hartford loop

rix870

i am somewhat new to the trade,3years in.just wondering when you walk into a boiler room,how do you know if there is a hartford loop & what is it.thank you for any replies.

Brad White_120

Hartford Loop

A Hartford Loop is applicable principally to one-pipe steam systems and only those built during the late teens or early 1920's when the Hartford Insurance Company made it a practice. The function is to keep water in the boiler should the return line break or leak.

The loop is where the return to the boiler connects. The boiler supply main, after the takeoffs to the radiators, drops back down to the boiler return connection. This pipe is called the "equalizer".

The Hartford Loop occurs where the condensate coming back to the boiler (wet return low to the floor) then rises to a point two inches below the water line and ties in to the equalizer at that point.

A short search on this site under Heating Q&A or Steam Problems may have a picture to better illustrate.

EDIT: Could not find a photo or picture right away. A simplified diagram I had is offered for you.

mike jones_2

equalizer leading to the hartford loop

our plumber put in the new boiler without raising the old hartford loop.  the new water line is about 5 inches higher than the horizontal pipe at the top of the loop, do you think that would be why our vents on the radiators fill with water every few days? 



we have no banging, and 1/2 inch movement in gauge glass.  no pressure reading on our new 0-5 guage. thanks!

Unknown

WaterLine

Hi Mike-

   The design waterline  level (when the boiler not in operation) is determined by the boiler's manufacturer and will be listed in the I&O (Installation & Operation) manual.  Are you saying that the water level in the boiler is above this?

From your brief description I'm not quite sure what is happening. It could be several things.  It would really help if you could give us a bit more information. What is the Make and Model of your boiler? Do you have an automatic water feeder? If so, what is the make and model?

It would also help if you could  post some pictures of your boiler which shows the piping connected to it. (Shoot the pictures back a bit in high definition and we can then blow them up if we need details.) Is your system a 1 or 2 pipe system? (This is determined by whether there are one or two pipes connected to each radiator)

With that information we should be able to help you.

- Rod

Steamhead

Here is a picture

of a Hartford Loop we built, as part of a Burnham MegaSteam installation.



This is a good example as it shows the entire Loop configuration from the drip lines (dropping from dry returns in this case) to the point at which the return rises to enter the equalizer. We used a Y-fitting at that point, but a tee is also acceptable as long as the horizontal portion (coming out of the bull) is kept very short.



Mike, you probably have other issues causing wet steam, which makes the vents fill up like that.

mike jones_2

equalizer leading to the hartford loop

it is a smith 19a 3sections.  the water level is according to the specs, and it is 1 pipe steam. 



in the attached pic, the hartford loop is hidden by the stack by the bottom of the equalizer route.





we had a well regarded steam guy from the site do some work here last

year who said since the mains pitch down sightly to the wet returns 30

ft away at the end of each main the condensate from the rest of the

building should not get back to the boiler thru the header.





i do see  the equalizer piping having almost no

pitch from the header.  is it possible there would be condensate just in the beginning of the header.  there is no banging in

the pipes and the gauge glass only moves half inch



if the eq. pitch is the problem, i just want to also be sure that the horizontal nipple at the top of the h loop can be several inches below the water line, so that hopefully we don't need to have to have someone re-pipe the whole shebang.