Clogged steam main; resolved

JShep

A little over a month since my last few posts where I was trying to hunt down the source of the issue causing all radiators on one of our risers to not heat.

I had narrowed it down to a presumed clog in a 4’ segment of the 1.5” steam main (
just before the riser (all the way at the end of a very long winding main), fortunately right around the time that Steamhead was scheduled to come out for a visit to ensure I didn’t do anything crazy when I replaced the boiler, near boiler piping, and much more on my own.

The good news is, we were in agreement on my theory of where the issue was and based on his feedback for the rest of the system, it would seem I’m not an idiot and did a decent job.

After he left, I got to work soaking, covering, and removing the old asbestos wrap, double wrapped in bags, and disposed of it.  Then, to take a bit of extra precaution I used a wheel style hand pipe cutter and a hack saw (the placement of the pipe close to floor joists above prevented full rotation of the cutter, so I finished it off with a hacksaw to avoid shaking the crap out of the riser connected to this end of the main).

about a 2’ section of this 4’ pipe was completely packed rusty metal confetti.  I’m fairly certain when I jacked up the final segment of 2.5” main that had sagged about 6” in the wrong direction, all the sludge and and rusty bits that had been sitting in water were open to the steam and got shoved along.  See pic for the pipe when I got the pipe cut all the way through

After removing the section of clogged main and replacing it, not only did the radiators on the riser instantly start heating, but my pressure problem (see previous post if you care) was now resolved as well because I wasn’t trying to push steam from a 175k but boiler through just 5 radiators

JShep

Should have also said; thanks Steamhead for coming out and for the conversation.  Hope you end up finding a good use for the bucket trap someone installed on our system that was never needed.

ethicalpaul

Was that section sagged and trapping water?

EBEBRATT-Ed

Wouldn't be a bad Idea for a clean out tee or better yet a union or two in case it needs cleaning again.

Steamhead

Good to see, @JShep . Keep going!

EdTheHeaterMan

So you were thinking like Steam and saying "If I were the steam, where would I go?" and when it didn't go there you figured it was clogged. Awesome!!!

ethicalpaul said:

Was that section sagged and trapping water?

All you need now to replace that section of pipe is some glass pipes, Paul will tell you where to get some...

Thanks for sharing your issue and the solution. I always thought that a steam pipe couldn't get clogged like that. You every cycle the inside of those pipes get steam cleaned. But with that realignment, moving that section of pipe that had water in it accumulated all the crap, then the crap moved somewhere else. Good job!