Covector Install on 2 pipe steam sysytem

Ken_40

as well as an option you might consider:

Commercial fin-tube is made of inch-and-a-quarter sched 40 steel pipe. Is nicer and more heat "permeating" than a fan/coil type unit and requires no wiring. Condensate temps are close to steam temps and the output may be adequate for the task you ponder.

By removing a section of the wet return and substituting it with fin-tube with (or without a cabinet) may be an option?

Your idea would work easily, if the system never goes above half a pound, which would keep dimension 'A' almost irrelevant?

Randy_25

Steam condenstate question?

I am working on a two pipe system with convectors,no traps, condenstate drips into the wet returns. The boiler have been replaced,near boiler piping is correct to manf. specs. All of the wet return piping has been replaced, boiler has been cleaned, proper ph, not foaming.also not overfired. The mains have been insulated.When repiping the return I notice that a convector had been removed for a sun porch that was added. I have done the math on the mains,wet returns, EDR size of all convectors, and found that the boiler is oversized. The system heats fine but does short cycle. The above convector that was removed was on the 1st floor. The customer would like to have some heat in his basement. I was thinking of a steam unit heater on the line of a small Modine, but height would play a factor in that. I was thing of mounting a convector on the basement wall between the steam main and return. If mounted this way there would be a trap on the steam pipe at the convector, which would trap condenstate in the off cycle, and would create water hammer when the steam would hit this slug of water in the on cycle. I was thinking of installing a tee at the supply side of the convector, and installing a trap then pipe the trap to the wet return, so that in the off cycle the water that would be there would drain into the return and when the staem would hit the trap it would close. And the return off the convector would be piped to drip in the wet return. Has anyone done this before and do you think this would work? I am talking a convector size of 37 EDR. Also all piping and boiler will handle this extra load. This is the same size convector that was removed. Feedback please

Christian Egli_2

Working wonders with steam

For lower level heating, all kinds of options work great with steam. One great one is simple fin tubes on the ceiling work great, they give off tons of noticeable and enjoyable warm radiation you can feel all the way down to your toes. Flat radiators stuck to the ceiling work the same wonderful way.

Another great way that works very advantageously and very simply with steam is to use convectors - just what you’re suggesting. Hot water convectors fall in the same group, but since they use rather cold operating water, there isn’t much hot air buoyancy to make things move on their own. Hot water convectors probably work best with forced electric fans while steam fed convectors can easily roll all on their own.

In your lower level heating plan with a steam convector placed half way up the wall, and if it is one of the cabinet enclosed coil, I would perhaps include an extended riser air duct that sinks to the floor so that cold floor level air may be sucked up and spewed out at the top.

The concern about dripping the down feed steam supply to this unit is very important, good for you to realize that - there are so many installs where this care is simply ignored... and while this doesn’t often create too many catastrophic problems. I, like you, highly prefer worrying about this dripping aspect of things.

Beyond doing nothing, here are options to handle your case.

You have a wet return down by the floor, thus, simply extending the steam down feed line to this wet return will do the trick - no traps needed, in fact, here a trap would be annoying (I believe from your post that your system has returns that are similar to those of one pipe systems, you have no radiator traps, but you have air vents on the radiators and you need to worry about A dimensions, like Ken says; if I’m wrong, correct me and do use a pressure stopping trap and worry about B dimensions)

Another option if a drip to the return is not convenient near the steam supply, is to use a thermostatic trap piped in parallel and level with the radiator valve and simply pour tramp condensate straight into the radiator body while stopping any steam. Warren Webster used to have such arrangement all built in within a neat valve assembly. This is super super simple, but you need a thermostatic trap.

Other solutions involve pumps, and those are much less seductive.

One last option that works, but adds the danger of prioritizing the basement over the steamy upstairs, is to draw boiler water into a hot water loop that stays downstairs.

But isn’t it nice and wild at the same time how you can sever and add pipes into a live steam system without the burdensome worries of purging any water (and air later) from the system?

I marvel.

Steamhead (in transit)

Convectors and no traps?

Sounds like a Trane Orifice Vapor system! Have you found any names on the convectors?

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