Is it steam or hot water heat?

Peter_7

Hello,

Forgive me for these basic questions. My dad could have helped, since he's an old ASHRAE HVAC engineer but passed away 2 years ago.
I have a home from the 20s in CT. I have cast radiators, an old coal to oil burner, and lots of big low-hanging steel insulated pipes in the basement. We're looking to clean up the basement-maybe replace the monstrous burner.

I know this is hard without seeing the system, but:
1- Can it be determined if this is a steam or hot water system? Radiators have 1.5 inch(?) steel pipes on each end with a valve on on side,a bleed valve, but no steam valve that I can see. Could this have been a steam system but now is hot water?
2- If this is hot water but used to be steam, since my dad did teach me hot to sweat pipes, can I start replacing the basement steel piping with copper, in anticipation of getting rid of the ancient boiler/burner and replacing with something more efficiaent? I was thinking of working from the radiators back, trying to keep the copper pipe diameters reasonable.

Thanks for any tips or insight.

joel_19

Photos

A picture is worth a thousand words, could be steam 2 pipe or hot water. Post some shots for an answer. Word of warning even if it's water those pipes are big for a reason!! You can't just go nuts cutting that out with a sawzall , switch it to copper and excpect it to work without a lot of forethought.

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Steamhead

I think you have an old gravity hot-water system

If the bleed is at the top of one end of each radiator, the pipes coming in and out of each radiator are the same size, and there is a gauge on the boiler showing water temperature and altitude or pressure, that's what you have.


Replacing the old boiler with a modern one is a good move but must be done right. Have you tried the Find a Professional page of this site?

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