do almost nothing. If left to go long enough they eventually warm up and produce heat like the cast iron radiators but it takes longer then my furnace tends to cycle so I cold spots. Last year I ran an electric oil radiator to help maintain the mud room being that room has the largest of windows and cold spots. I assume it’s the 3/4” piping and valves causing me issues here and probably the air vents but being properly positioned for a single pipe system. Is there anything I can do to help with these? Replacement is preferably last ditch but if solves the heating and reduces my gas bill I’m ok with it. Only the mud room I can’t replace easily. Kitchen would be a hassle due to space. Living room one doesn’t do much so I’m ok on just turning the valve off if that’ll help other areas in my system being there’s a large cast iron radiator in there too only 10 foot away that works great. 

Also my kitchen piping is pitched wrong which may contribute but the room doesn’t leave much to try and correct it. I assume this should be a suck it up and try to pitch it better then if I’m able too. It’s just in a really bad spot and I see why they did it but I’m sure with extra piping and some creativity it could be pitched correctly. 

Outside of that, is there anything kinda goofy looking going on? I see there are two condensate drains to the bottom of the low water cut off for an in case I guess? Im not sure. I do not have any water hammering or banging in the pipes it seems. Just bad performance in spots. 

Any advice and help is appreciated then!

thanks,
Mike

109A_5

Hello @Xter9,

I fear if you can't make the system more efficient and you find a way to heat the house better your fuel bills will go up. Maybe improve the house (if needed).

Are the baseboards pitched to drain correctly ? I wonder if the baseboards are sized big enough.

What room is the thermostat in ? Is it near any radiators ?

I would make sure the venting on the Mains is as good as it can be and maybe put an additional Main vent just before the downstairs bathroom riser. 12" - 15" back from the very end of that Main.

You could move the radiator vents (or just the orifices) around if they are different sizes to see what changes it makes. Make notes of how it was when you started and any changes.

It seems you have a parallel flow and a counter flow one pipe system.

bburd

Please post photos of some of these baseboards, including close-ups of the vents. Also a few typical cast-iron radiators, and the boiler from far enough  to see the piping around it. Then we can better advise you.

Xter9

Thank you both. 

For the downstairs bathroom, I’m afraid that’s a no go there due to space. Also they used soldered copper piping to just that, about a 24” run. 

As far as piping, here’s my downstairs currently for the piping. 

Boiler header and the two branches. 

Left piping is dining/front and middle bedroom/living room

Right piping goes to all other. 

Left Branch Piping

This is all the Right Branch piping feeding kitchen, mud room and etc. All this piping is pitched towards the drain in the corner with a main vent sitting atop. The kitchen baseboard is pitched wrong and follows the same pitch as the main. 

Here is a picture of the cast iron baseboard that’s found around the house. They are all the same style as this.

Also all the main vents are Gortons #1 installed in the basement. Sorry for the mess in the basement, the previous owners left everything since 1950 in there and we are still sorting and chucking a lot of stuff and trying to organize what’s ours in the process. 

Also I plan on insulating all the piping down there then once everything is good down there. I know that should help alleviate the heating bill some too then. 

Thanks,
Mike

109A_5

Hello @Xter9,

Yes, insulate ALL the pipes as best you can. (the basement will be cooler after)

What room is the thermostat in ?

Is it near any radiators ?

I would put an additional Main vent just before the downstairs bathroom riser Right Main. 12" - 15" back from the very end of that Right Main. See picture, is that the end of the Right Main (the larger pipe, not the pipe to the bathroom radiator).

You want the Mains to fill with steam as fast as reasonably possible.

Xter9

The thermostat is on the dining room wall towards the kitchen, but directly across from the cast iron radiator. I’ll be shortly installing a newer smart T-Stat and relocate it to be as far as possible from the radiators as possible to help evenly heat better. Last year I did shut the valve for the dining room radiator at the colder parts of winter to keep the thermostat from cycling as much which seemed to work decent and kept the living areas very close to what the thermostat was set for. 

Ok, should I go with bigger main vents too then? Right now there are Gorton #1s for the 3 main vents. From my reading it seems I should probably be bigger on vent size or antler a couple #1s. 

As for the picture, if you’re refering to the pipe above that is my sewer piping for the bathroom. It’s kinda crowded back there for everything with piping and water lines. 

Thanks,
Mike

mattmia2

Making baseboard work on 1 pipe steam is difficult. Short lengths usually can be pitched to work OK but longer lengths are very difficult to get to drain properly. You frequently are better off setting up long lengths to pitch to the opposite end from the supply and adding a separate return to that end. That may be the solution to your downstairs baseboards.

That runout that I assume is for the kitchen that runs parallel to the main and pitches the same as the main needs to be fixed if you want that emitter to have any chance of heating. The condensate trapped in there will stop the steam from getting to the emitter until it has heated the trapped condensate. One way to fix it is to turn the ell at the top of the takoff 90 degrees, put a street ell in that ell, run a pipe parallel to the main but pitch correctly with the pair of ells, then put another ell and street ell at the other end to get it up through the floor. That will always be very slow to heat until you fix that. Any other places like that which trap condensate will also be slow to heat.

109A_5

Xter9 said:

Ok, should I go with bigger main vents too then? Right now there are Gorton #1s for the 3 main vents. From my reading it seems I should probably be bigger on vent size or antler a couple #1s. 

As for the picture, if you’re refering to the pipe above that is my sewer piping for the bathroom. It’s kinda crowded back there for everything with piping and water lines.

3 main vents ? Your drawing showed only 2, I added a third to the drawing where I think a third one should be (to fill the right main to the end). Is there a third I am not aware of ? Is there 2 at one location ?

I was wondering if that dark image right at the tip of my black arrow, is it another Vent ? It may be something else unrelated, I can't tell from that picture.

More main venting would help to a point. With your mains un-insulated you are slowing the steam down warming the mains back up on each boiler cycle and that takes time and fuel. You want to keep the mains as warm as possible between boiler cycles, at that point better main venting may help.

Once the mains are fully optimized balancing the rest of the house may be easier to deal with.

I'd be careful with a smart thermostat, some apparently don't play nicely with steam heat. Personally I'd skip the smart thermostat and just relocate the existing one to the most central location as far away from any radiators as possible and not on an outside wall.

Xter9

That is correct on the three main vents in the basement. On the right branch towards kitchen, the vent is positioned over the condensate return where everything pitches down. 

On the left branch there is a vent over the condensate return too and also another one that branches off between the front bedroom riser and the living room radiator. 

Once I get the mains situated and taken care of, I have enough insulation to do all the basement piping. Should I also insulate as far up on the risers as I can? And how close to the boiler can I or should I insulate too?

As for the smart thermostat, I got it free through UGI on their Earth Day. It’s a Google Nest. I need to rerun thermostat wiring and install new wiring for this thermostat to add a C wire as my current T-Stat is a two wire. As far as I’m aware the nest won’t have any issues with this (minus needing to add a c wire) and can be programmed to operate like the current T-Stat except provide real time data and alerts for the heat (which I prefer since I work a large radius in my area and tend to not be home often to know if there’s an issue unless the missed calls to inform me). 

Also a correction on the “baseboard”. They are not true baseboard. I toke one apart to see about pitching it correctly and etc and found it’s a cover over a “small” radiator that spans across the length. The covers were painted so heavily it hid all the screws retaining it to the actual little radiator. So at least that makes my job easier later when we get to these rooms for remodeling for at least making them look better. So I’m relieved it’s just a cover I can take off and sand rather then trying to juggle a heavy chunk of iron. The radiator behind is cast iron on them at least too. 

mattmia2

You need to work out the pitch before you insulate. The parts that aren't pitched properly will heat poorly. Trying to heat when steam can''t move in because of trapped water is going to cost you a lot more in efficiency than not having the pipes insulated.

A picture of what is inside the covers would help too. Are these all only a couple feet long or are some of them say the length of a room?

What is the pressure of the boiler?

109A_5

In general I would insulate every pipe that you can get to that normally has steam in it.

As far as pitching how far do you want to go ? A significant part of the Right Main looks like it is a counter flow system with no main vent. Also having 3/4" and 1-1/4" pipes also probably complicates things too. It seem like a very inconstant system, not making your job easier. You definitely want the radiators to drain, I would check them with a level. Long ones may need a different plan than the original plan.

Xter9 said:

I do not have any water hammering or banging in the pipes it seems. Just bad performance in spots

So I wonder how much condensate is actually trapped or puddled in the pipes.

Xter9

It is very inconsistent it seems and things patched in as needed/decided to replace over its life. The kitchen baseboard is the worst offender and I’ve only felt it come on if the system had a long call for heat (me turning the t stat up). Same with the living room. The others seem to put off minimal heat.

The kitchen seems to be the only one with horrible pitch which I think I can solve with a couple 45s to adjust angle. Under the paneling on the floor joists it looks to have good pitch until after the paneling. 

As far as the condensate I have no clue. The system is overall pretty quiet and no loud bangs or clanks or anything. 

For the baseboard radiators, they are between 3 to 6 feet long and do not cover full lengths of the rooms. Next time I have one open I’ll take pictures. 

Also the mud room is a different baseboard radiator style, I assume for actual two pipe system being it has 4 taps for pipe but only one is being used. The other ones are single inlet ones with a 1/8 npt for the vent. 

When I was running the boiler last year, I ran it at .75 psi according to my 0-3 psi gauge I added in. Before they ran the system at around 4.5 psi when I bought the house. I didn’t note anything terrible then but I did a full clean and maintenance being the temps were still in the 40s and readjusted the pressuretrol and had a HVAC professional come in and double check it and adjust the gas valve for me. 

Also I learned from my neighbor a while back, the house use to be a coal boiler before UGI came through with the natural gas lines a few years back and basically replaced everyone’s coal furnaces for pennies on the dollar. It probably explains some of the wonkiness being the coal boiler really wouldn’t shut off and just maintain rather then cycle? 

109A_5

Was it actually running at 4.5 psi or was that just where the Pressuretrol was set at ? The Pressuretrol is a pressure limiting control safety device, not a throttle. Since you are now at 0.75 psi is that because of the Pressuretrol's influence (the boiler cycling at the lower pressure) and not satisfying the thermostat readily or is it just running at 0.75 psi for the whole call for heat with the boiler running continuously ? If it is cycling on pressure check the radiator vents, maybe some are painted shut or otherwise plugged.

If condensate is trapped or puddles in a place where it should not be, wrong pipe pitch as an example, water hammer often happens when the steam meets that water.

I guess repair what you can, radiator and pipe pitch and venting then insulate and then re-evaluate. It may also depend on how much time, effort and money you want to put into the system to normalize it.

mattmia2

If there is water trapped in a section of main or runout, the steam won't progress past that point until it heats that water to near boiling, that water will prevent the steam from progressing past that point. You need to fix those pockets of trapped water if you want it to heat evenly. the water will cool the steam and condense it to water. depending on where it is it may not hammer but it will keep the system from heating evenly.

It sounds like you have small convectors rather than baseboard radiators. The cabinet channeling air through the element is critical to getting heat from the element.

Xter9

109A_5 said:

Was it actually running at 4.5 psi or was that just where the Pressuretrol was set at ? The Pressuretrol is a pressure limiting control safety device, not a throttle. Since you are now at 0.75 psi is that because of the Pressuretrol's influence (the boiler cycling at the lower pressure) and not satisfying the thermostat readily or is it just running at 0.75 psi for the whole call for heat with the boiler running continuously ? If it is cycling on pressure check the radiator vents, maybe some are painted shut or otherwise plugged. If condensate is trapped or puddles in a place where it should not be, wrong pipe pitch as an example, water hammer often happens when the steam meets that water. I guess repair what you can, radiator and pipe pitch and venting then insulate and then re-evaluate. It may also depend on how much time, effort and money you want to put into the system to normalize it.

That’s what it was running because the pressuretrol was mostly clogged. They had it set roughly around 2 to 2.5 psi and cut back in around .5 psi I think. I had removed the pressuretrol and cleaned the pigtail and then reset the pressuretrol back to lowest possible setting I could fiddle with. A lot came out of the pressuretrol pigtail and could barely blow through it when I had done that. 

Honestly I’m not sure how often it would cycle to meet the thermostat. I know the radiators seemed to heat better and last longer at the lower PSI setting. Perhaps because of the cycling maybe?

Sorry for the late response, I been working massive OT right now. 

I have two Barnes and Jones Big Mount Vents I plan to add to the mains once I find a big enough Allen key. Right now there are only three Gorton #1s venting all my mains. 

I changed plans on my kitchen baseboard, they pitched it wrong and being they have it mounted pretty insanely and the tile work involved to fix it. I instead added a return and plumbed it into the existing return back to the boiler. My test fire indicated no adverse effects like water hammer and the baseboard is doing much better now. I’m going to swap a #5 vent into it though to help match it the speed of the other radiators. Also I will check the other radiator’s vents to make sure they are working correctly. 

Also I want to skim my boiler. Would this be the port I could skim the boiler then?

I would like to double check before doing it. To my understanding I would skim the boiler cold a little, then shut the valve, heat the boiler until the header is hot, then continue skimming until the water is free of any oils? I do not know if it needs skimmed as my sight gauge looked very clean and clear after sitting all spring and summer untouched and still does after the test fire. 

Outside of that, I plan on insulating my pipes as far as I can go then. Does all this sound like it would help my boiler cut down on fuel consumption greatly? I am still working on sealing up the house and insulating as I can then. 

mattmia2

You only need to skim if you have introduced oil in to the boiler from somethin like new piping. the skim port should be at the same level as the connection between the boiler sections.

If you are trying to remove an allen head plug for a vent you should get an allen socket that fits a ratchet, it will be a lot easier to break it free without camming it out with a breaker bar or big ratchet.

The higher pressure can put water places it shouldn't be and block steam or air flow.

109A_5

Hello @Xter9,

Yes, that looks like someone kind of set that up to be a Skimming port. I would have done the Skim port with horizontal piping so you can get a feel for the water level in the boiler. You would have to look at the manual for that boiler to see it that was the tapping that the manufacture intend for Skimming use. As @mattmia2 said you may not really need it at this point (unless there is unresolved oil issues).

I believe the B&J Big Mouth 3/4" NPT fitting needs 5/8" Hex to tighten that fitting. I found a gently used Snap-On SA20E (1/2" square drive) on eBay to use on my Big Mouth, it was a nice addition to my tools. A 5/8" Hex key or Allen wrench and a pipe may work too and may be less expensive.

Steam Boiler Skimming (Removal of Oil Residue)
https://youtu.be/6x1CCcXWLgw

Peerless steam boiler install complete. Part 6. Skimming.
https://youtu.be/OavDuyn8vs8

JUGHNE

For the BJBM hex fitting, in a pinch I have used a bolt with that hex size for the head.

Then with 2 nuts on the bolt (about 3" long) that are "jammed" together as lock nuts you can tighten the fitting with the outer nut.
You are only looking at a few PSI of pressure.

Or also some hex shaped punches and chisels fit that opening.