Is there a two pipe steam doctor in the house?

mattmia2

Might have been pitch or a lack or drip or a reducer in the horizontal if water came out. should be able to add valves and boiler drains and flush sections with a hose.

neilc

that had to have held water, on the regular , , ,
wet returns must look worse

takoateli

ethicalpaul said:

Well maybe that was it, and maybe not. I don't see a clog, just a reduction. But maybe there's a clog not shown in the photos.

"Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't"?

Is English not your first language?

I wrote above: "The end of the supplies just above where they join the boiler return were both completely plugged. You can't see it in the photos but they are completely plugged. When we cut those pipes out, the pipe above the clog was full of water and it didn't run out at all."

THE PIPE WAS COMPLETELY PLUGGED. YOU CAN'T SEE IT IN THE PHOTOS. WHEN WE CUT IT OUT, IT WAS FULL OF WATER ABOVE THE CLOG. THE WATER ABOVE THE CLOG WOULDN'T RUN OUT.

I'm not trolling you but jeez, I'm telling you it was plugged.

Do you think I'm lying?

takoateli

We went back today because there was still one more clog.

They ran 2" for the supplies till they picked up the last radiator, then they dropped down to 1". There was a spot on one of the supplies, where it's 1", that didn't have consistent pitch. That section of 1" was not letting any water return to the boiler.

Happily there were unions we could take advantage of.

We first blew it out with nitrogen and got out a lot of thick brown diarrhea, the kind of crud that comes out of old steam systems. Then we flushed it with a hose till it ran clean.

The system is working perfectly now, and the condensate is returning to the boiler through the section we cleaned out.

When they finished part of the basement they boxed in the part of the 1" run that's not properly pitched, so we can't do anything about the pitch.

But the system is so clean now I think they'll be OK for another 50 years. It ran just fine like this for many decades.

ethicalpaul

OK it was plugged

Sorry, I didn't see the part where you said the plugged part wasn't in the photos. You wouldn't believe how many times people mis-read things in this world! I'm glad you got it all fixed up!