Results of Steam System Upgrade (Steamhead)

Steamhead

We did the following work on her one-pipe steam system, which has an American-Standard A-34 oil-fired boiler:

Added properly-sized main vents

Changed some radiator vents to properly-sized ones

Flushed the returns and boiler

Replaced the low-water cutoff (was stuck)

Replaced the old Sinclair Super-Flame (built by ABC) oil burner with a Beckett AF and a nozzle one size smaller (1.00-80-W)

Cleaned out the boiler's flue passages and sealed w/furnace cement

Replaced the old steel chamber with a Lynn bathtub

Fired and tuned the burner

Here's what she told us:

"Relative efficency:


Sept/Oct 2003 311 degree days / 43.4 gals oil = .13955 gals per degree day


Sept/Oct 2004 338 degree days / 32.6 gals oil = .096450 gals per degree day or 30% decrease


Nov/Dec 2003 1250 degree days / 230.4 gals oil = .226 gals per degree day


so far 2004 712 degree days /96.8 gals oil = .135955 gals per degree day or 39% decrease


Last year over all .219 gals per degree day

This year so far .1232 gals per degree day or 43% decrease


I know that according to some darn physics thing, that the greater the temperature differential the more oil - so we'll see more later.


Great results so far!"

This REALLY made my day!

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John Shea

Nice Work Steamhead!

I've had some experience 'tuning' an old Detroit apartment building and know the rewarding feeling you get after comparing heating bills.

It's also nice to know that there are still people out there that are so frugal and smart as your customer! The investment she made in your services will, I'm sure, pay off big, in little time.

On another note, one of the refinements you made was to "Add properly-sized main vents". Out of curiosity, can you 'overvent' a steam main?

I've read about potential problems overventing radiators.

Christian Egli

Steam at its most rewarding

Smart customer and smart steam expert and live steam.

Thanks for the great post.

Steamhead

Overventing one-pipe radiators

fed by the usual counterflow runouts causes problems because if the steam moves too fast thru the runout, the condensate can't flow back against the steam. This causes banging and spitting water.

The same could be said of counterflow one-pipe mains, but I've never really tried to overvent one. Maybe I'll find one to try it out on........

I would think the usual parallel-flow main would be difficult to over-vent to the point where it would bang.

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John Shea

One-Pipe radiator venting

Isn't there also a possibility of the steam shutting the air valve before all the air is out of the radiator as well?

Maybe some of this could also depend on the placement of the vent.

Steamhead

Could happen

but the times I've seen this, the vent was installed in the wrong place on the radiator.

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Boiler Guy

I too

> Smart customer and smart steam expert and live

> steam.

>

> Thanks for the great post.

Boiler Guy

I too

have had a similar experience. Year to date over previous degree day consumption; savings of 31% primarily by reducing pressures and tuning an old (1951) Vulcan fire tube boiler. Really gives a guy a good feeling to make customers happy. Lots of spinoffs this year as a result.

Steamhead

Latest update

She writes:

"Just got the latest oil delivery. Are now heading into the old burner's worst period of efficency.
Have to say we are being home more and are keeping the average temp about 3 degrees warmer than
last year - so up to today:

"this years total gals/degree days = 0.145445 for a decrease of 33.6% for the season".

Since the Beckett won't soot up the boiler, the numbers should get better as the season progresses.


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gerry gill

outstanding steamhead

its also great that the customer cared enough to let you know..a client for life me thinks,,and their kids, and their neighbors..great job and great rewards..

Dave Meers

great post

Hi Steamhead,

Very nice post, all the right information. You certainly did a "system" tune-up.

Steam Up : Proper size nozzle, tuned burner, combustion updates

Air Out : Properly sized vents

Water Back: Flushed wet return

When we look at the system as a whole and not as individual components, we can see the results that can be achieved. Great job. Thanks for sharing. You make all us steam freaks proud.

Best regards, Pat

Steamhead

April update

We went to this lady's house on a non-heating job today. She mentioned that due to the lack of soot, the latest efficiency increase is about 35% over last year.

I gave her some more cards to replace the ones she has given out.

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t. tekushan

preaching to the choir

Well, there it is in black and white.

I'm saving this thread because few people seem to believe that tuning up what is sometimes a 100 year old steam system can improve efficiency so dramatically.

Maybe if people still drove cars with carburetors and breaker-point ignition systems they might be more easily convinced.

(Nowdays if you say a carb needs adjustment people think they need to cut back on pasta)

-Terry

Steamhead

End of season update

"Final Statistics of the steam system upgrades!


Last year Actuals:


Gals of Heating Oil- 892.7 Degree Days 4076 Gals per degree day .219


This year Actuals:


Gals of Heating Oil - 567.5 Degree Days 4238 Gals per Degree day .1339


or 36.4% less oil for heat during a slightly cooler season.


In dollar bills, we saved $683 in oil costs.


As I said before, this isn't an exact comparasion.
The boiler and radiators work so much better that we
were able to keep the house an average of about 3 degrees warmer than we did last year. We also saved about $300 over
the season by not running extra electric heating devices."

Not bad, eh?

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Dave Meers

great results

Hi steamhead,

It is truly amazing what the proper maintenance can do for the performance of a steam system. If every system was running at peak efficiency like this one, there would be a whole lot less oil being burned.

Best regards, Pat

Boiler Guy

Case in point

Goes to show the capabilities of a truly commited PRO and his customer. One cannot be completely successful without the other. Congratulations!

Dave Meers

payback?

Hi steamhead,

Any idea how long it will take to pay for the repairs? So many people want to talk in terms of a payback nowadays.

Best regards, Pat

Steamhead

Don't recall exactly

what the tab was on this job, but I think she's gotten at least half her money back in reduced fuel costs.

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Dave Meers

sounds good to me

Hi Steamhead,

Sounds like she will be reaping the benifits of this for years to come. Its hard to make that kind of return on your money, and have better comfort too.

Have you ever run across any steam specialties from a manufacturer named "Conners"? It seems they were from my hometown here in Cincinnati. A contractor brought in what looks like a radiator trap. They had removed it and replaced it with a Hoffman 17C, without improving the situation. I had helped them balance out a residential job that was giving them and the homeowner fits, and very high fuel bills. The original handvalves are gone, replaced probably in the '60s. It is labled "Vapor" and "float trap". Instead of a bellows assembly on the inside, it has a small float. The inlet is diverted to the bottom of the trap body. I keep it on my desk wondering how it all worked. I tried to get some info at the historical society, but only found an address listed for a few years in the late '20s, no literature of any kind.
Just wondering.

Best regards, Pat

Cosmo_3

Great Work Steamhead

Even though I don't really do much w/ steam systems, I really think they are cool and when treated as a system instead of just a boiler, the efficiency is hard to beat not to mention the extra humidity when you need some in winter! There are a lot of attemped conversions to water I have seen around here that were not successful.....

Cosmo Valavanis
Dependable PHC Inc

Christian Egli

Quality work is always free

Your figures prove this.

Factor in the dollar savings due to fuel cost increase, colder weather, retired supplemental $$electric$$ heat, in just one season the owner will have found enough real money to offset the maintenance cost. And there is a bonus, the system works better.

Alternatively, a quack could have come in, charged a lot to crank up the pressure, remove some vents, have the owner convinced some radiators were never meant to get hot... and quadruple the heat bills.

See, quality pays for itself, it's the junk that we can't afford at any price.

This is a great post. Thanks Steamhead for the figures, they warm my hart.

I look at the figures concerning the fuel economy, the gallons per heating degree day. The consumption rate was 63% higher for the previous year compared to the current year. Your work is even more fantastic that way.

Oh, but steam is fantastic.

Steamhead

Pat, that's a new one on me

a Conners Vapor system...... probably one more of the many local companies that jumped on the Vapor bandwagon as Mouat did in the Cleveland area. But I do remember the Van Auken system had float-type radiator traps with the name "Belvac Thermofier", and Bishop & Babcock used this type also.

Can you post a pic of this trap?

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Constantin

Congratulations!

Just goes to show that the right people can make an amazing difference. Also, congrats on the happy (and apparently well-informed!) customer.

Steamhead

Phase Two- With Photos!

Bill Burton from Danfoss contacted me regarding this steam system. Now that we had documented the savings from fixing the basics on this system, he was interested to see what further savings we could achieve with Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs). The owners and I liked the idea, so back we went.

Here's the little house- originally 4 bedrooms, now three since the two small back ones were made into one big one.

Steamhead

Bill Burton

explains the operation of a TRV to owner Mike Norris.

Steamhead

Installing a Danfoss One-pipe TRV

as demonstrated by Bill. He says these are so easy to install, even he can do it ;-) .

Steamhead

All Done!

and Bill didn't even break a sweat ;-)

We installed four TRVs, one on each bedroom radiator. The bathroom, being a wet room, needs heat all the time in the winter to prevent mildew. The first floor is wide open with the thermostat in the middle, so TRVs didn't make any sense there. But the bedrooms are kept a bit cooler than the rest of the house, so there the TRVs will shine.

Steamhead

Here's the boiler

American-Standard A-34 with retrofitted Beckett AF and new chamber as described earlier. After the TRVs went in I opened it up and found very little soot. What was there may have been baked-on residue from the old burner that was loosened over the course of the last season. It really didn't need much attention but I brushed it thoroughly, replaced the nozzle and tuned it on the Testo to bring it back to the fine shape it was in last fall.

Steamhead

Main Vents

We installed these last fall, and the manual water feed valve sprung a leak which flooded the system. But these Gorton #1 vents were not damaged.

Thanks, Bill, Mike and The Lovely Jill! Let's see how we do this winter.

Constantin

Thanks for the Update!

... and I look forward to hearing more from this system!

Mike T., Swampeast MO

FANTASTIC!

nm

patrick linhardt

near boiler piping?

Hi Steamhead,

That supply piping caught my eye. Can you describe that in more detail?

Great post and update! Thank you.

Best regards, Pat

Steamhead

Not how I would do it

but it works, so I'm not going to change it...... 3-inch riser teeing off to two 2-inch mains, the velocity seems to be low enough to prevent carryover.

Steamhead

And for those who were curious

here's a shot of the burner I took out of that boiler. It's a Sinclair Super-Flame, built by ABC.

Steamhead (in transit)

January 2006 Update

as promised:

"Between this year and last year, the fuel delivery varied by one calendar day.

This year is one day shorter and the heating season has 45 degree days more than last year.

So, the overall rate is .1218 gallon per degree day, last year was .1373. Last year gallons were 259.9, this year, 240.7 or 7.3 percent less.

We are not quite half way through the season."

Not earthshaking, but especially at today's exorbitant fuel prices, not bad for 4 TRVs and less than an hour's work, without even breaking a sweat! Thanks, Jill!

Unfortunately, Bill Burton has left Danfoss to manage a branch of the Thomas Somerville supply chain. Thanks for the help so far, Bill.

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Sean_18

Not bad at all. Not as dramatic a savings from your tuning the boiler and system, but enough to justify putting them in for sure. Then when you factor in the improved comfort, it gets even more attractive. Thanks for the update, Frank.

Best regards,

Sean

Steamhead (in transit)

Payback info

This just in:

"For the curious, the (original) repair should be completely paid for in savings by the end of this heating season. So far, the DanFoss things - about $42."

If we compare the original consumption of .219 gallons per degree-day to the current one of .1218, the overall reduction is 55.6 percent. This is a considerable saving!

The TRVs will take longer than the first series of repairs and upgrades to pay for themselves, since the system was pretty well balanced when they were installed. But after they do, it'll be money in the bank.

If we could achieve similar savings in every house, Big Gas and Big Oil would be running scared.......

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Boilerpro_3

I like your thread much more than mine, Steamhead

I am tuning up the system I e-mailed you about right now. Also, found the burner way out of tune on the boiler....300% excess air, high CO, low efficiency. I can't wait to see the results!

Boilerpro

Mad Dog_2

You da man Frank

Mad Dog

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bb_7

Not bad

Frank:

Not a bad savings so far considering how warm it has been here in the Batlimore area. I am surprised that there are more degree days this year compared to last... Don't remember it being warm last year too.

Since it has gotten a little colder today, maybe they will see some bigger savings. Again, you took care of the important part. Get the system running right first. Clean boiler, proper venting is the best part. TRVs play in later in the grand scheme of things.

This is a small house, with only the 2nd floor having TRVs. Imagine the big job you did in Charles Village were there are a few hundred radiators... Then the math works quite well, especially considering todays fuel prices.

Stay Warm

bb

Steamhead (in transit)

The big guys are watching this little project

When all the numbers are in I think they'll probably go for it.

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