Steam header or waste line?

antman

This is a couple of pix of a job I went and looked at today.
Owner has been in the house for 3 years and says that a couple of different SERVICE TECHNICIANS have tried to solve some of his heating problems throughout his house over the last couple of years, none of which have pointed out the fact that his boiler was piped in with DWV fittings and pipe.
It's a two pipe system and he's having problems with some convectors(cast iron)getting little or no heat, noise in the system and radiator valves leaking. Homeowner is a television producer and is looking to develope a show around the (recommended replacement of boiler) and repiping of header.( Dan, say's he is going to speak to you about it) He is contemplating converting from oil to gas, but currently I am pricing the job for direct replacement. I could use any advice from you guys on the best way to approach this, in order to get his system running as effecient as possible.

Thanks, Ant

Sorry about picture sizing, dont know how to crop.

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Unknown

How far are you going with the replacement ?

I resized it a bit to see without scrolling too much .

Are you going to replace all the DWV header pipes ? Looks like its alot of copper . I see that theres some black steel returns mixed in with the copper. I would assume that the company that installed the JOT also redid the mains in copper ? Are the risers copper also ?

Looks like they didnt do their homework with the near boiler header - thats a big cause of problems in itself . Looks like you got a big job ahead here . What are you going to replace the boiler with ? Good luck , Ron

Dave Palmer

bet.....

that low water cut-off got flushed monthly too! Good luck

John@Reliable

Ant doing replacement !

Looks to me like when boiler was replaced they moved it away from old location and piped back over to supply tie-in and chimney.(for room in basement). If I was doing this job I would cut out all copper piping and move boiler back to where in should be.Then start with new system with proper header,hartford,equalizer,returns,etc. in black pipe and fittings and I bet that system will work great once moved and piped RIGHT! P.S. Bet the front cover clean out hasn't been off for years and with that long flue pipe run,reason for burnt front(backpressure) Hope this helps.

Unknown

And replace all the vents

But sometimes they dont make it easy . This one is a main vent buried back in the wall - no way to get to it without cutting walls .

antman

Relocation

I'm pretty confident the boler was moved, based on the things John pointed out and the fact the basement is finished. The contractor that finished the basement some time ago probabaly moved the boiler himself in order to gain a couple of feet. I'm giving an estimate to completely remove all copper piping and relocate the boiler as close as possible to the original site, based on new wall that is in boiler room.
Another question, don't mean to sound follish but, not to sure what this item is and it's purpose, or how/if it should be replaced, removed, and re-piped.
Thanks again for the input.

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Steamhead

That looks like some sort of trap

where is it in the system?

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