From VECO Rescue to Valley Forge

Steamhead

from an out-of-town consulting. The Lovely Naoko came along, making it much more enjoyable.

This is a Vapor Engineering Co. system that had been butchered. The regulator, which had a built-in dry-return vent to the condensing radiator (big rectangle above the boiler, and that really is a US Radiator Co trademark on the plug at the lower left), is gone. Can you see why the system wouldn't heat past the first couple of radiators?

For those of us who are still learning, note that the dry return drips straight into the wet return with no vent, and the condensing radiator is also connected to the wet return. The vent line that went from the condensing rad into the chimney is also plugged. There's no way the air can get past the water standing in the drips, and even if it could, it couldn't get out of the condensing rad! And since the air can't get out, the steam can't get in. The Pressuretrol was set at 10 pounds- wonder why?

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Steamhead

Solution

a 3/4" bypass pipe above the waterline between the two drips, and two Gorton #1 vents mounted on the condensing radiator. Now the air can jump from the dry return drip to the condensing radiator drip, and out the top of the condensing rad.

The condensing rad really isn't needed with this setup, but since it was still there I decided to leave it. It can serve as a test for heating pros- if your jaw drops and you ask "what's that?", you fail ;-)

Why not use a Gorton #2 vent on the condensing rad? Well, I only had four of them...........

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Steamhead

Main Vents Appeared Here

...... and those four G-2 vents were all needed on the steam mains. Three on the long one and one on the short one.

The long main is oversized for the load it now carries, because it used to heat the garage. The black circle in back of the drip lines is actually an 8-inch pipe serving as a conduit. The pipes to the garage have long since been removed, but the rad is still there, along with a hookup for a toilet.

This was not unusual in upscale 1920's houses, since cars were not yet cheap enough for ordinary people (and required people to care for them, hence the garage toilet), and antifreeze had not been invented yet. And with gasoline vapors in the garage, you sure didn't want to have a coal-fired heater in there!

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Steamhead

Two of the radiators

a wall rad on a stairway landing and a large-tube one in a bathroom- both made by Pierce, Butler & Pierce. Note the VECO water seals. Amazingly, none of these seals needed cleaning- all the rads got hot once the venting was straightened out!

Yes, we did a combustion test on the boiler and it was fine. The near-boiler piping is completely wrong- now that the system is working they will have it repiped. This Columbia boiler needs a minimum 3-inch header. Also they will insulate all the steam piping.

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Steamhead

And I had to take a pic of this

a "Gearshift" toilet! Hajoca brand.

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Steamhead

We spent the next morning at Valley Forge

I'd never been there, and wanted The Lovely Naoko to see this piece of American history. We didn't get into all the buildings due to lack of time, but there weren't any hydronics in the welcome center or the theater.

The next two pics are of one of the huts, built as close to the originals as they could. Even a heat pump would be better than that little fireplace with its log chimney. What those guys went through.....

You can hike or drive thru the park- we will hike when we have more time. There are many monuments- the last pic is the one to General Wayne.

Well worth visiting when you're in the area.

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john_27

...........the old toilets are wonderful..I have a house full of them, but they do use a lot of water...which of course was well in those days, and hence free...we still keep them, but, when one needs replacing....we go to 1.5 gpf....in terms of the garage toilet, I'm not clear how you can use antifreeze if the toilet is still in operation? Our garage is heated, but we only use antifreeze when we are closing down for extended periods.....antifreeze is usually flushed out of a system when it is restarted, and is absolutely hell on the environment...we don't like it

chuck shaw

I think he

ment, there was not anit-freeze in the cars, therefore the garage had to be warm, to protect the vehicles. The toilet was there, probally so the staff wouldnt have to come into the house.

Chuck

DanHolohan

Nice save!

And another great story. Thanks, Steamhead.

john_27

chuck...you are right....but it is interesting, though....what would someone do in a freezeout....quickly drain both the toilet...and the cars?

john_27

right chuck, and thanks for your post,

but it sure makes one wonder how those who lived in country estates at the turn of the century would handle extended outages.....certainly one could drain the toilet, but how would you care for autos? The placement of the toilet in the carriage house was not only to keep staff away from the house, but also because carriage houses were always at a distance from the main house because of fire risk, and hence the toilet was used by the occupants from the main house as well.

Steamhead

The original boilers were hand-fired coal

so as long as you had coal, you had heat. Power failure? What's that? ;-)

I have seen houses where the original flush toilet was in an outbuilding, but the plumbing in this house was installed when it was built.

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john_27

I love anything turn -of-the-century...what a nice weekend trip...more pix please

Steamhead

That's all I have of this one

watch for my next one!

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John Kahler

Followup 1 from the owners

Had to chime in here, it was a true pleasure to meet Steamhead and Naoko! We're following up with the Pompettis to have the system reworked the rest of the way, Steamhead has already talked to them and they know what else needs to be done.

I kind of consider myself someone who _loves_ what they do for a living, and Steamhead surely falls into that category. He not only did the work, he explained in detail what he was doing and how the system worked - very informative and helpful to us.

Now we're on the way to a warm house, and saving on the gas bill, and it was a fun and informative day. Only regret is the local old time hardware store closes early in Saturday afternoon in the summer, so Steamhead didn't get to poke around their mysterious basement. Thanks to Steamhead and Naoko for making the trip, good to see you enjoyed Valley Forge. Come back to Philly anytime!

BTW, Dan, thanks too for this great resource. You have saved us thousands of dollars, and we're well on the way to a great, working system.

Will let you know how it goes, thanks to everyone who got involved in our Veco tale!

- John and Carol

Steamhead

Thanks, John & Carol

The pleasure was ours.

Note to Jamie: The "Epilogue" is all yours! Please take some pics of the new near-boiler piping and post them.

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