At last!

markmarlatt

Today return piping at boiler was corrected and vents added to other steam leg and dry return:

Two hours of running the the system heats quickly, no water hammer and the pressuretrol is working correctly. The old piping had severe build up as pictured.

Still a few adjustments to make but the system is finally operating near correct. Many thanks for all the input and knowledge!

mattmia2

i would like to see an autopsy of whatever that is blocking the tee. it could be scale that came loose from somewhere but it kind of looks like a piece of sheetmetal or something that got in there or came loose from something somehow and got plated with rust.

markmarlatt

Lots of build up:

109A_5

Well I'm glad to hear it appears to work better. Probably not being clogged up may help.

However we clearly failed with the other thread !!! So I will try again. Since I'm not sure where it all went wrong.

All three vertical pipes (Yellow arrows) should be Teed together at the level of the wet return which is at the level of the pipe at the Orange arrow, all Tees well below the water line. Also the (kind of) Hartford loop is kind of useless since it looks like the equalizer is not connected to it. So if there was a leak at the level of the Orange arrow there actually is no siphon break.

I thought I posted this image example below in the other thread (I have not gone back and looked yet). Look at the piping below the water line (it provides isolation so steam can't pass) and the Hartford loop to the equalizer connection (siphon break).

4GenPlumber

So...just did a lot of reading to find out what I missed. Looks like the tech did some fine pipework, but not what was needed. The level of the tees where the steam mains, and the dry return drip still connect above the water line (so steam could still back up into the dry return and shut down the venting) and the Hartford is still on the other side of the boiler with the equalizer. Am I missing anything?

EdTheHeaterMan

I don't see the proper Hartford Loop piping arrangement in that photo

ethicalpaul

It's true there's no syphon break, but why do people ignore that the boiler will drain itself even with a syphon break by … wait for it… creating steam that then gets delivered to the leaking return

EdTheHeaterMan

This is what you have pictured.

There is no true Hartford Loop if that raised portion of the wet return does not tie into the equalizer just below the boiler water line (and above the minimum safe water level). In your current design, steam or air cannot break the siphon if the wet return fails.

In the @109A_5 yellow-arrow photo, the three return drops are above the water line, which allows steam to pass from one return drip to another. They need to connect below the water line so a water seal prevents that cross-connection.

And don't forget the connection at the Hartford loop should be a close nipple or street elbow, or a Wye fitting.

4GenPlumber

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887408#Comment_1887408

I think its more the speed of the draining by syphonage (not sure if that's a word, but i like it damn it) that is the concern. Any leak will eventually end up with a dry boiler.

ethicalpaul

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887420#Comment_1887420

I get it, but what's the fastest leak you've seen in a wet return? Has anyone ever seen a leak that would drain a boiler that fast?

And any leak will eventually end up with a dry boiler even with a Hartford Loop, assuming the LWCO is out to lunch which all these conversations about the importance of the Hartford Loop seem to require.

EdTheHeaterMan

As we have talked about before @ethicalpaul, the Hartford loop is a proven technology from a time gone by. That design reduced the amount of boiler failures by the thousands. But that technology was for a boiler that did not have a LWCO or a pressure limit because there was nothing electrical to turn off. Hand fired boilers were blowing up at a rate of 2 boiler every 3 days in the 1880s and 90s. That little twist un the pipes stopped a lot of boilers from failing.

Does @markmarlatt need a proper Hartford loop? Will that technology ever save that particular boiler from a failure? Probably not. That boiler has a well maintained LWCO and pressure shut off switch on a well maintained pig tail. Just look at the photos of the inside of those pipes. Well maintained over the years.

If that technology is so obsolete, then why do the manufacturers still require if in the installation instructions? And try to get boiler insurance for a commercial steam boiler without one. It just ain't happening.

I say if your are going to do it at all, you may as well do it right! Or ,like your boiler install with two risers into a drop header. Way overkill in my opinion.

markmarlatt

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887357#Comment_1887357

Shared this with the tech and he better understands the goal and will be back to correct next week, thank you!

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887447#Comment_1887447

I'm not Paul but I'd have to ask what kind of boilers were exploding and stopped with the addition? Were these small residential systems or huge fire tube boilers etc. What other changes happened around the same time etc.

The small residential systems I've seen in person from the 1920s didn't have a Hartford loop or even a header. I have to think many do, but the ones I've seen didn't. I'm sure we've all seen plenty of snowmen with no header or anything on here as well.

Me? I read the book and do as it says and Ed is right, it needs to be piped per the book.
But it's good to question the book too.

markmarlatt

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887413#Comment_1887413

Thank you much. The tech will be returning to rework the piping as described in the picture and will tie into the equalizer line instead of the boiler itself

Steamhead

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887450#Comment_1887450

Go here:

https://www.heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/explosion-reports-from-the-early-1930s/

ethicalpaul

and will tie into the equalizer line instead of the boiler itself

It should tie into the equalizer in addition to the boiler itself

MaxMercy

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887455#Comment_1887455

Wow, that is some terrifying stuff!

ethicalpaul

Did anyone see in that document any cases where the Hartford Loop or lack thereof was involved? Most of these cases are hot water tanks it seems.

Was there something about wet returns back then that caused thousands of them to catastrophically fail every year??

This case is indicative of what I believe were most of the explosions. Simple human error or inattention:

This guy was apparently experimenting to see how fast his pressure would increase…kind of like what I do in my videos haha

markmarlatt

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887456#Comment_1887456

Right now the piping is connected to the second 2" port on the boiler rather than the equalizer line. This will be reworked to tie into the equalizer pipe which itself returns to the boiler on the left 2" port of the boiler. The right 2" port will be converted to have only a drain valve.

mattmia2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887408#Comment_1887408

i'm pretty sure there is a thread with 500 comments about this, but it is more to keep water in the boiler until you can notice that the return broke and put the coal fire out.

the mains still being connected above the water line unless those are returns on a 2 pipe system is more of an issue

ethicalpaul

You are right about the 500 comment thread, but when the topic comes up, it comes up. Has anyone ever seen a wet return "break"? In my short experience I've only seen them drip (including mine!)—that makes homeowners call a plumber or DIY it.

I agree fully about mains being tied together above the water line, that's no good.

EdTheHeaterMan

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887478#Comment_1887478

Paul, do you own a fork lift? have you ever driven that fork lift into a steel pipe? That fork lift can do some real damage to a steel pipe even if it isn't rusting away

But I bet your question really asks "Has anyone ever seen a wet return in someones small residential basement "break"? and does not consider that some homes may have systemas that were designed and installed before the requirement by code to include the LWCO, Pressure Control, and the Hartford Loop. But those radiator system still need to be heated with boilers that are installed today.

I believe that if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail …and if you have a steam boiler in your basement with glass pipes that every other steam boiler is exactly like yours.

Reminds me of the story of the electrician helper that had a frozen pipe and he tried every electrical repair he could think of to solve his no heat problem

ethicalpaul

Well the old tale says that thousands of boilers were exploding every year all over the place and so an insurance company had to swoop in and solve the problem. I don't think the root cause was forklifts, but I could be mistaken.

This insurance company mandated their solution (reportedly) in all homes in the US including mine so I am indeed trying to make sense of it in residential context.

ChrisJ

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1887487#Comment_1887487

Forklifts didn't exist back then, but I'm fairly sure that was just an example of things you aren't around but are going on etc.

EdTheHeaterMan

@ethicalpaul asked:"Did anyone see in that document any cases where the Hartford Loop, or lack thereof, was involved? Most of these cases seem to involve hot water tanks."

As a matter of fact, Paul, I don’t believe there are any actual records of boiler failures avoided as a result of installing a Hartford Loop. That would be a 'non-event,' and I don’t believe there are records of 'non-events'—only records of actual events.

Now, you could research the number of events where the Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance Co. (HSB) paid for boiler failure claims in the years leading up to the requirement to have that piping arrangement, and compare it to the number of claims that occurred after the requirement was enforced. That would be the definitive answer to the question about the effectiveness of that piping arrangement.

The problem is that the only historical reporting of boiler failures prior to 1919 would be in local newspapers that reported a boiler explosion in a given location. You might need to look up several—or even hundreds of—newspapers in public library archives to find out how many boiler failures were documented before 1919. HSB does not have this information in a cataloged format prior to 1919. The Smithsonian does have HSB records from about the mid-1930s to the 1950s that can be researched.

Our host, Dan Holohan, has done a lot of this research, and I am willing to take his word for it. According to his statements in many a steam seminar, it appears that boiler explosions were reported (not if, but) by how many occurred in a given week in some large metropolitan cities—like baseball box scores. They were a way of life at the turn of the century, just like seeing the farm report, or the weather forecast for tomorrow, or which horse and buggy ended up in a collision with one of these new-fangled horseless carriage things. The news of the day always included the number of boiler explosions that were going on in the places we lived.

That's why we need boiler insurance!

I asked AI if there were any documentation for these statics on this before and after 1919 and there are none that are easily accessible. And since you like this stuff Paul, I think that it would be a great project for your next video to see if you can take a field trip to Hartford and go thru the pre 1919 boiler failure archives and start to document and catalogue your findings and have them published. Perhaps your findings will help us abolish the need for the Hartford Loop on all future Steam Boilers in residences with 10 radiators or less. Especially if they have glass pipes