Honeywell Heat Generator Questions

RayWohlfarth

Greetings
I am consulting on a project that had a Honeywell Heat Generator. I am just in the beginning stages of it and had two questions. They said the bottom of the heat generator, which has mercury, was buried in the basement floor. Have you ever seen that done?
The second question is the heat generator was connected to the open expansion tank. In this place, it looks like its there was a sealed expansion tank in the basement ceiling. Have you ever seen it down like this?
Thanks

WMno57

Second question, replacing an open tank with a sealed tank.
That sounds a little like my house. Built 1916. Gravity hot water. Open tank in attic.
Replacement boiler installed 1950 along with circulator on return and new closed tank in basement ceiling. My tank was welded, your tank is riveted, so yours may have been done pre- war. Welding was replacing riveting at that time.

RayWohlfarth

Thanks @WMno57

mattmia2

I bet it was sitting on the dirt basement floor before the concrete floor was added decades later.

Whenever they converted it to a closed tank they probably connected it where the old tank was. That piping probably does a great job of keeping water from migrating in to the tank. The tank probably has a date on it somewhere being a pressure vessel.(unless it is just an open tank, that would work too).

Mad Dog_2

The two that I have come across, were repiped at some point and had a  closed expansion tank. One was right in my home town of Floral Park Village.  Mad Dog 🐕 

mattmia2

Is there a patch in the floor where the old boiler was also embedded in the concrete because it was there first?

RayWohlfarth

Thanks everyone. I haven't been to the job site and am relying on pictures of the boiler room. The amazing @Erin Holohan Haskell sent me a link to a book that shows they did have a version that connected to a closed expansion tank.

Erin Holohan Haskell

Glad it was useful, @RayWohlfarth! If anyone else is curious, here's a link to the book: 500 Plain Answers to Direct Questions on Steam, Hot Water, Vapor, and Vacuum Heating by Alfred G. King (1923).

leonz

I have the reproduction of this book Erin.
The printing is not all that good but it is still readable.