Reanimating Frankenstein - a gravity heat story

novajke

Hello all, in the spirit of Halloween, I felt it's time to share my journey of replumbing towards the goal of having a functional gravity system from a bare skeleton of pipes and a tired, but present and now verified functional 1960s American standard boiler. All this to heat a 1915 3 story brick row house purchased in a tax foreclosure, that from what i can tell, hasn't been heated since the 00's.

So, let's begin our journey with a brief forensicly reconstructed history and horror story of my building. The are 5 chimneys built in to the brick. The earliest heat system there is evidence of is of gas space heaters infront of each of the 6 tiger oak mantles of the 2nd and 3rd story apartments. Those acount for the first 3 chimneys. The grocery store on the first floor was likely heated with coal in the basement using chimney 4. Chimney 5 took the exhaust of 3 cast iron cooking stoves from each floors kitchen.

Fast forward to the 1930s. This building and the saloon next door pass hands to two brothers who seek to take advantage of the newly repealed eighteenth amendment and open a restraunt combing the two sister buildings in to one bar/ grille. It is at this time i believe the gravity heating system was installed in its orginal configuration. Horror #1: it would seem this was built using reclaimed materials and installed by no plumber, but rather the brothers themselves. 4" supply and return traveled down the spine of the building with 1.5", 1.25" and finally 1" pipes shooting off the the left and right each supplying one to two ornate radiators, never supplying multiple floors. Horror #2: In addition to the 4" in our building of question, an additional pair of 4" pipes jut through the foundation into the basement of the saloon building next door.

Thirty years, pass multiple generations of the restaurateur family have made the buildings their home. The old coal boiler is getting a bit long in the tooth. Coal gas had been replaced with natural gas and it's now legal to use a gas boiler for heat. As such, a beast of a American standard boiler is installed. 1" gas supply on a dedicated meter. Sized to heat 6000 sq feet of both buildings, the 650,000 btu rating isn't excessive. However, an untimely death and the restaurant business no longer feels the same. The resturant closes and the families move away. The buildings go up for sale, but since the 2 buildings were never officially combined as one address, the boiler in the 1915 grocery store cannot heat the 1879 saloon. And such is horror #3, we now have a boiler sized twice whats needed.

A hardworking couple buys the grocery store half of the restaurant and intends to rent the 3 floors. There are 3 gas meters, so there is no reason not to run an individual boiler on each of the 3 floors. The horizontal black pipe is cut and removed. Most of the ports on the 4" main are plugged. The vertical piping gets a reducer to 3/4" at the elbows and copper plumbing is piped into new hot water boilers with domestic hot water loops and steel compression tanks. Changes to the area now make the commercial first floor difficult to rent, so it too will become an apartment. (Horror#4) In go partition walls, wood paneling and a drop ceiling covers the historic tin ceiling. Out go the old fashioned ornate radiators. And in their place is roughly 80 feet of cast iron baseboard. Now what, pray you is the 80 linear feet of baseboard heated with? Obviously, the monstrous 650,000 btu American standard boiler. Why not? It is only a few years old, after all, and it's not like the landlord has to pay the gas bill. Horror #5.

It is this arrangement that was in use for 4 decades. No circulator, 4" supply and return pipes 3/4" plunge into various oversized antique gate, ball and globe valves connecting 6 radiators. The aquastat was set to 200f. (Horror #6) I'm sure this monster boiler would short cycle like crazy in this sub optimal configuration. Then it gets abandoned.

Gone are the antique gas space heaters, the tiger oak mantles, even the tangential hand rail and stair spindles. Paint is peeling from the walls and vandals have since broke in and sledgehammered the ornate radiators for scrap. Horror #7

Fast forward to my ownership. All copper pipe had been stolen from the reconfigured 3 heating systems as have the ornate radiators in the upstairs apartments and corresponding boilers. The large 4" supply and return lines are no longer attached to the basement joists and have sank several feet.

And this is where i came in. Now most people would have taken one look at what's left of this heating system and wrote it off a hopeless. No radiators, all pipe connections cut and in disarray. An ancient boiler half buried in basement rubble. Tear it all out and start fresh.

My first big break came in the form of 10 used radiators for $200, of these, 6 ornate ones were particularly useful to go where the orginal gas space heaters were located. There were three with 6 sections and three with 10. They happened to be the correct height and configuration of inlet and outlet. The only downside was they were all tapped for 3/4" fittings and the pipes were almost all 1". I needed 6 equally sized radiators. I stripped the paint, cut the tension rods seperated the sections, retapped to the larger thread and ended up with six 8 section radiators. If i were to detail how i accomplished ask that it would be another 10 horrors. These radiators went in with v110 thermostatic regulator valves. I picked up, stripped and installed several more radiators and sorted out that aspect of the heating system.

Finally, I had a matching game with the basement boiler plumbing: Remove the plug/ reducer with copper stub within the 4" pipe union, and cut new black pipe to connect to the corresponding vertical riser going to the radiator(s). I filled the system with water replaced the pressure relief valve, fixed minor leaks. The altitude gauge still registered pressure. I cleaned the burners, installed a new baso, thermocouple and pilot and double checked the wiring. Then I got the power company to turn on gas and electricity. Aside from the minor hicup of a closed needle valve on the vent of the diaphragm gas solenoid valve, she lit. The temperature also registered on the combination gauge.

Thank you for reading this exceedingly long post.

Jamie Hall

Have fun!