New Crown boilers - updated piping

redheadgenes

Hi all

I received a great deal of help on this forum via this post

Let me know if I should have added these pictures/this updated question to that post, but because the feed got so long I thought I would restart.

I had my plumber come back and install new main vents - he didn't admit to wrong doing but he didn't argue with me and I didn't pay. Thank you so much to members of this forum who caught that he had not installed new main vents - this was even in my quote, and he didn't do it. He still installed them weirdly. See pictures.

Boiler 1 apt is working fine, it is not losing water. Still, piping looks incorrect. Plumber said "this was also an ok way to install." I am worried this will mean it will fail early or cause other problems. I think based on the book (which i now have) this install will cause energy loss.

Question: Should I make him reinstall while I have his labor under contract?

Boiler 1 picture here:

Next question…

Boiler 2 is losing water - that was the subject of my original post. It is still losing water, needs to be refilled every 5-6 days. Replacing the main vent didn't seem to do anything for that.

Boiler 2 pictures here:

Question: is this main vent set up potentially contributing to water loss? Either way, would you have the plumber redo it (same question as above).

Meanwhile I am replacing vents and looking at valves in boiler 2's apartment, given advice in the last post, as a potential source of water loss. I want to know if these main steam vents should be repiped.

So far I have replaced 3 vents (out of 7) and that hasn't seemed to help much.

If the main steam vent is fine, and I replace all the vents/valves, and I still have water loss, I will look at hiring a better steam pro to come in with a thermal camera. Other ideas let me know. Thankful to this community

mattmia2

did you flood the boiler to look for a leak above the water line? Is the return for both essentially the main sloping toward the boiler and dropping down at the boiler, is that all the piping that there is?

The vent looks a little unconventional but fine(although others will have to comment on the size).

We need to see pictures of what happens to the return at the base of the boiler, there are a couple important piping details in how that is done.

Try looking around with a mirror and see if it fogs the mirror at valve packings and unions and such if flooding the boiler doesn't show a leak.

mattmia2

Also check the manual and make sure it says you can use only one riser on that model boiler. I suspect it will say you can on that small a boiler but you should check that and the pipe sizes against the manual.

LRCCBJ

The main vent setup is excellent to provide a lot of space between any water and the vent.

The vent itself, however, is a bit questionable. Cannot determine the size from the photo but it doesn't appear to be typical of a main vent.

delcrossv

That's a tiny main vent. Should be a Gorton #1 minimum.

geemalar

Likely because I don’t understand what type of system this is, but I thought the main line vent was supposed to be at the end of the main. Is that not the case?

Edit……

I now see that these are the return lines, I did not see that when I first looked at the pictures.

EBEBRATT-Ed

The piping looks ok based on what we can see as far as configuration goes. The pipe size will have to be checked against the manual.

Vents probably not large enough. Did he skim the boiler?