new steam installation

t. tekushan

Am I nuts?
I have a collection of ornamental column type radiators in which are the perfect sizes for every room of my home (did all the calculations). The house was built in 1939 and has very early forced air. The placement of the returns, etc are awful for AC and I want to move a large return to the top of the open stairwell to the second floor. I am jealous of those in my neighborhood whose homes were build only one or two years before mine who have 2-pipe steam.

After looking at the layout of the existing ducts and the structural member locations, I've realized that retrofitting steam with the radiators I already have is not as impossible as I might have thought. Being a steam heat junkie (who else would happen to have radiators in the garage), I'm leaning towards doing something like this.

Anybody else out there ever pull of something quite as "eccentric" as this?

Steamhead

Yesssssssss!

Mad Dog, Noel, Dan Foley and I have all done this. Where are you located? One of us might be close if you need help or advice.....

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jalcoplumb_2

Not nuts...

Link to an article about an new steam system. It would be a great project.

http://www.pmmag.com/pm/cda/articleinformation/news/news_item/0,,5300-2-217,00+en-uss_01dbc.html

Steamhead

That's

the one we did! I wrote the article.

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Dean_7

steam

As a homeowner who totally restored a one pipe steam system I'd sy go for it. You won't be sorry.

t. tekushan

Cleveland Ohio is my location. Audio Engineering is my profession, but steam heating and window restoration are things I became proficient with in my college days working for the Cleveland Restoration Society. Just today I talked a friend of a friend out of pulling the radiators and boiler array out of a building he recently acquired.

He said, "Well, steam heat is inefficient and my electrician recommeded installing electric baseboard heating."

I asked, "Who's going to be paying the heat bill?"

"I am" he says.

I honestly forget which statement of his got me laughing so hard that he became very concerned about his decision. Naturally, I had plenty of "tune up" stories to tell and the real savings and comfort they provide.

t. tekushan

Reading that artical gave me a warm feeling all over!

PS The building I work in has steam heat. I've adopted the system's caretaking from the landlord. I felt sorry for it.

gerry gill

Feel free to e-mail me any questions

I'm in bedford ohio, just next door....gerry gill...gsd948@sbcglobal.net--
gill plumbing & heating
440-439-4417

Boilerpro_3

That's great

you have one of the best right near by! I wish it was me!

Boilerpro

gehring_3

Yes


As a DIY steam junkie I concur that you should go for it.
I did my own steam boiler replacement recently with help from this site, Dan's books and the tech. folks at Burnham. I plan on doing another, smaller "from scratch" system in one of my outbuildings as well.

I would recommend doing a one pipe gravity system instead of a two pipe system simply for the reason that you will have less pipe to run and less to try to hide in chases, etc. That is just my opinion. Good luck with it.

Christian Egli

Eccentric?

> Am I nuts? I have a collection of ornamental

> column type radiators in which are the perfect

> sizes for every room of my home (did all the

> calculations). The house was built in 1939 and

> has very early forced air. The placement of the

> returns, etc are awful for AC and I want to move

> a large return to the top of the open stairwell

> to the second floor. I am jealous of those in my

> neighborhood whose homes were build only one or

> two years before mine who have 2-pipe

> steam.

>

> After looking at the layout of the

> existing ducts and the structural member

> locations, I've realized that retrofitting steam

> with the radiators I already have is not as

> impossible as I might have thought. Being a

> steam heat junkie (who else would happen to have

> radiators in the garage), I'm leaning towards

> doing something like this.

>

> Anybody else out

> there ever pull of something quite as "eccentric"

> as this?

Christian Egli

Eccentric?

Heck! That's what Grand Eccentrics do, and these are always the people that turn out to be the geniuses who invent airplanes, cash registers, pop-top cans, step ladders, nuclear fuses, ice cube trays, dog food, automobile starters...

Did you guess where I am from? Not too far away from Cleveland. I am thrilled to hear a neat story coming from Ohio, it's usually not so steamy over here.

Go for it. You'll be proud of it.

t. tekushan

Golly!

Well, it certainly seems I can't not do it, now!

I assumed that 2-pipe was the way to go, but single pipe is an option. The house is not that big, so there may be some merit there. Are there efficiency issues between single and 2-pipe?

And should the fact that the radiators I have are very vintage ones with the bottom connections only (they came from a 2-pipe set-up) influence my choice?

t. tekushan

t. tekushan

original installation

Here's a photo of one of the radiators in its original installation.

Steamhead

What's on the other side

of that lovely American Rococo radiator? A valve, or a trap?

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Mike T., Swampeast MO

Efficiency

Unless you can somehow build a fully functional (including modulating) two-pipe vapor system, I don't believe there is any efficiency related advantage of two-pipe over one-pipe in a small residential system.

One-pipe has the same advantage it did in the beginning, only one pipe to each rad. Then as now, such makes a retrofit much easier and less destructive.

Steamhead

It's still possible

to do this. The simplest way would be using orifices instead of traps- fewest moving parts of any system.

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Mike T., Swampeast MO

Where's the Boiler's Response to Vacuum?

nm

t. tekushan

other side:

Steam trap on other side.

t. tekushan

orifices

I have a chart that specifies inlet orifice size with respect to pressure drop and EDR. I've often wondered if I wanted to eliminate traps altogether what the ratio of inlet to outlet orifice sizes should be. I've never run across that info.

t. tekushan

vacuum/subatmospheric

Well, I've thought at times it would be nice to devise a truly subatmospheric system for mild temperature operation. I dreamt up a system that would still operate intermittently, but would control the level of "subatmosphericness" based on outside temp, inside temp and run time. Cut out and cut in would be controlled by pressure differential between supply and return pressures. Naturally, the normal upper limit controls would remain in place as a fail safe.

I see no reason why I couldn't program an E-PROM to do all of this.

This way, in spring and fall I could be assured of good heat distribution without the overheating of the air. The system would reach normal atmospheric operation in very cold outdoor temps, or perhaps when picking up the indoor temp during recovery after t-stat setback.

Steamhead

That was a Vapor system

which needs more pipe than a one-pipe system, but you wouldn't have to change the bushings in the radiators. That Rococo looks like 75 square feet EDR, which needs a 1-1/2" radiator valve on a 1-pipe system.

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