Pigtail assembly opinion

Waher

I'm in the process of replacing the cast iron pigtail that came with my Burnham Megasteam boiler and was wondering if it would be better to go with a series of crosses with plugs to use as clean outs to eliminate the need to disassemble the vertical pigtail assembly [on the left]; or if going with a simple angled pigtail connected with a union at its head for ease of unscrewing the entire pigtail makes more sense [on the right].

I like the idea of plugs for being able to leave the assembly in place and snake it with brushes; however my concern is the number of connections with the plugs make it more likely to have a poorly sealed thread potentially cause the anti-siphon action of the pigtail to fail. Thoughts? Assuming 1/4" brass on all components.

109A_5

Hello @Waher,

Take a look at this manifold arrangement in the link (scroll down to the pictures). Lots of threaded connections there.
https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/191560/can-malfunctioning-vaporstat-be-fixed

The thing I don't like about it is the whole manifold is the sediment / rust / junk trap. However it is large and probably rarely plugs up and is fairly easy to clean out.

Whatever method you like will probably work fine as long as there is a water trap between the steam and the sensitive devices. I like the idea of easy access to the the pigtail to poke a snake through (like an outer jacket of a lawn mower throttle cable). You probably could use a full port valve instead of a plug for quick access.

Waher

For cleaning I plan on using a coated stainless steel pull through cable and appropriately sized bronze bore brush typically used for cleaning shotguns and the like. If it's good enough to get all kinds of crud and metallic fouling out of steel barrels it should do the same for pipes.

I'm just not sure if adding the crosses with 3 clean out plugs is asking for more trouble than they are worth compared to undoing a single union and unscrewing an angled pigtail every so often. Maybe the bottom most cross would provide a sediment trap to help prevent the pigtail from clogging (unless there's a surge that stirs all of that up?). But if that's the case, and sediment traps are a good idea, why doesn't everyone use wye strainers ahead of pigtails?

mattmia2

The plugs are easier, don't have to deal with juggling the control after you break the union.

109A_5

Hello @Waher,

Waher said:

Maybe the bottom most cross would provide a sediment trap to help prevent the pigtail from clogging (unless there's a surge that stirs all of that up?). But if that's the case, and sediment traps are a good idea, why doesn't everyone use wye strainers ahead of pigtails?

You need the water barrier to protect the sensitive equipment from the steam. The down side is it becomes a sediment / rust / junk trap that requires maintenance. A wye strainer probably won't help much since much of the debris forms in the pigtail trap (rust steel pipe) and any debris that migrates in from the boiler may be fine enough to get through the wye strainer. A brass pigtail obviously won't rust so the maintenance intervals may be much greater. Also the wye strainer may be just another item to plug up and need cleaning out without much benefit (more work and cost).

As long as your bore brush method will make it through the pigtail, sounds good to me. BTW the water trap does not have to be a pigtail.