DIY Boiler Installation -- Peerless 63-03

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809755#Comment_1809755

Most of mine use #5s and 6s. Only 4 would be on a room that heats way too much and Cs on rooms that want a bit extra.

Not only is the 4 slow, if you use that as "normal" you have absolutely no way to go slower than that?

Id start with all 6s and adjust from there.

Dan_NJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809755#Comment_1809755

Adjustables can be handy here and there. For any radiator that you may want to turn off completely I would suggest to use a Vent-Rite adjustable. Especially if your radiator supply valves are old and maybe not working so well. I really liked having that on/off setting on the vent itself, rather then trying to turn off a radiator with a non-functioning supply valve, or having to spin the vent upside down and putting more wear and tear on the threads. Dole is poorly designed, sloppy adjustment, often makes a loud click when closing. Vari-valve I don't think you can even turn off and they vent way too fast. I tried Maid-o-mist too with the orifices. One rotted internally after perhaps 1.5 heating seasons and failed closed. Orifice worked great for a while but quality was not there. Even at its lower-than-all-others price point it was not worth the price.

ethicalpaul

they aren’t lower price than all others and I would like to see the 1.5 year old rotted out one. I’m rather skeptical, having seen how they are built. There are look-alikes at the big box stores, but those are total junk.

$90 for a vent-rite, yikes, I’m sure it’s a great markup but I’d never buy one.

@Dan_NJ we agree completely about vari-valve, they are horrible. Here is a picture for those who don't know what that one looks like:

As for shutting radiators off, here’s how I do it

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809761#Comment_1809761

Yes the 4 is slow, that's how the radiators perform nice. You don't need to ever slow down a radiator more than that…if you start at a baseline of 4 then you are free to speed up any that are too slow.

There is no other adjustment you need than that in my mind.

But you do have me thinking…there are times when my pressure does start to climb to over 1/2 psi and maybe that could be avoided with larger vents. I'll have to consider testing that…it's easy enough to undo…with Maid o Mist anyway

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809792#Comment_1809792

And you know mine runs around 1" 90% of the time and never ever goes over 8" even with radiators shut off.

You're vented too slow.

Dan_NJ

No idea where you're getting that number from, your price is nearly double what I see in a cursory search for a vent-rite #1. My rotted out MoM is in a landfill someplace and I never bothered to do the free QC work. Who knows maybe it was a knockoff in a fake MoM box.

But here's a pic of what came out of it before it was tossed.

ethicalpaul

You're right @Dan_NJ , I got lazy and figured the Amazon price I found was typical. But in my defense, these aren't available very many places so the sample rate is low! But that is completely my error.

I can't see how that pile of rust came out of a Maid O Mist but I'm not calling you a liar, please note!

EdTheHeaterMan

I like this line:

I can't see how that pile of rust came out of a Maid O Mist but I'm not calling you a liar, please note!

To be absolutely, positively clear. I am saying that you are not lying! I just don't believe you are telling the truth.

This comment is brought to you by the National Sarcasm Society. like we need your help




mattmich

I was going to be lazy today and take a day of rest, as is proper on a Sunday.. but I couldn't get it out of my head so I went and finished the wet return. Got lucky that two 12-inch sections of pipe + a union reached to the downward pipe of the condensate return… but I had to cheat and add a coupling as a distance piece. Probably too much loop-de-loop here but I was not up for going back to Home Depot a fourth time today to have tubing cut. They did very kindly cut the three-footer I bought at Menard's down to 32 inches, which did the trick — they hardly sell anything larger than one-inch, but they still have to dies. HD is my favorite home improvement store, especially the downtown Lansing one. As you'd expect for an old industrial town, the store is full of old guys making a few extra bucks and willing to share knowledge. In the suburbs it's mostly kids, which…is not ideal.

Anyway, I'd guessed right on the 32" downpipe, and things lined up satisfactorily.

Then I ran a 40-minute test.

I manually vented another radiator, so that at the end of the test, I had hot mains and exactly three radiators with at least some heat in them — the upstairs bathroom one, which always heats first; the living room radiator I played with yesterday; the vent has to work a little bit, since a few sections got hot, and then the wallmount unit in the kitchen where I unscrewed the vent for a bit. Interestingly the air did not stream out but went puff…puff… puff… with about a 2-second period. No idea what that's about.

In terms of the waterline, I'd calibrated earlier when refilling, and during the test, approximately two gallons of water went missing. Does that sound about right?

I'll put an order together tonight so that I can get the goodies to vent everything properly. I Amazon'd a couple MoM's on the basis of the hive mind. Thanks, guys, I was hoping for that.

Lots of detail stuff left to do; proper electrical wiring, proper gas piping, proper venting… plus I can short the thermostat wires in the living room, but the thermostat proper doesn't work right. No big deal, might just get a new one, but all these things are time sinks.

cheers -m

ChrisJ

Silly question but if you're piping it with the wood still under it how is that going to work after you sit it down on the blocks?

mattmich

Hi Chris, I know what you're really asking — or rather, what you're really telling me. I figured the wood couldn't stay, but that's part of the chicken-and-egg approach.

#1 I'll have to unhook the main at the union — and some other stuff — to finish piping the second riser. That'll be mid-week, because I can't get 2" pipe seven inches long locally. I bought a foot-long section of pipe to get cut down but was told they need two feet to hold the pipe in the machine. That makes sense, I guess. So mail order it is.

#2 I'm looking for one inch of drop for every ten feet of run, and I've got 9 feet to the next support. Right now I'm well above that, but with the boiler on the blocks I'll be about level. I'm planning on cutting one or two pieces of 1/8" fiberboard each for the blocks to sit on. Boards on the bottom, blocks and boiler on top I assume would raise no objections. Right?

Failing that I'll have to swap the 8" long nipple coming up from the tee with an 8-1/2" in long piece, and viola. A nice feature of having 9 feet of main to the next elbow is I have some leeway up and down. The wood blocks were mostly so I can take the wheels off. Silly thing is, with the wheels it's about perfect as it sits… :)

mattmich

On another note. I've got a 90s Honeywell thermostat that came with the house. I finally figured out how it's supposed to work — it's beyond primitive, it gets the 24 V & neutral from the boiler and either connects them to call for heat, or it doesn't.

Problem is, what my thermostat is doing is it sort of connects the wires, showing 16 V AC at the boiler end of things. Which causes the controls to go crazy and the vent damper to cycle between open and closed continuously.

It's no big thing to buy another thermostat — I can get a heat-only Honeywell wall-mount for $30 — but I was hoping to do some research and figure out something nice and network connected etc. So it'd be nice to keep the old one until theother stuff is done, plus I just hate mysteries like that. Does anyone have an idea what this 16 V weirdness is about?
Bad connection, my brain is shouting. Might be true.

If I bridge the contacts as they come out of the wall in the living room, the voltage measured across is (of course) zero, and the heat comes on, as it should.

cheers -m

delcrossv

Probably a bad connection somewhere. Extra resistance causing a voltage drop.

Those old Honeywell eyeball t stats are gold. Might just need a spray out with Electrowash.

ethicalpaul

Interestingly the air did not stream out but went puff…puff… puff… with about a 2-second period. No idea what that's about.

was the main cold? Or the runout rather?

mattmich

» was the main cold? Or the runout rather?

Must have been, because it was early in the cycle. The end of the main didn't become hot until ~25 minutes into the show. And this particular radiator is one of the last ones to branch off the main.

At that point the air flow was much less, and steady.

And as far as the thermostat; is there a recommended kind to work with steam? I assume we'd want longer cycle times than a furnace, for instance. My old Honeywell actually has settings for different type of heat.

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809864#Comment_1809864

The chicken and the egg?

You mean, what the heck do you need a five spindle for when you're barely selling enough milkshakes to justify a single spindle?

😉

Either you'll get it, or you'll think there's something wrong with me.

ethicalpaul

Must have been, because it was early in the cycle. The end of the main didn't become hot until ~25 minutes into the show. And this particular radiator is one of the last ones to branch off the main.

ok, with the vent off the radiator, that hole competed (and likely won) against the main vents as the lowest pressure place for the steam to go (or perhaps most of it)

As the steam moves down the cold pipe of the main, then the runout, it advances then collapses when it gives up its heat to the next part of the main.

That’s the puffing you experience. Expect to see the same thing at the main vents under normal operation when the pipes aren’t hot

related: the best way to test if you have enough main venting/to balance your two mains is to interrupt a call for heat, wait a minute or two to let air back into the system after all the steam is gone, then start steaming again to see how long it takes for steam to reach the main vents again. The advancement in this case won’t be delayed by having to heat cold pipes

And for your thermostat question, set it for Steam of course if they have that setting, or hot water if they don't. I believe all it's really doing is changing the "swing temperature"—the range between a call for heat and the end of a call for heat, but they never say what it's actually doing and people have interesting theories about it.

dabrakeman

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809790#Comment_1809790

$90?? Still not cheap but should be able to pick up Ventrite 1's for $36. I like the Ventrites for the radiators I want on the slower side and I have used (by default) Hoffman 1a's on most of the other radiators (which in general are even pricier than the Ventrites). Most of the Hoffmans were already on the system when I got the house 25 years ago. I replaced two about 23 years ago that someone had covered in paint and they subsequently failed open but none have failed since. This included the early years of my oversized system running way too high pressures. To each his own but I favor the adjustables because not only do they allow easier balancing initially but I find that I don't always want the system balanced the same depending upon factors like whether I have guests in normally empty bedrooms or whether I want to keep the house warmer overall again related to guests. I can certainly respect the cost issues and have nothing against Maid-o-Mist's maybe with some extra orifices particularly if replacing vents on an entire system.

EdTheHeaterMan

Then I ran a 40-minute test.

I'm thinking a 40 minute test would have some condensation spilling on the floor here.

GW

I always move things up high to get within 'nipple range' at the bottom (nipple tray—-close through 6"). Once you do this two or three or 25 times, you begin to see into the future (with your materials) a little better. Can you re-pipe up high to get closer?

EdTheHeaterMan

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809916#Comment_1809916

Gary, I remember the first residentil steamer I installed. I went to the supply house and purchased a Weil McLain #68 and a ton of nipples from them, I got about 4 times more nipples than I needed. They had no problem with me returning any nipple I didn't use as long as there was no pipe dope on them.

That is how I was taught to install steam boilers. Go to the job with at least 3 or every size/length nipple you can get up to 18". Then bring a pipe threader to make the custom ones. If you have a good relationship with your local supply house (spend lots of $$$) and you buy the boiler from them, you can do this on every steamer you install.

Yours Truly,

Mr. Ed

GW

Ed yes we just thread pipe after 6” long for the 1 1/4 through 2”

gas stuff we have much more selection

We do keep 18” and 24” nips with 2”

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1809954#Comment_1809954

No nipple chuck?

GW

we don't own such a tool, easier and faster to buy and carry trays, if i may opine

mattmich

@EdTheHeaterMan

Oh thee of little faith!

I was just happy that the union lined up closely so I took the picture.

But fine, this is what it really looked like when I ran the test.

Also a couple MoM radiator vents showed up — more on the way, along with some other equipment including Gorton #2 — so I picked a couple radiators and vented them properly.

Good news: I now have had seven out of eleven radiators with at least some heat.
The bad news is that it took ~15 minutes for the last-in-line-and-upstairs radiator to even WANT to vent — i.e. I took the vent out of the hole and there was no air coming out! Only once the steam traveled to the end of the main where the branch comes up did it push out air.

With the main properly vented, I expect this discrepancy to go away.

Of course it's going to be upper 80s the rest of the week so I'm thinking I'll concentrate on fixing all the stuff that needs it. Good news BTW all the water found its way back to the boiler after the long test.

@GW

» Can you re-pipe up high to get closer?

I'm not following your reasoning. But let me assure you I'm in no hurry to "re-pipe" anything until next season.

cheers -m

EdTheHeaterMan

@mattmich , That looks more like it…. But you needed to take it apart to put that ring on it. We have all made mistakes like that.

Funny story… I was teaching my son how to use a tubing bender to make professional looking fuel oil line connections, and he asked me if he cut the tubing to the proper length and proceeded to use the bender. I told him YES and let him flare the end of the copper. After he was finished flaring the tubing, he looked at me and was so disappointed because he forgot the put the flare nut on the tube before he flared it.

"Now what do I do? That was just the right length for this perfect piece of tubing."

I told him to just cut off the flare and put the nut on and re-flare it.

"But it will be too short now"

I said. "No it won't. I saw that it was a little too long and let you flare it without the nut. By cutting off that little bit of tubing, NOW it's the right length."

You know, He doesn't forget the flare nut anymore. LOL

mattmia2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810014#Comment_1810014

i think i see the nut behind the capped nipple

EdTheHeaterMan

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810016#Comment_1810016

WOW. Good eye Matt. I needed to look real close, and you are right. it was there. But I still think the trick I played on my son was a great learning experience. But he did call me something I won't repeat here at the time. I was laughing and he was not!

mattmich

I still need to pipe in the second riser, and it's hard to tell what size nipple is needed between the elbow on one swing arm and the tee on the other. It's in the 6-7 inch range. Paul with his drop header probably had enough leeway to not worry too much about it.

Anyway, I've got a six, a seven, and then a six-and-a-half nipple in the mail, and I'll figure it out Friday.
But I thought I should ask the manufacturer and for the definitive response.
Instead I got the cold shoulder. See below.

cheers -m

Hello

Our technical service department is available to licensed heating professionals; all questions must be directed to your local heating contractor. Our products are to be installed by heating contractors/plumbers, etc. whose primary occupation is the installation of boilers. There will be no manufacturer's warranty available to boilers installed by those other than heating contractors.

Thank you,
PB Heat, LLC

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810129#Comment_1810129

I really wish someone would pass a law that forced companies to honor their warranties on equipment installed correctly regardless of who did the installation. This is really wrong and yet, they get away with it. If the equipment is installed properly and fails for a manufacturing defect I don't see who installed it having anything to do with it. 🤬

That's not even getting into the fun many contractors have fighting with companies to honor warranties etc. They shouldn't have to deal with a lot of the baloney they do either.

Dropheaders…..half the reason to do a drop header is because aligning everything up is far easier. Actually, that may be 75% of the reason to use it honestly.

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810129#Comment_1810129

Yeah sorry about that, Peerless just will not talk to homeowners. I did just barely get them to tell me that a drop header did not void the warranty, which my misguided inspector "needed" in order to pass my installation 🙄

I guess he didn't care that the act of installing it myself apparently voided the warranty anyway LOL. It's especially galling when we see the installation quality of some/many contractors in photos on this site.

I just want to remind you that you don't need the second supply riser. You can save that to the very end, or even after the very end. Your size boiler is stated by the factory to work fine with a single 2" supply if I recall correctly and I believe them based on my testing.

My drop header helped a little with alignment, but not too much…my pipes weren't very long and didn't offer that much flex. I think you may be able to get by with the same length as the other one, but tighten one side more than the other to get the proper pitch toward the equalizer. Although again, in my testing, your boiler with this piping will not even put any drops of water into the header if the water quality is halfway decent, so it's a non-issue really.

mattmich

which my misguided inspector "needed" in order to pass my installation

I think our inspector is a reasonable guy -- he sure sounded like it over the phone.
But that concern is exactly why I chose to buy the manufacturer's pipe kit.

you may be able to get by with the same length as the other one

I'm not talking about the riser -- thanks for the tip about tightening differently, that makes sense -- but I'm talking about the piece marked in orange on the image below -- it forms part of the header, and it's not trivial to know how long it should be. Like I said, I have 1/2 inch increments, which should help. Worst case I use short couplers and nipples to piece it together but that would be truly inelegant.
I just checked NPT thread pitch; it's 11-1/2 TPI, so one turn more at each end of a joint gives a little more than 1/8" total difference… with half inch increments in size, the worst error would be half that = a quarter inch, and then half that could be taken up by tightening more or less… leaving the flex and the union to take up the rest.. which is not going to happen. Another tidbit I picked up is that the difference between hand-tight and 'maximum thread engagement' is .32 inches for two inch pipe (https://www.engineersedge.com/hardware/taper-pipe-threads.htm).

As it's piped now, the swing joint of the lone riser is turned horiozntally a few degrees towards the main. So I'll have to disconnect and square things up. It sounds like it's going to be a long weekend.

» your boiler with this piping will not even put any drops of water into the header if the water quality is halfway decent

I trust your testing. But keep in mind I have 1/3 again as much heat input as you do. That's a lot of extra steam.
Plus there will always be water from condensing steam at startup. I can't see in my mind whether further steam will re-evaporate it, but I don't think it can so long as the pressure stays near zero.

In my 40-minute test the other day, at the lowest point the water line indicated the loss of about FOUR gallons of water. That's nearly half the total volume. Towards the end, three of those gallons had recovered while the boiler was still running.

When (and if) the second riser is piped in, I'll be happy to repeat the test. If more water remains in the boiler, that will be indicative of dryer steam. But it may be that with water condensing everywhere, it's normal to lose that much volume.

By this weekend I'll have two Gorton #2s for the main and will throttle back the radiator that's been taking all the heat early. I think that slowed the main down significantly. Someone (Chris? Ed?) wrote that the main should be hot within 5 minutes of making steam. I'll do my testing in the morning, it'll get hot in the afternoon the next few days.

cheers -m

Grallert

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810130#Comment_1810130

Not to mention the "professionals and heating contractors" who have no idea how to install steam

EdTheHeaterMan

At the location of the orange line, you may find that using two 2" nipples (or combination of 1-1/2", 2" or 2-1/2" lengths) and a union will be the better choice. That will give you 4 different thread to make the needed adjustments to get it just right.

mattmia2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810144#Comment_1810144

Is the boiler surging while you test? I can't imagine it is not if you haven't finished piping and skimmed it. It is probably liquid water being thrown in to the system by the surging.

The condensate in the header should flow to the equalizer and in to the return. There will be some condensate in the risers and laterals themselves that falls down the risers back in to the boiler but the majority of the condensate and carryover in the header should go in to the equalizer.

You can also move the boiler a little bit to get the piping to fit square. Wet returns can be copper which makes cutting an exact size much easier.

mattmich

When I got home, there were some parts waiting for me.. including some vents. When I blow into the radiator end of an MoM, I can blow air through, easily, depending on the size of the orifice.

When I tried that with a Gorton #2, I found it blocked.

Does that mean there's something I don't understand, or does that mean they sent me a defective unit?

ethicalpaul

defective I’m afraid. If you lightly shake it, does it rattle? (It should)

mattmich

Yes it does, a little. And if I pay close attention I can force a little air through. "Force" being the operative word. But nothing like a #5 MoM, for instance, which has no resistance until the air speed picks up.

Steamhead

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1810191#Comment_1810191

First, try holding the vent upside down and fill it with water. Hold your finger on the pipe connection and shake the vent with the water in it for a couple minutes. If that doesn't loosen it, dump the water out and slap the front or back of the vent with your palm. If nothing helps, send it back. Gorton is pretty good about taking care of issues when they arise.

ethicalpaul

I assume he didn’t buy direct from Gorton…I’d just return it before filling it with anything but a few slaps won’t hurt.

it should let you blow when it’s right way up, and close when it’s upside down