Probable bad feeder, no main vents, crud in the system, bad F&T

John Conway

I’m in a 100-year-old house on top of a South Carolina mountain with a 2 pipe steam system of unknown vintage (started life as coal, then oil, now LPG). Each year the heating bills get bigger, the radiators get colder, and more of my money goes to that sub-species Homo Sapiens Knuckleheadis.

A few weeks ago steam & hot water poured out the vent of the condensate reservoir and the basement felt like a sauna. I didn’t remember this ever happening before. I shut down the boiler & kept our dinner party going by stoking the fireplace until the wallpaper curled (and stoking the guests with drink until a couple of them were beginning to curl, too). As soon as the last guest was gone and my wife & I had stacked the dishes, I went on the web & stumbled across HeatingHelp.com. FANTASTIC site! This is what the web once was and should still be! So, first, thanks to the great Dr. Holohan, et al. I ordered We Got Steam Heat & A Pocketful of Steam Problems & read the traffic on the Wall, etc. I started reading and studying the system.

I reduced the cut in from 5 psi to about ½ psi & differential (additive) down to not quite 2 from 2 ½. Thank you, Mr. Knucklehead, I always wanted to live with a bombshell! (Sorry, Susan.) Any number of the radiators weren’t doing much anything, so I replaced a slew of thermostat inserts in the Hoffman 17-C traps. I put off renewing the old Trane traps on the convectors until I felt braver. I could identify no main vents (except for the solid steel plug variety), saw some insulation issues, and found two suspiciously old F&T traps. I’ll not mention the motorized zone valves, lack of strainer on the condensate receiver, ancient safety relief, etc. Since a tag on the McDonnell-Miller 47-2 feeder/cut-off says to blow off some water once a week to check the cut-off feature, that’s the only decent maintenance I’ve done in the 6 or so years I’ve lived here & I’d bet nobody did that for a good many years prior. Plenty of knuckleheads have worked on it over the years – I’m just the latest one.

After lowering the pressuretrol settings and replacing the thermostats, water hammer was much reduced, the most distant radiator heated in twenty minutes instead of forty-five. The gauge glass was about right – didn’t seem to bounce much (an inch or less?), no noticeable foam. The heat was much improved, but still had a way to go. The condensate receiver vent still blew steam, but seemed improved. Given the warnings on the feeder & on the Wall, I expected crud & blew off the feeder more often. I contemplated my new career. I was a hero to my wife and cat. I studied more & reckoned my next move would be to add a few main vents (all that air & no place to go) & fix the insulation.

Still in heroic mode, I went over to the Georgia mountains to try to get snowed in with massive amounts of red meat, beer, cards, and old friends. Upon my return, all still seemed well. Then Monday morning hit. No, it wasn’t a hangover – the boiler wouldn’t fire. I just barely tapped the pressuretrol with my fingernail and it fired. I passed the news to Susan, asked her to keep an eye on things & went to work. She called a few hours later to say it wouldn’t fire at all. I got home to discover the boiler flooded. I opened the cock at the base of the boiler and dumped a lot of water (no idea how much, it went into a sump and out to the world). While fiddling with the water level, I heard running water – the street supply was flowing into the feeder constantly. Only by shutting the valves from the street can I stop the re-flooding. Now the burner cycles every four minutes or so, the house heats worse than ever. So I’m wearing out pieces and I’m afraid to leave the boiler unattended. I guess I could sit up night & day staring at the pressure gauge (a compound vacuum/pressure gauge – topic for another time). I still get a bit of steam from the receiver vent (not much since the pressuretrol is set at less than 0 cut in to less than 2 cut out). The feeder seems shot. It looks like I could order the guts of the thing & maybe save a bit. I’m trying to coax off the two pipe plugs to make room for vents. I guess the good news is that I’ve found no leaks anywhere in the system….

I know this is a long post. I hope a bit was entertaining. I haven’t found competent steam guys in South Carolina. I’m tired of paying people to make their mistakes on my system. The “repair” bills are insulting – the last few wouldn’t even return my repeated phone calls – and the propane bills truly are a pain. Any suggestions?

Ray Landry

Check the strainer for your condensate receivor. If it's clogged it may be sporadically adding water to your system, which would explain why its plugged. refer to your pocketfull of steam problems book, pg 126...

Pg. 210 explains your steam problem inside of your recievor. The steam traps seem to be the problem...

Al Letellier

Carolina steamer

Good work in caring for your steam system. Sounds like the pigtail under the pressuretrol my be plugging up. Take it out and clean it. IF it's steel, try to find a brass one..

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John Conway

Thanks for your advice.

I've got no strainer on the receiver. No doubt a long past "improvement".

Do you mean the traps at the radiators or the F&T traps?

I think you're right that the F&T traps are shot. They're two obsolete Hoffmans (53 & 54). It looks like the rebuild kits would be simple enough.

I replaced all the Hoffman 17-C thermostats. The remaining five Trane Hermetic traps (to convectors) I still need to tackle. Then there is a mystery radiatior with no visible trap & a convector which is also a mystery.

The big mystery is where are the main vents? I've got four returns. Two have extremely frozen pipe plugs at the els, two don't. One return with plug has an F&T, the other return with F&T has no plug. Why not four vents (instead of none)?

John Conway

Thanks for the advice.

The pigtail looks to be brass. As soon as my real job gives me some time off (Monday) I'll clean it.

John Conway

Took out the compound gauge, pressuretrol, & pigtail. All but closed with sludge. Cleaned it all out, pushed some water out ftrom the boiler (it's already flooded, so I might as well make use of it).

Tore down the two obsolete F&T traps; I'll replace them next. (I needed a way to get rid of a few hundred bucks.)

The Mcdonnell-Miller feed/cutoff will probably be next....

Thanks again for your tip.

John Conway

Took out the compound gauge, pressuretrol, & pigtail. All but closed with sludge. Cleaned it all out, pushed some water out ftrom the boiler (it was already flooded, so I might as well make use of it).

Tore down the two obsolete F&T traps; I'll replace them next. (I needed a way to get rid of a few hundred bucks.)

The Mcdonnell-Miller feed/cutoff will probably be next....

Thanks again for your tip.

Steamhead

Hard to stop a Trane, John

You have a Trane Vapor system. This was one of the nicest systems of that type. There are a bunch of them still running here in Baltimore- we recently repiped one that had been butchered.

Several things come to mind:

1. The Condensate Receiver: This unit usually acts as the main vent for the whole system. There should be no open path to this unit that does not go thru a trap. Since the receiver is still blowing steam, you probably have a bad trap somewhere.

But why was the receiver installed in the first place? I'll bet your system had a Direct Return Trap that failed, and someone thought a receiver/pump was the only replacement available.

The reason the DRT was installed to begin with was to make sure the water could be returned to the boiler if the pressure got high enough to prevent gravity return. This was an issue with the old coal-fired boilers. But now we have automatic oil and gas firing and pressure controls. If you replace your Pressuretrol with a Vaporstat that cannot be set higher than 1 PSI, you can probably get rid of the receiver and pump, and go back to gravity return. That will drastically reduce the number of moving parts. With this setup, you will need large vents on your steam mains and dry returns though. I like to use Gorton #2 vents on these systems, but you have to be careful to place them where ambient heat won't prematurely close them.

2. F&T Traps- These are probably installed at the ends of the steam main to keep steam from reaching the receiver. If you go back to gravity return, you can eliminate these too.

3. Convector Traps- You can probably get replacements from Tunstall or Barnes & Jones. Both have online catalogs.

Where in SC are you?

Web sites:

www.gorton-valves.com

www.barnesandjones.com

www.tunstall-inc.com

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John Conway

I appreciate your comments. It sounds like I'd better buy The Lost Art, maybe I'd eventually understand more of what I'm seeing. I'm not even sure I'm using the right terminology describing what I've got.

1. I've still got some traps to replace (the convector traps look like a hassle, but I'll bite the bullet). I'd been thinking that the Vaporstat sounded like the way to go. It also sounds like the Gorton #2 is the right choice. I still don't find enough main vents (or likely spots where they were). The thought of possibly being able to cut the receiver/pump out is interesting - simpler is usually better.

2. I'm sill confused about the F&T's. I count four dry returns coming back into what I'd call a (wet) manifold that pipes to the condensate receiver.

The 1st return is 1.25" & has a doped & rusted pipe plug at the top of the el and a (drip?) coming in a couple of feet about the water line. The 2nd is 1" & has a dirt trap & a Hoffman 53FT. The 3rd, also 1", comes in with no F&T & no sign of a pipe plug. the 4th is 2" with a pipe plug, dirt trap & a Hoffman 54FT.

The two F&T's appesar to have shot (fully extended) t-stats. I'm inclined to replace the t-stats or maybe the head assembly.

3. Thanks for the web sites, I'll check them out. I've found Gorton, Hoffman, & a seller (State Supply). A local parts house has been helpful (with Hoffman thermostats) & I always try to go local first.

As for where in SC, just outside Greenville, in the western end of the state. The good thing about living on a mountain (even this small one) is that you can laugh at people trying to sell flood insurance. (Is that really true with steam heat in the house?)