Help understanding fundamentals of my 100 year old system.

WillekesEaves

Hello, I'm new here. Please be gentle. I now own a 101 year old home in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan. I am currently working, as the season begins here, on balancing the system and ensuring I have proper air venting. Its a 2015 222000 BTU Utica boiler attached to 100 year old hydronic pipes. My biggest question about my system is why are nearly all the radiators run off the downhill condensate or return line? I thought that return lines shouldn't be charged with steam, but if my system is charging all its radiators, then steam must run all the way through, downhill, confirmed with a level, to 4 feet from the Hartford loop on 3 different loops, front of house, back, and addition 2nd floor. Also, all the insulation has been removed from my basement lines. I need a good source of fiberglass roll and covering and mastic in the area or online. I saw a great house in Dayton Ohio with proper fiberglass coverings taped and mastic'd on this forum, but I was at work and I've lost the link. Help me…

Steamhead

Welcome, @WillekesEaves - you're in the right place. If you could post a few pics of the boiler, a couple radiators that do not have covers, and any devices in the piping near the boiler, we can better advise you.

EdTheHeaterMan

I have purchased fiberglass pipe insulation from Granger's and the local supply companies like Webb and RE Michel when I was in business. But it takes a little work to figure out what size you need and if you are going to use fiberglass fitting covers that takes even more figuring. But once you have the right info, it is a pretty easy job to put the parts together and then coat it with mastic.

WillekesEaves

Please ignore the vertical sanitary stack insufficiency. That's a different forum.

WillekesEaves

all the grey pipes in the first pic go from 3" to a rise and then 2 inch to the back of house and also an offset fitting to 1.5 or 1.75 on a second loop for front of house upstairs. It goes around the basement back to the hartford loop behind the boiler, but all the radiators on the first floor are being fed on the downhill side of the pipes. Is this not wrong, charging the return line with steam?

WillekesEaves

Its not insulated and I realize that.

EdTheHeaterMan

When this original boiler was installed (Your boiler is not the original design) the steam left the boiler thru that large pipe and traveled all the way around the building in the steam main. That main was pitched away from the boiler so the condensate and the steam traveled in the same direction. As each couple of radiators or risers were connected to the main, then the pipe size could be reduced by one pipe size. Eventually by the time the steam reached the last radiator riser, the main pipe was reduced to maybe 1" as shown in this diagram

As you can see in the "Elevation" illustration above you can clearly see the Main that goes to the right to circle around the basement, returns to the boiler about 6" to 10" lower on the left of the boiler before it returns to the bottom of the boiler.

The illustration comes from this book https://www.heatinghelp.com/assets/documents/apracticalmanua00piergoog.pdf on page 138. Your boiler looks like it was properly installed according the the manufacturer's recommendations. Here is an illustration of what your basement may have looked like over 50 years ago.

Finally, What is redacted from the first photo? Your bootlegging still or the counterfeit money printing press?

WillekesEaves

Yeah, I think you're right in this assessment given the historical data. How would you describe my system? A 3 loop parallel one-pipe system?

WillekesEaves

It's only been a few hours on a weekday and I already love this forum.

EdTheHeaterMan

Here is a video about parallel and counterflow piping along with other stuff

https://www.heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/steam-heating-system-piping/

Jamie Hall

I presume this is one pipe steam? Then the only thing to remember about the various steam lines — you say there are three loops? — is that they must be vented after the last radiator connection and drop below the water line in the boiler before they join together to return to the boiler.

ethicalpaul

Congratulations that your near boiler piping looks good. And welcome to the forum from a former Michigander.

It's OK that your radiator takeoffs are on the downhill side of the main. In fact, it looks to me like everything after the boiler is downhill, and this is correct and very common. Steam will fill your main(s) from the boiler all the way to where the main vent(s) are, no problem there.

EBEBRATT-Ed

As @ethicalpaul mentioned you boiler looks to be pipe correctly if the pipe size and header size are adequate for the btu input from the boiler.

That is a very big plus in your favor. If you can find the original installer it looks like he knew what he was doing and they could probably help you sort things out. Michigan seems to be a location where steam installers are not abundent…..at least the ones that are in the know. You might try @offdutytech

dabrakeman

Hello fellow Michigander homeowner. Your parallel flow system looks good from what is shown. Can we assume it is one pipe (just one pipe into each radiator)? Looks like a fairly new Maid-O-Mist #1 main vent at the end of the main extension back by the boiler. I don't know your total main volume but if that boiler size is reasonably matched to the EDR of the radiators (?) then that main vent might be a bit small. How is the system running? From a warm start do you have an idea how long it takes steam to get from the header to the main vent? Should be shooting for less than 2 minutes. Mine I do in 1 minute.

WillekesEaves

Wow, thanks for all the helpful comments. I'll try to answer all the questions. The thing blacked out in the first picture is all of my worldly belongings boxed and/or chaotically thrown on the floor there because I just moved in not too long ago. I found the thread I mentioned with the neatly insulated header and mains. Here it is:

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/153111/gorton-vents-1-or-2

I want my pipes to look like this, but properly routed.

Yes, it is a 1 pipe system, one pipe to every radiator. I don't know how long the system takes to get steam to these vents because all my mud was just drained out and those installed a week or so ago. The technician took off 3 old Hoffman 75 units for these Maid-O-mists, yea I know they're not great, I already talked to 2 people at Gorton Valve about their fine products. I might have to break down and do an EDR calculation because there is some serious addition to the back end of the home and long runs on 2 inch pipe.

WillekesEaves

Here are some more pictures including one of my radiators

the 2 inch pipe snaking around the canary yellow basement and some first and second floor pipes going up

the back end of the boiler showing the 3 end-of-the-line main vents before it drops down to below the water line.

WillekesEaves

Also, not long ago this boiler was filled with mud, but were doing much better now. Thoughts/comments on anything I've said or posted so far are still appreciated. Thank you for the book link and the drawing, Ed.