proper pitch

Christian Egli

You could also lower the other end of the return to find more pitch. Can you shorten some vertical nipples on the 3/4 lines?. As you said, low slope is way better than a condensate pond.

It seems you are wanting to fix the sagging in your pipes. Adding more pitch should work but you may need to add a lot. Why not try propping up the pipes where they sag. Add some pipe hangers and adjust them until the returns are straight and slopped downwards everywhere.

In your returns you can drip any pocket you want. Worry about where the water flowes and also worry about where the air goes. You can link your dry returns anyway you want, no water seal or trap needed, and to a wet return providing the wet return won't flood the dry return. Seals and traps are for stopping live steam, and there is none in returns (and when there is you need to hunt down your faulty trap)

John Shea

having a hard time finding it in the Lost Art..

anyone know offhand the proper pitch for dry return mains in a two-pipe gravity system? Is it 1" in 20ft.?

Steamhead

Yes

that will work fine.

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John Shea

OK, new problems.

I'm attempting to correct the pitch in some return piping. There's an 8' stretch of 1 1/4" return main that needs to come up 1 1/2" on one end for a proper pitch.

However, there are two 3/4" return runouts (from radiators) attached at this point. They would obviously be affected by this 'raising' but I'm wondering if I've got enough room to play in these two? Right now they're both about 15' long with a 3 5/8" pitch in both. Raising the end of that pipe would give me about 2 1/8" pitch in 15' (the equivalent of about 1 1/2" in 10'). Is that enough for those 3/4" return pipes?

I'm thinking that even though I'm cutting the flow down in those runouts a little, it's GOT to work better that the water seal (literally) in that main. I'm hoping this helps with a higher than desired NWL as well.

On another note (different return), is it feasible to pipe a 'drip' from a sagging dry return directly into a wet return at the lowest point?

Your thoughts are appreciated.