My janky, DIY hot water loops on my steam boiler

ethicalpaul

Here's a video that shows how I used knowledge gained from Dan's article about putting a hot water loop on a steam boiler to do just that.

The most interesting thing about it I think is that I am circulating my boiler water in my loops, there is only one circulator and no heat exchanger.

Maybe you will find it useful!

Here it is

EBEBRATT-Ed

Saw the video. nice job!!

Danny Scully

Let me guess @ethicalpaul , everything we thought and have been practicing all these years is wrong? 🤣😉

ethicalpaul

no, just some things

BobC

For what your trying to do this makes perfect sense. If you did the same on a boiler whose owner didn't understand it could get ugly quick.

Bob

ethicalpaul

Thanks Bob. What part could get ugly, like the mixing with the throttle valves? This is what Dan suggests to do, I'm not sure how to avoid it.

If you're saying no one should install such a system without a heat exchanger, I can understand that—just wondering which ugly part you are thinking of.

EBEBRATT-Ed

As far as I am concerned you did what Dan suggested. My only question is in reality do the manually set valve control the temperature within reasonable parameters without constantly adjusting?

For me I would prefer an automatic 3-way valve control but that cost $$$. If it aint broke don't fix it.

Good job on the piping has to be 100% not to let air in.

ethicalpaul

Thanks Ed. I do "set it and forget it" and it always seems to be around 120F into the loop which works well for my needs. It would definitely be a different story I'm sure if I was actually heating a whole room with it, especially in the seasons where the boiler might not fire for a day or two.

JakeCK

Informative.

But you recorded the video in the wrong orientation. :p

ethicalpaul

Am I recording on the wrong orientation, or are you viewing on the extreme minority device? 😅

According to recent data, the majority of YouTube viewers access the platform on their phones, with around 63% of YouTube video views coming from mobile devices compared to only 12% from desktop computers; meaning a significantly higher proportion of viewers watch on their phone than on desktop.

mattmia2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827218#Comment_1827218

The manual bypass will probably be more reliable than the automatic valve with the mud from the boiler in the system.

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827469#Comment_1827469

What is with all the mud I keep hearing about?

I saw plenty of it in the boiler I tore out, but never in my current boiler and it just started it's 13th season.

ethicalpaul

I was gonna say…"mud"? How dare you sir!

I'll say it again, every installer should show every new steam boiler owner how to put some pH boosting treatment in their new boiler (after all the oils are out of course)

ChrisJ

Apparently a lot of people look at their steam boilers and see :

EBEBRATT-Ed

Mud in Paul's😊 boiler? That is heresy.😊

BobC

@ethicalpaul My comment about the possible problem with this method is it initially takes some babysitting to make sure it's working as intended. To many folks don't give a heating system any thought so they would not realize a system needs a little tweaking to work or just what to tweak.

Bob

EBEBRATT-Ed

True that it takes a little fiddling. I never installed one but a plumber friend of mine has done it a couple of times and says it works fine.

When you figure in the xtra cost of a brazed plate heat exchanger, expansion tank, another circulator, pressure reducing valve, relief valve, more wiring, a few more valves and whatever else I forgot you can understand that this can be a viable alternative.

Many have used this when finishing off a basement. They can be tricky to set up and purge and fill.

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827592#Comment_1827592

Thanks! Agree completely! And if someone messes with the valves it’s trouble

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827593#Comment_1827593

Absolutely. With all those extra things to buy and set up (and you still have to manage the boiler water quality for the one circulator) I can see why people recommend or choose electric floors for comfort

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827471#Comment_1827471

I should take this moment to say that I'm aware that the entire commercial steam industry and a few vigilant homeowners like @ChrisJ and @KC_Jones and apparently a very few residential steam contractors are willing to do anything about residential water chemistry. I'm by no means discovering anything new here, but the fact that I see almost no awareness of it in on youtube and in the homeowners who I have visited makes me want to keep yelling about it.

One of the most respected and prolific youtubers who works with steam, mikeypipes, for example, seems completely ignorant of the topic and seems to think that flushing and refilling is the key to boiler health and happiness.

I'm still looking forward to a video with @Gordo showing a homeowner how to manage their pH level!! Since he puts unions on his PRVs now, that's a good place to add stuff!

EBEBRATT-Ed

All depends on the water quality you get from the city/town.

Many boilers running that are 100 years old that have never seen any water treatment.

I feel that the modern boilers with their reduced size (compared to the old boilers) and the increase in BTUs/lb of cast iron means the new boilers work harder and the water quality is now more important.

I installed a bunch of Miura boilers which are only for HP steam. There junk IMHO, but they hold very, very little water and make steam like crazy. But Miura has very specific water quality standards because the boiler is like putting a blowtorch on a shot glass full of water.

They don't last very long regardless of the water quality but if you ignore the water quality they fail faster

ethicalpaul

Maybe the quality of water from the supplier might matter regarding some stuff, but all water has oxygen in it. Can you speak to the quality issues that might affect this? I could see salt content being a big one.

I would remove 100 year old boilers from the discussion as irrelevant. I think it's known that castings were crazy thick then and possibly made with different formulations. They don't make them like that anymore so there's no way that a new boiler homeowner can just ignore the topic and have everything be OK for 100 years IMO.

I've heard this term before, but can you tell me what "work harder" means in terms of an iron container of water with fire in/under it? 🙂

About how long to these Miuras last with good water quality? And what quality are they affected by? Like TDS or ?

Canucker

I'm going to guess that scale in the heat exchanger would make it run a lot longer to get to the same temperature. That might affect thinner castings

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827629#Comment_1827629

Thanks. And scale forms as dissolved solids precipitate out of the water and form on the cast iron surfaces? Is that how that works?

Would that affect thinner castings more than thicker castings?

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827637#Comment_1827637

I don't know, but water treatment helps stop it from being a concern.

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1827641#Comment_1827641

It sure does, and we know some people are using it because there are just so many products out there being produced. I'm sure it's partially an issue of we only see the worst maintained systems on this forum usually.

And it's interesting, I think the thing I hear the most, which is definitely false is that "too much pH will make your boiler surge". I think what happens is the anti-scale properties of most treatments break up and put back into solution a LOT of scale and sediment all at once which may cause surging until it's been all freed up and flushed out. But then people erroneously think it's the pH that causes the surging.