Steam heat design books?
Say someone wanted to install a new construction steam heat system. What books (probably from the Dead Men days) would be recommended reading?
Things like pipe diameters, layouts, trap types and locations etc. Soup to nuts.
Emitter sizing seems straightforward starting with manual J and converting to EDR but would like details. I imagine the pickup factor would be a lot smaller with new.
Comments
-
You couldn't go wrong with The Lost Art of Steam Revisited, right here:
Store | The Lost Art of Steam Heating Revisited (heatinghelp.com)
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
1 -
Good as far as it goes. Need more of a technical design book (s).
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
Residential or commercial?
Multifamily?
Single pipe 392sqft system with an EG-40 rated for 325sqft and it's silent and balanced at all times.
0 -
Residential. Single or multifamily. No high pressure process stuff.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
Ah… what sort of "more technical"? Mechanical engineering type technical? Architectural? Civil/Structural? Or are you more after crafts type technical? How to thread pipe? Assemble pipe?
In most smaller applications, location of major units — the radiation and the boiler and sizing them is somewhere between craft and engineering. Actual routing and assembling pipes and wiring, and locating valves (if any) is best left to master craftsmen, and I'm not really aware of any good books which can lead that way (I might add, sort of off topic, that I never found any for Civil Engineering (I did timber structures, some highway, some rail, and sanitary) either, beyond a couple of superb handbooks. Beyond what's in Lost Art, there is — in my humble opinion — no substitute for learning from a master on the job.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England1 -
There is a collection of military manuals online that describe a lot of trade type things that aren't really documented elsewhere. They are a combination of a lot of materials from things the government wrote to manufacturers' service manuals.
1 -
Overpriced lot of random crap; but authentic to the era with pages which make you say "hmmmm?"
Steam Heat is Volume #3. Free archive of the 1926, lots of filler (these were HIGH profit books): https://archive.org/details/gri_33125009689510/page/n5/mode/2up
The PDF version may be the most readable on good computer.
More by this author:
1 -
Everything you need is in The Lost Art
3 -
Riser and run sizing by EDR? Pressure drop by ID? So something like the Syrax Sarco books but for residential. I don't recall that kind of detail in LAOSH- which is superb for an already existing system.
So to @Jamie Hall 's comment, more mech-eng. I'm already handy with a threader.
Audels are okay, but yes,a lot of filler.
I can't believe they did all these installs just "winging it".
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
Things like riser and run sizing — and headers and all that — are all in the Lost Art in sufficient detail for any residential application, and with some judicious judgement up to moderately large buildings.
It is extremely important to remember — speaking here as a retired Registered Professional Engineer — that it is almost as essential Not to get bogged down in fine detail as it is to appreciate why things are sized or arranged as they are.
You mention, for instance, pressure drop by ID. Not that it isn't interesting to know — but you can't, without some very sophisticated fluid dynamics computations, estimate the pressure drop in an operating residential steam system to better than 20% or so. So… the tables given assume a maximum worst case pressure drop of perhaps a pound or so. Which is close enough — since it will change, minute by minute, as the system operates and the temperatures change — even if all you are dealing with is live dry steam, which, of course, you aren't.
The riser and run sizing tables in The Lost Art are based on well over a century of actual hands on experience with what works and what doesn't. Are the recommendations slightly over size? I'd say, probably, much of the time — not always. Are they grossly over size? No, they are not.
Remember that you are not designing the power plant for the next Ford class carrier here. One of the things I found hardest for young (say coming up to school in the last 20 years or so) students to grasp was that you simply don't have enough information for this type of work to design closer to 10 percent on anything. They would punch their calculators and give me answers to 8 significant digits… with input information (such as load) which might be good to one.
Not saying that there isn't a time and place for calculating to close tolerances. There is. But residential climate control — whatever medium (steam, water, air) isn't the place.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
4 -
A smart guy once said "A difference, in order to be a difference, has to make a difference."
I have to repeat that to myself from time to time.
0 -
0
-
I agree..Lost Art covers it all. It is The Bible of Steam Heating. Mad Dog 🐕
0 -
Dan read all those books, re-explained them in plain English, and put it all in Lost Art. Mad Dog 🐕
2 -
there’s no measurable pressure drop in a residential steam system. Just size for the EDR as I’m sure the Lost Art book discusses.
there is a lot of wiggle room.
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el1 -
Agree with @ethicalpaul
Size all the pipe based on the charts in the lost art using EDR. You don't have to worry about pressure drop.
Justmake sure to use the correct chart. one pipe, two pipe riser, horizontal and pitch.
2 -
Dan Holohan's books will give you all you need to know. Read Jamie Hall's comment above; it's right on the money, and as an engineer, I could not say it better.
If you want more complexities, Jake Myron's book may satisfy you:
Don't do anything without reading Dan's Lost Art. For pure engineering, look at the charts in the manufacturers' guides mentioned by others.
1 -
Not a book
I have no affiliation with the site but it contains many interesting things:
https://www.deppmann.com/blog/monday-morning-minutes/steam-condensate-pipe-sizing/
0
Categories
- All Categories
- 86.4K THE MAIN WALL
- 3.1K A-C, Heat Pumps & Refrigeration
- 53 Biomass
- 423 Carbon Monoxide Awareness
- 94 Chimneys & Flues
- 2K Domestic Hot Water
- 5.5K Gas Heating
- 101 Geothermal
- 156 Indoor-Air Quality
- 3.5K Oil Heating
- 64 Pipe Deterioration
- 925 Plumbing
- 6.1K Radiant Heating
- 383 Solar
- 15K Strictly Steam
- 3.3K Thermostats and Controls
- 54 Water Quality
- 41 Industry Classes
- 47 Job Opportunities
- 17 Recall Announcements