Thee Olde Spencer has retired (Gordo & Steamhead)

Constantin

The size difference between the old mains and the new supply and return piping is a sight to behold! Little twigs attached to big burly arms!

The Smart IDWH is also going to keep the folk there very happy.

I presume your choice of gate valves was to balance the heat flow in the house? That is one massive air strainer... or does it strain out debris too?

Now if I understand the system correctly... this is like an injection mixing system where the boiler has its loop, which then feeds the gravity loop on a selective basis?

For fear of sounding like a broken record, are the IDWH mains going to get insulated? I'd consider that, along with the main boiler loop, since those will be the hottest areas.

Another fantastic stand-out job. I'm sure the owners of that home will not only be grateful for the great job you did replacing the overdue boiler, but also for the savings that will accumulate every year... plus, what to do with all the extra space?

Steamhead (in transit)

This is the boiler I wrote about

in the article "A Hot-Water Stumper" in Hot Tech Topics- a 1925 Spencer #2-5 magazine-feed boiler. After 81 years, a lousy gravity-to-forced circulation conversion that I had to rework, and an even worse flame-retention burner upgrade that didn't include a proper firebox, it was finally replaced.

The lady who owned the house at the time of the article sold it to a former tenant, and we almost lost it to a heat-pump pusher. I somehow managed to get them to delay tearing the rads and boiler out until they experienced the heat pumps, which couldn't keep the house above 60 degrees in a real cold winter. So we restored the hot-water system and it ran a few more years. The house was changed from a 2-family to a single-family and is in better shape than it's been in a long time.

The owners decided to replace the boiler this year. Getting that old split-section Spencer out was a daunting task, so we turned to ARC Construction Services again. They also did the asbestos.

Here are a few views of the boiler after it was stripped. Note how everything is manifolded together.

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Steamhead (in transit)

We also had the chimney relined

this chimney had an old Kernerator incinerator sharing the flue with the boiler! Here, the Spencer is gone and the new installation is about to begin. Look at all that space!

Ace of Diamonds Chimney Sweeps handled the relining.

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Steamhead (in transit)

The new Solaia SL7175 and Phase 3 Smart-50

installed, as is usual for us now, in a primary-secondary configuration. This house has five bathrooms and two (for now) future teenagers, and the Smart-50 should be able to keep up without breaking a sweat.

This was also our first installation using the new Beckett NX burner. This application uses a 45-degree nozzle which meant we had to tweak the electrodes a bit to avoid delayed ignition, but it runs nicely now.

We found the return ell on the left side (which dated to the forced-circulation conversion) was cross-threaded, and had been lampwicked and epoxied to stop the leaks. Oh, and it was 3-1/2-inch pipe! Fortunately, my partner Gordon had found and bought a brand-new old-stock 3-1/2-inch thread-chasing die some time ago. So he cleaned the threads, and the new reducer screwed right on and didn't leak. Who could ask for a better partner?

Total BTU/hour input with the old equipment was 390,000- that's 350,000 with the old burner firing at 2.5 GPH, plus 40,000 for the water heater. The Solaia, sized to the heat loss, fires at 1.75 GPH which equals 245,000 BTU/hour. That's a reduction of about a third.

And we now have plenty of space to work on the system!

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gerry gill

very nice looking job guys !

as always..bet they will save big bucks now also..

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Steamhead (in transit)

We happened to have

a bunch of 1-1/4-inch Stockham gate valves in stock, and this was as good a place to use them as any. They're for isolation only, the piping configuration equalizes the flow.

Same with the B&G clone of the Spirovent. We had a few in stock. We really are impressed with their performance.

Pri-Sec is the opposite of injection, since the primary loop (boiler loop on this one) is a full circle and the zones branch off that. In injection, the zone loops are full circles with their own circs also and the injection circs transfer water between the two.

On this one, the controls are pretty basic. When one of the zones calls, a relay starts the zone circ and also calls the boiler. The boiler circ starts as the aquastat relay pulls in, which also starts the burner via the high-limit. If the owner so desires, we could always switch to outdoor reset later.

We've recommended insulation to the owner, both for the indirect lines and heating mains. He's pretty handy and might do that himself.

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Paul Fredricks_3

Looks great...

But I can just hear the comment, "How can that small thing heat this house?"

Steamhead (in transit)

We tell them

that we have the heat-loss calc numbers to prove it!

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Robert O'Connor_12

Tank

Is the tank still in the attic, and is the system still open?



Robert O'Connor/NJ

DanHolohan

Even better than as promised!

Thanks, Steamhead.

Steamhead (in transit)

No

there are three ET-60 diaphragm tanks on the other side of the wall where the indirect is. These were installed when the Spencer was still there and I didn't have much room to put them in the boiler room. Because they were only a few years old, we did not replace them. If you look closely you can see where a 1/2" copper line tees off under the main air vent, takes a couple of turns and disappears to the left. That's the tank line.

The original open tank is still up in the attic though, long since disconnected.

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Robert O'Connor_12

I see it.

Good job!


Robert O'Connor/NJ

David Sutton_6

Gordo and Frank very nice !!

I like the pri-sec piping, neat and will save a bundle on the fuel uses!


David

kevin coppinger_4

Steamhead...

Nice work...curious as to what your return water temps will be like... W/ such a huge mass system and and such a low mass boiler other than the primary secondary set up what is done to protect the boiler and flue from condencing on cold start up? any idea what you see for water temps going and coming and in the primary loop? Is the water heater on priority? kpc

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Steamhead (in transit)

According to the Solaia reps

if the boiler is piped primary-secondary, that is enough to protect this type of boiler from thermal shock/flue gas condensation. Their p-s diagram shows the boiler in the primary loop rather than on its own secondary loop, so we do it their way.

On this job, the primary circ and the heating zone circ are both Taco 0010. Since the latter pumps thru a flow-check, its throughput is less than the flow in the primary loop. This insures that some warm primary flow will always bypass the heating zone tees and go back into the boiler.

I haven't shot the pipes with an infrared thermometer, but agree that would be interesting.

The indirect is not on priority right now, but could be set that way if the need arises. So far, on this type of installation we haven't had to use the priority mode. The indirect loop gets the hottest water coming from the boiler since it is connected to the primary loop before the heating loop.

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