Steamer and bad flue piping on HWH

Unknown

The boiler let go , so they needed an upgrade . The more serious issue was the vent pipe on the gas heater . The homeowner had it replaced 3 months prior and went with a larger size . Problem 1 - the diffuser is pointing sidways instead of down ( I guess they thought it was an oblong draft regulator ) . Problem 2 - the pipe takes a dive about 8 inches downward .

When we told the homeowner we would fix the flue , we saw why they left it that way - there was a liner in there and they did not want to touch it . Not only that , they didn't have enough 3 inch pipe , so they rolled up some 6 inch and made their own .

Unknown

Burnham V83

Very light when it has to be split in 3 sections . You can see why on the 2nd pic - the stairs were only 18 inches wide .

We cut a new hole into the liner for the gas heater , and increased it to 4 inch . We do not usually carry 4 inch so the homeowner went out and got it for us . We also had to reuse the 47-2 LWCO / feeder , which was only 3 years old and worked fine .

techheat_2

Manual reset

Do you use manual reset pressuretrol on all installs?

David Sutton_3

Another sweet job Ron

did you have to use repeling gear to accend those stairs ????

Unknown

You dont know

how many times I hit my head at the bottom of those stairs . Im just glad they left the insulation on that riser . My partner Brian split the boiler in 3 and carried the pieces down by himself while I took the old pancake apart . He had 2 sections down before I knew it . Thank you David .

Unknown

Only on commercial jobs

although that one does look like a manual reset . I believe the model number is L404 and its a regular pressuretrol , mercury controlled .

We had some problems with the PA404 , so we switched , and these pressuretrols work great .

Murph'_4

that water heater is GE

I believe they are sold at home depot, now can anyone see why the industry is outraged (some of it) at unskilled people messin with combustion equipment!!


Murph'
(nice save Ron)

Dave Palmer_3

Ron

is that a Weil-Mclain switch plate? looks good,Dave

Dan Foley

Nice, clean work Ron - as usual. You finally get a basement to work in and then have to contend with a narrow staircase! We don't do much oil down here. Why did you use the Riello rather than the Beckett with the cover? -DF

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Unknown

Good eyes

We have alot of the switch plates kicking around from the hanging GE boilers we replace . Theres no need to put a switch at the boiler when the main one is within 2 feet , on the wall . Thanks Dave .

Unknown

The homeowner

told me he got the number for this " company " in the phone book , and they were also recommended by the gas co . Makes you wonder why we don't want homeowners to DIY . I don't blame them sometimes . Thanks Murph .

Unknown

Other than the fact

that the Riello is not a quiet burner , we have had tremendous sucess using them on new installs and retrofits . The first to use prepurge and interrupted ignition also . Been using them since 88 or 89 and love their trouble free qualities - well , not so trouble free lately . 3 bad primary controls in 2 weeks - hopefully just an anomoly .

Are you in the DC area Dan ? No oil down there ? I thought that would be a hotbed of crude . Thanks alot Dan .

Steamhead

Nice Work as usual

I wonder how much better that old Beckett made the snowman perform? Couldn't have been much........ one of my Dead Men's Books says snowmen generally won't get better than 40% eficiency on oil.

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bob young

smoke pipe & chimley liner

JUST out of curiosity, what size is the liner and what size is the flue from the boiler.

Unknown

This one was getting around

0 percent - it was down and drained for a while . Yeah , you can tell with the wide open passages right through the boiler it was not too efficient . Do you know when this boiler design was obsolete ? Thanks Steamhead .

Unknown

The liner was 6 inch

And the boiler flue was 6 inch also . The chimney was about 25 ft. in vertical length . Draft readings were right on the money .

Steamhead

The last ones I saw advertised

were in the late 1940s, when there was still a demand for cheap coal-fired boilers.

Note that not all round boilers were that bad- I've seen some ads for round tubular boilers that looked like they had plenty of heat-transfer surface. But the usual round cast-iron boiler used a lot more fuel than it should have, even on coal.

Somewhere in one of my old catalogs there are boiler rating charts showing the relative efficiencies of the various types of boilers in the catalog. I don't know how how they tested, but they said round boilers were only about 60% efficient on coal, while sectional and water-tube ones were in the mid 70s.

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Dan Foley

Oil

Ron,

There is a lot of oil down here - we just don't mess with it a lot. Most of the oil companies have these accounts. -DF

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jerryb

47-2

Hey Ron did you have to shimm that 47-2 up to keep it from flipping that v-8 on its side?????????

jerryb

47-2

Hey Ron, Did you have too shim that 47-2 to keep that v-8 from tipping over??