high gas bills with steam heating

Antonio Pasquali

Dear Wall,
my name is Antonio Pasquali, I live in Bayonne, NJ, my house has a one-pipe steam system with a recently installed Peerless boiler.
At the beginning of this heating season I replaced the thermostat from the old round one to a seven day programmable, suitable for steam applications, in addition I replaced a lot of vents in the radiators. I was trying to achieve some cost savings. The reality is that, after the "improvements" we have been hit with two gas bills beyond belief. Frankly I do not think I have done anything wrong, but my wife is starting to point fingers at me (basically all of them).
I have read Dan's books: "A Poketfull of Steam Problems", "The Golden Rules of Hydronic Heating" and "The Lost Art of Steam Heating", you know, I am a mechanical engineer, I like this stuff. I've tried to crank down the Pressuretrol to the 2 PSI that Dan recommends in his books, however the reading on my gauge never goes below 5 PSI sometimes it goes up to 7 PSI. The water in the boiler goes down very fast and about every week I have to add more than a gallon of water in the system.
I' ve noticed that the work that was done when the previous owner of the house had the boiler replaced encompasses soldered copper tubing, in addition the previous owner installed a 12 ft cast iron baseboard on a 3/4" valve.
It is very possible that the boiler and the baseboards were not installed by the best of the mechanics, but, last heating season, our first in the house, the bills were about half of what we have now.
Due to the fact that we have a maintenance service with PSEG, I asked them to have the system inspected. If that does not work I'm going to hire a mechanical/plumbing contractor, possibly somebody who knows his way around steam.
I'm still curious about what possibly is going on with my system.
Thanks for any possible hint.

Best regards,
Antonio Pasquali

Unknown

You shouldn't see the gauge moving all the way up to "7" when you have the pressuretrol set to 2. Turn the cut-in pressure all the way down and set diff. to 1. If the near-boiler piping is proper (along with other variables), the gauge should never move. If the piping is done wrong it can cause the boiler to gain pressure.So the boiler is turning off on pressure. This will make it harder to heat the home, hence the high fuel bill. I work in NJ. You can email me if you like at LLKFC@msn.com

clammy

things to check

If your pressure gauge is showing pressure then more then likely the pigtail is clogged or it's a bad pressurtrol.Are all your steam mains insulated .On another note the prices of natural gas are not going down did you check the amount of therms you have used compared to last year if the usage is the same it may just be what your paying per therm .I know my bills where higher this year also peace and good luck clammy

Unknown

On any boiler with this problem the pig tail is good place to start if the piping is proper. But on a new boiler I'd be more suspicious of the pressuretrol being defective. How many times have we put something in that was broken right out of the box?

The gas prices did go up 60%. But yours went up 100%.

Unknown

I have to say

I've never had a newly installed pressuretrol go beyond what I set it at . I have had plenty that wouldn't let the boiler run , right out of the box too . Where exactly is the pressure gauge situated in the boiler ? I know ( by experience ) if you tighten the gauge in by hand , you run the risk of sending it out of whack .

There's so many variables for the high fuel bills . Most of the time we find the culprit to be an oversized boiler . The next suspect is improper near boiler piping . And one that is overlooked many times - an unskimmed and uncleaned boiler . You also might be adding too much water . What model number Peerless is it ? And what brand boiler did it replace . I know the gas price has skyrocketed and so far this winter is much more mild than last , but did you do a gas use comparison to last year ?

RonSBC

Ron Jr hit on it, is it level?

Unknown

The installation manual should tell you where to set your gauge glass. It'll also show a diagram of the near-boiler piping. Check & compare.