frist DROP header.....David s

Mad Dog

I do drop headers on alot of new steamers just for the great quality steam we can get..welcome to the DH club Mad Dog

David Sutton

i am installing my frist drop header..

its a 7 sec W+M oil, got the hole thing just about piped in and realized i had not put it on Blocks yet, when i went to put the blocks under it i had realized i did not have the room needed at that point to make all my tie ins and still maintain my 24" mininmum, so quickly recalling in the vast darkness of my mind several post of you fine gents building a drop header ran back to the shop checked the wall took some looks at the ones i had saved and at the job Ron jr. was doin, well im about half way done and its lookin pretty good so far . tomorrow i will bring the camaera with me and snap some shots and post then tomorrow night, i will check the wall in the morning so if you have any suggestions for me , iwill greatfully follow them. your friend ... David Sutton

Unknown

Oh yeah

It took a while to make a believer out of me with the drop header . With the extra swing joints , theres no need to worry about the boiler trying to push the pipes apart , if you twin em out of the boiler . And it makes life much easier to pipe them in . Cant wait to see the pics , Dave . Which series Weil are you putting in ? Not the 88 ? They are HEAVY .

David Sutton_2

Series 3 go-7

just got back from the job , it came out nice, i will post the pics when i get home thank you Ron jr. ... David

steve_6

drop headers

What does it do for steam quality, and how does it do it? thanks.

Jackchips

Very nice

Mad dog. Ditto to Steve's question.

David Sutton

here you go Mad Dog

hope they come out ok .. David, it was fun to build too.

Unknown

Steam quality

First let me repeat something an old factory rep told me, years ago. He said,"ALL steam boilers should be piped with a dropped header." It was off the cuff, and I'll qualify it. All Cast iron and steel residential steam boilers can benefit from them.

With old steam boilers and big horizontal ones, there is plenty of room for the steam to leave the water surface without building velocity. In residential style boilers, that room isn't there. The water leaves up the risers along with the steam bubbles that formed at the bottom of the boiler. If you picture a pot of water coming to a boil, and you turn down the heat to keep the water in the pan, then picture NOT turning down the heat. The water and steam madly rush up the pipe.

If the pipe is tall enough, a lot of the water will fall back down the riser. The rest of the water likes to settle out in the header, that is hopefully the widest pipe in the system. The water lays down in the bottom, still hauling along at 30 MPH, and the steam rides over the top of it. The steam rushes up the take-off to the system, and the water continues through the equalizer, and back to the boiler. This happens continually through the run cycle.

If you use a dropped header, for one reason or another, the water enters the header from above, or from a 45° angle above, and drains down the equalizer. The steam is still taken off the top, and it seems that even more water is directed away from the takeoff by the down-pointed riser connections from the boiler.

The MOST important time to use one is when the system piping won't allow for the needed riser height.

The biggest help to the installer is the time saved by having those extra two elbows that allow for EASY allignment and connection of the second riser.

And the steam is DRY.

See these pictures of a regular header to get an idea of how much water we are talking about.

Noel

Unknown

And oily water causes this:

The same boiler, with a couple spoonfuls of cooking oil added to it.

This shows why the new boiler water line isn't stable until all of the oil is skimmed from the boiler. See instruction manual for procedure.