rad steam traps

frank_25

Last year, at the same time of the year as now, i completed a six month project in coney island, brooklyn,ny.
One of the phases was the replacement of two 200HP gas/oil steam boilers w/twin dhw coils in each boiler. We installed a water meter on the auto make up water feeder which naturally was piped into the bft. In one year, the meter registered over 55,000 gals of make up water used. These boilers run during the heating season only, as there are gas fired boilers w/brazed plate exchanger for the summer time use. Question: how much water should have been used? With that answer I can rub-it-in the face of the owners the cost of purchasing that water with all those desolved minerals, oxygen, and the added cost of heating cold water rather than warm condensate, the reduction of the life of the boilers, etc. We tried our best to convence the owner to change the elements of the steam traps in this 460 family building during the summer, but he wouldn't spend the bucks. Just wondering.

frank_25

boiler water usage

Steamhead (in transit)

That's too much

not sure exactly what it should be in a building that size, but it looks like you have some serious leakage there. Do you get steam out of the BFT vent when the system is running? What pressure does it run at?

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gerry gill

seems to me that

changing the steam trap guts is a money saved or money wasted decision..not a water loss issue..if the traps are bad, the water is still in the system i would think..that water went somewhere..its not in the system anymore..where did it go?

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frank_25

the steam went that-a-way

this is a 16 story building, about 30 y.o. We are running the pressure @5 off and 2 on. Steam presents its self at the BFT vent. [Do ya think it's the traps? Duh] The boiler room is like a steam bath. All unpainted black iron [gas piping, vents] starting to rust. Told the super to get out the paint already! side bar...During the past couple-a-few years, the building has gone thru all new windows, elevator re hab, new framing and sheet rock of all the lobbies, new roof, new cable in all the apts. and on and on. "not in the budget for steam traps" I'd like to punch the guy in the nose [engineer] that wrote the budget. [sorry Brad] Just goes to show ya, never condem a group.[Plumbers, Engineers etc.] Some of us in that group know their stuff, but don't get the right rep. We are guilty by association.

Unknown

that's a lot of water!

Are u sure the pipes not hooked up to hidden steam bath? That's a lot of water you are losing, I would start looking soon...

Unknown

that's a lot of water!

Are u sure the pipes not hooked up to hidden steam bath? That's a lot of water you are losing, I would start looking soon...

Brad White_110

Amortized over the course of a year

that is about 0.26 GPM constantly. If during a heating season only, double that to about a half GPM flow rate. Still a lot of make-up water and unless they were humidifying, definitely not acceptable.

If 0.5 GPM that is about 4 pounds per minute or 240 PPH steam production lost. If you are including makeup heating to 212 F. you are losing about 4,600 BTUH per minute or 276,000 BTUH per hour total heat. Enough to heat five or six apartments.

Not to mention the damage being done to the boilers. There are some numbers that might get their attention.

Christian Egli_2

Ghosts are made of steam and puddles are made of water

The mystery is where the 55000 gallons went?

Imagining you did a blow down about every day, or 100 times for the season, and you extracted about 50 gal, then the total lost to blow down would be 5000 gal. I don't know if this pattern is representative of yours, but, no matter what, 5000 is way short of 55000. With so much fresh water intake, blow downs are important though.

Worse case scenario.

Assume all of the 55000 gal of stuff left in the form of live valuable steam. Your buildings may have condensate lines and tanks that are vented to the outdoors, like when you see a plume of steam coming off the roof. This is bad. Trap catalogues often have charts to estimate the waste - let's do our quick waste estimate. To boil away 55000 gal of water you'll need to burn about 5500 CCF of gas. If we take the CCF at $1.50 that's a maximum whole loss of steam value of $ 8250.

Next winter, look for getting pictures of these plumes. Then try to convince the owners again.

But it didn't all leave as valuable steam, this water could have left plainly as water. Leaks in the returns, undersized feed tank overflow, condensate lines to the drain. All these non steam leaks would only cost you the water and the fresh feed harm to the boiler (if without treatment / preheating) And some will always leave as water vapor like when puddles dry on the floor.

The value of the liquid condensate heat loss is approximately: 55000 gal * 8 lb/gal * 140 BTU/lb * 1 CCF/100000 BTU * 1.50 $/CCF = 937 $

So, your dollar losses are between $900 and $8000, but you have to discount the blow down and the liquid condensate non returns from the live steam losses.. Is it significant? If the two 200 hp boiler burns for 500 hours, at 1.5 $/CCF, you'll have a season bill of about $100,000 (this seems disturbingly cheap and efficient for 460 apartments?!?) Anyways, $8000 is a bit less than 10%, still it's worth worrying about.

What even more worse.

Bad traps cause bad problems such as blocked steam distribution and water hammer. When those occur, often the boiler is run longer than it should just to compensate. Running the boiler longer costs more.

Whole building trap replacement / repair is always a good idea. Steam has no business going into the return lines.

What brand traps are there currently?

Sell the owner two options to protect the brand new boilers. Option one, with a feedwater treatment and deaerator you'll not need to care about boiler damage (the preheated feed tank will be sacrificed instead). Option two, new traps protect the boiler and improve system distribution. Or do both...

Happy to help with numbers, but I see the early birds got the worm already.

Steamhead (in transit)

Flash steam?

with the pressure that high, the condensate might be hot enough for some of it to flash back to steam when it reaches the returns. Crank it down!

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gerry gill

wow Frankie

that must be wild to stand by that feed tank vent with that kind of steam loss to atmosphere...is the owner blind? he's already bought new steam trap guts and didn't know it..and he will pay again this season..he could probably recover the cost in one season the way he's going..hope you can get the job tho..

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gerry gill

Brad, those are some

powerful numbers..think of the wasted money the owner isn't realizing.

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frank_25

for clarity

frank_25

for clarity

This building was built for, owned by and not maintained by HUD. The new owners were offered these buildings for a song & dance [read that as a whistle & fart] with the proviso of up-grading. When I walked the building w/super, I noted the lack of burried returns. As I noted previously, the new owners group hired a choo-choo train driver to evaluate the system, and spec necessary replacement items. I didn't like his shoe horn lay-out, and convinced him that I'd do it my way. [He had the three Aerco BMK's which were to be direct vented 50' away from an outside wall and on a platform that was 15'AFF] One point he wouldn't give up was the 5PSI thing. Worked for thirty years that way, leave it alone. Owners said what-ever he wants, do it. He has the degree. But I will say this, during and after the install, there wasn't a single punch list item for the whole three building $1.7 mil contract. [Too much info here isn't it?].....As I see it, there are many rad steam traps passing steam into the BFT, and vented into the BR. I scanned and waxed some of the returns and that proved the existance of bad traps. Every time I've communicated w/owners it's how much? That's no good, no money in the budget. I don't remember the mfg of the traps, but "guts" are available. Told them the maintenance staff can do it, the super told me so. I'm going to give it one more shot. Tell them what I've learned from you guys here [thanks much] and let him make his own mistakes as in the past. Now, I'm not talkin' down those guys that are Engineers, but this one has a cocky attitude as if he is "better' than I because he wears a white collar and mine is blue. The owners are associated in this dress code thing 'cause they are accountants, lawyers, and doctors. BWDIK? IJAP.

Unknown

reprinted story

I'll post this again, because I think you might like the story at the end of it, Frank......


Steam Trap Maintenance

There is a certain minimum amount of maintenance required on all steam systems, weekly and periodically. Steam traps usually find themselves in the periodic category. Unfortunately, periods can be quite long, and viewed as an "all or nothing" venture. They get deferred frequently. There can be other alternatives to this, however.

There is nothing as easy as deciding to change every single trap and calling it cured, except not doing anything. Those are usually the two choices presented. The third choice is pretty labor intensive. It involves identifying exactly what is installed in the building, what is wrong with it, what it would take to fix it (broken down in stages), and what order to do it in, and what each stage would accomplish and cost.

This would chip expectations down to manageable and budgetable projects, and might give incentives to combine steps where it would save money to do so. It would help project for future budgets what the actual maintenance costs are on a large building with a seventy five year old heating system. It would maintain fuel consumption at predictable levels.

It would show how thrifty it is to keep up with steam trap maintenance. I'd like to help discover how to do this in layman’s terms. My experience is with four story brick residences with various vapor systems from 1910 through the 1960s. These were mostly two pipe vapor systems.

The very first thing to do is to identify the individual steps in an outline form that will bring the system back to working properly. Identify the system from trap names, unusual items in the returns or near the boiler, supply valve names, something to date the system with. This helps a little. Identify the height above the boiler water line to the lowest horizontal piping in the whole system that is above it. This is a B dimension, and is most important if there isn't a vented condensate tank or boiler feed tank. It defines what pressure the system was meant to be run at. Identify what vent is on the system and if it works, and at what rate it vents.

The first thing to address on the outline would be venting, as it has the biggest payback to cost ratio. Simply size the vent properly for the load and pipe lengths, and make sure it vents when it is cold, and it shuts when it gets hot. Make sure it is back from the end of the main about a foot or two, or more. It can even be right after the last radiator connects to the return main. There is likely to be a crossover pipe between the supply main and the return main there, with a radiator trap as the union and elbow on the return end. This is the supply main's air vent into the return. This flow is from supply to return to air vent. To keep the air and condensate all flowing the same way, the vent will be downstream and downhill from this crossover connection.

The next item on the outline will be to crank the pressure down to the pressure just above what it takes to get the main air vent to close. Identify that the control on the boiler might eventually need to be replaced with the one required to run this particular system at the design pressure. More on this later.

The next item to successfully tame the system is going to be insulation on all of the pipes. It simply must be in good shape to deliver all of the steam that they were designed to carry. If the steam condenses within the mains, the cross section of the pipe becomes reduced and the mains cannot carry the steam that they need to at reasonable velocities. The speed picks up and the water starts flying around, the noise goes up, the cost to run goes up, the vents and traps get hammered into little crumpled balls of metal inside. The insulation is mandatory. The mains are actually TWO pipe sizes too small, if the pipes are bare.

Along with insulating, the boiler piping must be right before the insulation gets applied. The first thing to do is to determine what the boiler needs to do, and if it will. We finally have come down to measuring the load connected to the boiler, and the size of the boiler, and to actually verify the firing rate and combustion efficiency. A filthy oil boiler that had been downfired beyond reason won't show up from a peek at the rating plate. It might make sense to look at the boiler size itself and it's piping, and start from scratch. It might be fine. Be sure the boiler piping matches the manufacturer's instructions, to the letter. Undersized piping might be the problem. Now is the time to decide.

If you have come this far, and have a working system to evaluate the steam traps with, you can move to the next step on the outline. You need a trap survey; a document that you make that shows what each trap model number is, and what room it is in. You need to group them by which branch of the RETURN main that they empty into. The return mains are groups of traps to be maintained and troubleshot as a group. It helps to begin thinking of them that way early. Along with this list of traps, a piping plan would be wonderful. These documents should be filed in a way that they outlast you on the job.

Once you have identified a return main, and have the steam pressure cranked down as low as it will go, start the system up cold and see if the return main becomes steam hot at the vent, up on this end of the return. Since only air is supposed to be there, and cooler condensate, it should remain open and not be steam hot. If it gets hot within minutes, you have a trap blowing steam through. On a system with working steam traps, and on ALL pumped condensate systems, the vent isn't needed. It only sees steam if a trap lets steam through. An open pipe could serve as the vent.

Take it out, if it isn't too much trouble, while you troubleshoot. It will speed up the whole process. The way that we are going to discuss checking traps isn't the only way, by any means. My focus is on cost of materials, but admittedly it is very labor intensive. This isn't developing a free estimate for repairs, this is actually a very valuable part of DOING the repairs, and should be thought of this way. The reason for the trap survey in advance is, in part, so that some repair parts for traps can be brought in and kept on hand. This enables repair as the testing evolves.

The premise of this method of testing is to follow the steam as it expands into cool piping in the supply mains, and detect, by external pipe temperature, where the traps let steam pass through. I started by using my hands, but years later, infrared thermometers with laser pointers came along, and they cut the time in half.

Start up the boiler until you detect steam in the returns someplace. Shut off the boiler and follow the hot pipe back to it's source. You'll get near it easily enough; close radiator valves off to eliminate their traps; identify how the steam is blowing into the return. Shut the boiler off often because once everything in that return main becomes hot, the information to be gained is very diluted. Keep everything cool, and squirt steam through by firing the boiler once in a while to keep the path hot. This is more art than science.

After the return main stays cool, because all of it's traps are fixed and holding, or shut off from steam, open up radiators one at a time with the steam on. As you open a radiator, check the return for live steam. Condensate dripping into the return will warm it up. Steam blowing into it will make it a blistering 200° F plus, right away. Shut those back off. Mark those for repair.

Here's another note. On a return that you know has steam blowing into it, shut the boiler off with hot mains, and let the vent pipe draw air in until it stops. With all of the radiators and valves open, start up the system again. As soon as the system vent pipe gets hot, go through the building and find HOT HOT traps on radiators that have COLD or cool sections right next to the radiator trap. This will tell you two things. One, there is obviously steam in that return. Two, THIS TRAP IS WORKING!!! It won't let the air from the radiator into the return, which has an open vent on the other end. It is keeping the radiator from venting. Write this one down on your trap survey as good. Look for more. Cool it down and start it again. Check again. Shut some off in a pattern that makes sense along the return, to determine where the steam is moving around. Some of the radiator valves won't hold steam all the way off, but that's OK. As long as the radiator condenses what it does get, and the last section doesn't get steam hot, you'll be OK. The room will use that heat, anyway. It's temporary. Leave off whatever it takes to keep the returns from having steam in them. For temporary heat, crack open radiator valves to allow half the radiator to get hot, but NOT THE TRAP!!!! Fix the crossover traps and the F&T traps on the mains. Get your vent to be cool while the system runs.

Now make a list of the traps on radiators that are shut off. These are what you need to replace. Leave the radiators with bad traps off in the meantime, or mostly off, to save the remainder of the working traps. Budget your replacement costs, but remember that more will fail as time passes. It will often be fewer than expected, though.

Now that the system is tame, and half shut off, the boiler waterline will be pretty wild, due to overfiring. Get the traps fixed to get the load back on the boiler, and troubleshoot from there. Have a very clean system with clean water. This is a whole different subject, but very important.

If the system floods after it runs, or if it runs out of water and shuts off, suspect plugged returns that are below the water line. Don't waste any time on them, replace them. Pipe them so that you can remove an air vent and flush them with a hose to a drain valve that you put in at the boiler end. Use mud legs to collect debris.

Once you get an intimate knowledge of the system, a loving pat on the air vent while it's running will tell you if you need to check your traps again. It should run at virtually the same temperature all of the time, a little hotter in very cold weather.

If you want real economy, buy a vaporstat that operates from 0-1 PSI, and is graduated in ounces. Install it at the boiler, or even better, at the end of the steam supply main. Wire it to break one leg of the thermostat wire through it, and leave the pressuretrol as is, as a high limit. Set the vaporstat as low as you can and still heat every radiator.

All of this would be done with the service person AND the weekly operator. The more involved with the system that the operator becomes, the more known and less costly will be the maintenance plan.

Along the way, you'll both learn the system. You'll find that return that's ALWAYS hot, no matter what. It'll drive you nuts, looking for the cause. Eventually, you'll find the crossover trap in the wall at the end of the main in the finished basement. It'll be behind a wall hung radiator.



You'll find the F&T trap that works, but it has a 3/4" bypass around it with a very painted plug cock in it; wide open.

You search the building and find two more. Guy's have been rebuilding these traps for 90 years, yet the bypasses never were closed. Originally, this system made heat and electricity by coal, the bypasses are from those days.

I want to close with a story. It is very relevant, and it was costly. It was a four-story residence, and the bottom floor was four feet in the ground. The returns ran around the bottom floor ceiling with the supplies, until they were pitched down to a point 30" above the floor, then the return split into a high and a low return back to the boiler room, the same on both ends of the building. The west end had steam in the front return, as a door on the ends of the building split the returns into a back and a front on each end of the building.

This front, west return had steam in it near the boiler end, the low end. The rooms all had thermostatic radiator valves on the radiator inlets, so each had control. The front door entry was always cool, and the radiator always hot. The next room had his thermostat off, because his room was hot enough, and the trap was hot and the radiator burbled steam into it through this hot trap. The radiator would fill with condensate until the system satisfied, when everything would cool off and drain back to the boiler. He opened and closed his window for temperature control.

The next room had the same hot trap and shut-off thermostat, but he was roasting. He NEVER closed the window. He went away every chance he got. One weekend when he was away, it was very cold. The whole weekend never saw above zero temperatures. The guy in the end room by the door called for no heat. Even with the valve open, no heat would come from the radiator. His walls were FREEZING. The hallway wall, the entryway wall, the outside wall, and the room next-door wall.

The radiator was full of water. No steam could get in. Draining it by shutting off the boiler got the radiator to heat but the room didn't heat well.

The wall to the next room was freezing. Uh - oh. In the maintenance guy went, to check on it. Everything was frozen. Bottles on the dresser had broken. The window was open. The radiator had exploded. He shut it off, shut the window, left the door open and went to call in some help. He was gone for a short while.

The frozen and split 1" sprinkler had thawed out while he was gone. The whole time he was gone, a 1" sprinkler pipe filled the west half of this building. About 11 people lived in the lower level, and they were displaced. The water was a few feet deep. Several people on the next level were also displaced to hotel rooms, until the building was renovated.

The steam traps were repaired right away. The rooms were comfortable, after that.

Noel

frank_25

a bit different

> I'll post this again, because I think you might

> like the story at the end of it,

> Frank......

>

> Steam Trap Maintenance

>

> There

> is a certain minimum amount of maintenance

> required on all steam systems, weekly and

> periodically. Steam traps usually find themselves

> in the periodic category. Unfortunately, periods

> can be quite long, and viewed as an "all or

> nothing" venture. They get deferred frequently.

> There can be other alternatives to this,

> however.

>

> There is nothing as easy as deciding

> to change every single trap and calling it cured,

> except not doing anything. Those are usually the

> two choices presented. The third choice is pretty

> labor intensive. It involves identifying exactly

> what is installed in the building, what is wrong

> with it, what it would take to fix it (broken

> down in stages), and what order to do it in, and

> what each stage would accomplish and cost.

> This would chip expectations down to manageable

> and budgetable projects, and might give

> incentives to combine steps where it would save

> money to do so. It would help project for future

> budgets what the actual maintenance costs are on

> a large building with a seventy five year old

> heating system. It would maintain fuel

> consumption at predictable levels.

>

> It would

> show how thrifty it is to keep up with steam trap

> maintenance. I'd like to help discover how to do

> this in layman’s terms. My experience is with

> four story brick residences with various vapor

> systems from 1910 through the 1960s. These were

> mostly two pipe vapor systems.

>

> The very first

> thing to do is to identify the individual steps

> in an outline form that will bring the system

> back to working properly. Identify the system

> from trap names, unusual items in the returns or

> near the boiler, supply valve names, something to

> date the system with. This helps a little.

> Identify the height above the boiler water line

> to the lowest horizontal piping in the whole

> system that is above it. This is a B dimension,

> and is most important if there isn't a vented

> condensate tank or boiler feed tank. It defines

> what pressure the system was meant to be run at.

> Identify what vent is on the system and if it

> works, and at what rate it vents.

>

> The first

> thing to address on the outline would be venting,

> as it has the biggest payback to cost ratio.

> Simply size the vent properly for the load and

> pipe lengths, and make sure it vents when it is

> cold, and it shuts when it gets hot. Make sure it

> is back from the end of the main about a foot or

> two, or more. It can even be right after the last

> radiator connects to the return main. There is

> likely to be a crossover pipe between the supply

> main and the return main there, with a radiator

> trap as the union and elbow on the return end.

> This is the supply main's air vent into the

> return. This flow is from supply to return to air

> vent. To keep the air and condensate all flowing

> the same way, the vent will be downstream and

> downhill from this crossover connection.

>

> The

> next item on the outline will be to crank the

> pressure down to the pressure just above what it

> takes to get the main air vent to close. Identify

> that the control on the boiler might eventually

> need to be replaced with the one required to run

> this particular system at the design pressure.

> More on this later.

>

> The next item to

> successfully tame the system is going to be

> insulation on all of the pipes. It simply must be

> in good shape to deliver all of the steam that

> they were designed to carry. If the steam

> condenses within the mains, the cross section of

> the pipe becomes reduced and the mains cannot

> carry the steam that they need to at reasonable

> velocities. The speed picks up and the water

> starts flying around, the noise goes up, the cost

> to run goes up, the vents and traps get hammered

> into little crumpled balls of metal inside. The

> insulation is mandatory. The mains are actually

> TWO pipe sizes too small, if the pipes are

> bare.

>

> Along with insulating, the boiler piping

> must be right before the insulation gets applied.

> The first thing to do is to determine what the

> boiler needs to do, and if it will. We finally

> have come down to measuring the load connected to

> the boiler, and the size of the boiler, and to

> actually verify the firing rate and combustion

> efficiency. A filthy oil boiler that had been

> downfired beyond reason won't show up from a peek

> at the rating plate. It might make sense to look

> at the boiler size itself and it's piping, and

> start from scratch. It might be fine. Be sure the

> boiler piping matches the manufacturer's

> instructions, to the letter. Undersized piping

> might be the problem. Now is the time to

> decide.

>

> If you have come this far, and have a

> working system to evaluate the steam traps with,

> you can move to the next step on the outline. You

> need a trap survey; a document that you make that

> shows what each trap model number is, and what

> room it is in. You need to group them by which

> branch of the RETURN main that they empty into.

> The return mains are groups of traps to be

> maintained and troubleshot as a group. It helps

> to begin thinking of them that way early. Along

> with this list of traps, a piping plan would be

> wonderful. These documents should be filed in a

> way that they outlast you on the job.

>

> Once you

> have identified a return main, and have the steam

> pressure cranked down as low as it will go, start

> the system up cold and see if the return main

> becomes steam hot at the vent, up on this end of

> the return. Since only air is supposed to be

> there, and cooler condensate, it should remain

> open and not be steam hot. If it gets hot within

> minutes, you have a trap blowing steam through.

> On a system with working steam traps, and on ALL

> pumped condensate systems, the vent isn't needed.

> It only sees steam if a trap lets steam through.

> An open pipe could serve as the vent.

>

> Take it

> out, if it isn't too much trouble, while you

> troubleshoot. It will speed up the whole process.

> The way that we are going to discuss checking

> traps isn't the only way, by any means. My focus

> is on cost of materials, but admittedly it is

> very labor intensive. This isn't developing a

> free estimate for repairs, this is actually a

> very valuable part of DOING the repairs, and

> should be thought of this way. The reason for the

> trap survey in advance is, in part, so that some

> repair parts for traps can be brought in and kept

> on hand. This enables repair as the testing

> evolves.

>

> The premise of this method of testing

> is to follow the steam as it expands into cool

> piping in the supply mains, and detect, by

> external pipe temperature, where the traps let

> steam pass through. I started by using my hands,

> but years later, infrared thermometers with laser

> pointers came along, and they cut the time in

> half.

>

> Start up the boiler until you detect

> steam in the returns someplace. Shut off the

> boiler and follow the hot pipe back to it's

> source. You'll get near it easily enough; close

> radiator valves off to eliminate their traps;

> identify how the steam is blowing into the

> return. Shut the boiler off often because once

> everything in that return main becomes hot, the

> information to be gained is very diluted. Keep

> everything cool, and squirt steam through by

> firing the boiler once in a while to keep the

> path hot. This is more art than science.

>

> After

> the return main stays cool, because all of it's

> traps are fixed and holding, or shut off from

> steam, open up radiators one at a time with the

> steam on. As you open a radiator, check the

> return for live steam. Condensate dripping into

> the return will warm it up. Steam blowing into it

> will make it a blistering 200° F plus, right

> away. Shut those back off. Mark those for

> repair.

>

> Here's another note. On a return that

> you know has steam blowing into it, shut the

> boiler off with hot mains, and let the vent pipe

> draw air in until it stops. With all of the

> radiators and valves open, start up the system

> again. As soon as the system vent pipe gets hot,

> go through the building and find HOT HOT traps on

> radiators that have COLD or cool sections right

> next to the radiator trap. This will tell you two

> things. One, there is obviously steam in that

> return. Two, THIS TRAP IS WORKING!!! It won't let

> the air from the radiator into the return, which

> has an open vent on the other end. It is keeping

> the radiator from venting. Write this one down on

> your trap survey as good. Look for more. Cool it

> down and start it again. Check again. Shut some

> off in a pattern that makes sense along the

> return, to determine where the steam is moving

> around. Some of the radiator valves won't hold

> steam all the way off, but that's OK. As long as

> the radiator condenses what it does get, and the

> last section doesn't get steam hot, you'll be OK.

> The room will use that heat, anyway. It's

> temporary. Leave off whatever it takes to keep

> the returns from having steam in them. For

> temporary heat, crack open radiator valves to

> allow half the radiator to get hot, but NOT THE

> TRAP!!!! Fix the crossover traps and the F&T

> traps on the mains. Get your vent to be cool

> while the system runs.

>

> Now make a list of the

> traps on radiators that are shut off. These are

> what you need to replace. Leave the radiators

> with bad traps off in the meantime, or mostly

> off, to save the remainder of the working traps.

> Budget your replacement costs, but remember that

> more will fail as time passes. It will often be

> fewer than expected, though.

>

> Now that the

> system is tame, and half shut off, the boiler

> waterline will be pretty wild, due to overfiring.

> Get the traps fixed to get the load back on the

> boiler, and troubleshoot from there. Have a very

> clean system with clean water. This is a whole

> different subject, but very important.

>

> If the

> system floods after it runs, or if it runs out of

> water and shuts off, suspect plugged returns that

> are below the water line. Don't waste any time on

> them, replace them. Pipe them so that you can

> remove an air vent and flush them with a hose to

> a drain valve that you put in at the boiler end.

> Use mud legs to collect debris.

>

> Once you get

> an intimate knowledge of the system, a loving pat

> on the air vent while it's running will tell you

> if you need to check your traps again. It should

> run at virtually the same temperature all of the

> time, a little hotter in very cold weather.

>

> If

> you want real economy, buy a vaporstat that

> operates from 0-1 PSI, and is graduated in

> ounces. Install it at the boiler, or even better,

> at the end of the steam supply main. Wire it to

> break one leg of the thermostat wire through it,

> and leave the pressuretrol as is, as a high

> limit. Set the vaporstat as low as you can and

> still heat every radiator.

>

> All of this would

> be done with the service person AND the weekly

> operator. The more involved with the system that

> the operator becomes, the more known and less

> costly will be the maintenance plan.

>

> Along the

> way, you'll both learn the system. You'll find

> that return that's ALWAYS hot, no matter what.

> It'll drive you nuts, looking for the cause.

> Eventually, you'll find the crossover trap in the

> wall at the end of the main in the finished

> basement. It'll be behind a wall hung

> radiator.

>

>

>

> You'll find the F&T trap that

> works, but it has a 3/4" bypass around it with a

> very painted plug cock in it; wide open.

>

> You

> search the building and find two more. Guy's have

> been rebuilding these traps for 90 years, yet the

> bypasses never were closed. Originally, this

> system made heat and electricity by coal, the

> bypasses are from those days.

>

> I want to close

> with a story. It is very relevant, and it was

> costly. It was a four-story residence, and the

> bottom floor was four feet in the ground. The

> returns ran around the bottom floor ceiling with

> the supplies, until they were pitched down to a

> point 30" above the floor, then the return split

> into a high and a low return back to the boiler

> room, the same on both ends of the building. The

> west end had steam in the front return, as a door

> on the ends of the building split the returns

> into a back and a front on each end of the

> building.

>

> This front, west return had steam

> in it near the boiler end, the low end. The rooms

> all had thermostatic radiator valves on the

> radiator inlets, so each had control. The front

> door entry was always cool, and the radiator

> always hot. The next room had his thermostat off,

> because his room was hot enough, and the trap was

> hot and the radiator burbled steam into it

> through this hot trap. The radiator would fill

> with condensate until the system satisfied, when

> everything would cool off and drain back to the

> boiler. He opened and closed his window for

> temperature control.

>

> The next room had the

> same hot trap and shut-off thermostat, but he was

> roasting. He NEVER closed the window. He went

> away every chance he got. One weekend when he was

> away, it was very cold. The whole weekend never

> saw above zero temperatures. The guy in the end

> room by the door called for no heat. Even with

> the valve open, no heat would come from the

> radiator. His walls were FREEZING. The hallway

> wall, the entryway wall, the outside wall, and

> the room next-door wall.

>

> The radiator was full

> of water. No steam could get in. Draining it by

> shutting off the boiler got the radiator to heat

> but the room didn't heat well.

>

> The wall to the

> next room was freezing. Uh - oh. In the

> maintenance guy went, to check on it. Everything

> was frozen. Bottles on the dresser had broken.

> The window was open. The radiator had exploded.

> He shut it off, shut the window, left the door

> open and went to call in some help. He was gone

> for a short while.

>

> The frozen and split 1"

> sprinkler had thawed out while he was gone. The

> whole time he was gone, a 1" sprinkler pipe

> filled the west half of this building. About 11

> people lived in the lower level, and they were

> displaced. The water was a few feet deep. Several

> people on the next level were also displaced to

> hotel rooms, until the building was

> renovated.

>

> The steam traps were repaired right

> away. The rooms were comfortable, after that.

> Noel

frank_25

a bit different

We counted over 1,400 rad traps in this 16 story building with runs as far as 400 ft lataral. There are 2-6" steam mains, split into 4-4",split into 10-2", split again into 20 risers there were 24 end of main traps spilling their guts while the return risers were steamin' also. There's no band-aid large enough to mend the patient. The job needs a phase II, Trap Replacement 101. The smaller buildings don't compair with the over-all cost to replace. [But that is not my problem here] The owners spent a lot of $$$ for new boilers, burners, coils, DHW boilers, H.E., ad infinitum. They don't seem to accept the potential damage here. Maybe they plan on turning it over before the next boiler replacement.