What in the world are these things?

Jamie_6

What in the world are these things?

I got a lead today from a local builder which I do radiant for. He asked me to check out an existing radiant system in a home and see if we would be able to tap off of this system and put radiant in the proposed new addition. It was a neat old house and the men who installed the original radiant system must have had arms bigger then Popeye. The manifolds where the size of most of our entire mini tube injection loops, and they where piped with 1 ¼” black pipe going into the concrete. I told the home owner that I rather not tie into this old system put use a smaller boiler for the addition and maybe a hot-water maker, I rather not play with this beast.

If any of you know what this stuff is please let me know?

I think the picture labeled control is some sort of electronic mixing device!

The other barrel looking thing I have no idea about! Maybe some sort of bleeder.


Pompetti Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc.
www.PompettiHVAC.com

Art Pittaway_2

Hi Jamie,

This must be a midterm....right? (1) How about the blue thing, it's an expansion tank. In the attic it can be a smaller size and the valve allows someone to drain it down. Lot's of early systems had them in the attic, open tanks with overflows. Saw one in a mansion that could have been a bathtub. (2&3) The Tee fittings are B&G cast iron Mono-Flo, rusty but they look about the right shape 1 1/4 x 3/4" maybe, and the electrical is a pressure or temp. switch. Like to know where all the stuff hooks up to. Just like a road, it leads to somewhere and does something.
How'd I do??? Art

Jamie_6

mid-term

Thanks for the response Art! The things in the attic could be expansion tanks but there was one in the boiler room already. That's why I had no idea what they could be. The tee's on the back ok the boiler where 2"x2"x1" with that switch in the middle. I guess that thing closes and somehow diverts more water through the boiler?

Don't know, that's why I came here!

john_35

old radiant pics

Art was right, I think, about that being an expansion tank in the attic. It looks like the kind you see in "Levittown" houses. The switch could be a flow-sensing type but I'd need to see how it's wired to know for sure. Hope that helps.

Mad Dog

Cool Jamie

I've seen a similar job in a Mansion on Long Island's Gold Coast - a Town called Belle Terre - very ritzy. They had a still working radiant system that used screw pipe up to 1 1/2...looked like she was put in in the 1920s or 1930s. We did a slab leak repair. We really didn't want to touch it, but ho gave the go ahead, knowing that we couldn't guarantee a thing. That "barrell" fitting could be a air collection tower like you see on old convectors. I wouldn't touch a thing unless they are prepared to go for big bucks. Mad Dog

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Aidan (UK)

What are they?

The control device looks very similar to a pressure switch, that was sold by Satchwell in the '60s. The ones I knew had a window in the front cover to view the pressure and differential settings, and had adjuster screws on the top. This might be an earlier version. If it is a pressure switch, I'd expect to find a corrugated brass bellows under the cover. In this application, it may be used as a low pressure cut-off switch, as you might use a low water cut-off device. It could cause problems if it failed, or if it operated and no-one knew where it was. It may have been electrically by-passed at some point. I can't make out the red device in the bottom of this picture.

The 'bleeder' device may be an air bottle. The large bore pipe is intended to provide a space in which air bubbles can accumulate. The air is occasionally manually bled out of the system by opening the valve on the top. It would make sense to install it at the highest point of the system on the flow pipe, where the pressure is lowest and where air is likely to come out of solution and cause air-locks. The pump was probably on the return pipe.