The Force Is With Us, and We Hope Ron Jr. Would Approve

Steamhead · May 2016

For those who aren't familiar, Ron Jr. used to post a lot of installs here on the Wall. He was the king of getting boilers into very tight spaces. We haven't heard from Ron in a while, hope he's doing well.

This install was one of the tightest we've had to do. It was in a frat house near Johns Hopkins University. The old boiler was an older Weil-McLain EG with a horribly piped 2-inch copper header which, as often happens, had started to leak at the solder joints. And it had been installed so the controls were jammed up against the wall- not much we could do about that except to replace it with one that fit better.

The new boiler is one of the Force boiler line that Ferguson introduced recently. It's basically a rebadged Crown, in this case a BSI. In the 7-section version used here, they specify two 2-inch risers, a 3-inch header and a 1-1/2" equalizer. We squeezed the 2 risers in by offsetting one, and snaked the equalizer under the header to keep the passage as clear as possible to the right of the boiler. To minimize the pressure drop in all those extra fittings, we ran that portion in 2" pipe.

The last two pics are the main vents. This system has one very long main and one short one. We mounted a Gorton #2 above the drop ceiling on the long main, and balanced the short one out with a Gorton #5.

Edit- for some reason the board won't display the File Attachment dialog. And I thought technology was supposed to make things easier...................

Edit again- attachments working now, but how do we make these things display right side up?

Paul S_3 · May 2016

Great job!! @Steamhead ....if your using your phone to take the pics ....i find that i have to take the picture with my phone horizontal to get the pic to post the correct way

Steamhead · May 2016

No, I use a real camera- Fujifilm X30. Phone pictures don't look as good- OK, it's just posting on the Net, but I want to get the best source material I can.

lchmb · May 2016

lchmb · May 2016

saved the image..went to it and edited it. Used the rotate feature in the program..and yes..I'm sure Ron Jr would be proud..LOL

David Sutton_6 · May 2016

Looking good buddy !!

EzzyT · May 2016

Frank Beautiful work as always

Steamhead · May 2016

lchmb said:
saved the image..went to it and edited it. Used the rotate feature in the program..and yes..I'm sure Ron Jr would be proud..LOL

What program did you use? I tried it in Paint and it looked fine, but when I attached it it reverted to landscape mode.........

gerry gill · May 2016

Nice job of squeezing that guy into a sardine can Frank!

Gordo · May 2016

In order to get this boiler through the boiler room door, all of the "ginger bread" (controls, etc) on that side had to be removed.

Just as well, as this allowed us an easier time to install a straight pigtail on a 3/4" tee and nipple, and to re-install the pressure control with a 1/4" brass tee to allow the gauge to be mounted for quick removal to check for pigtail blockage.

Normally, the gauge supplied is mounded on a 1/2" by 1/4" bushing that is threaded in a 1/2" tapping very near the normal water level, where it can fail sooner. We plugged off that tapping.

As it comes from the factory, the pressure control is threaded onto a 1/4" angle pigtail, and that in turn is threaded into a 3/4" by 1/4" bushing, which is threaded into a 3/4" tapping in the boiler.

This meant that if the pigtail had needed testing or the pressure control had needed replacement, the sightglass and fittings, as well as the LWCO control and probe, would have had to have been removed first... after draining the boiler!

We also re-positioned the gas control valve with a 90 and a union so it did not stick out in the access space. The safety relief valve was put up on a short stalk to put it within wrench range.

There is, on this boiler, a barely adequate 1-1/4" skim tapping. In this installation, it is on the "wrong" side, so we came out with a 1-1/4" 90 and two nipples and a cap to bring it out from the wall for use. We left about 3-1/2" between the boiler and the wall on the left side. The boiler drain is also supposed to be on that side, but that was a no-go, so we it added to the return tee for servicing.

Steamhead · May 2016

It's hard to see that boiler drain though, I couldn't get a good angle. The tee coming out of the boiler is a 2x1-1/2" with a plug in the run and the bull pointing down. A 1-1/2" tee is installed below the bull of the first tee, with the equalizer coming into the bull and the boiler drain in the other end of the run. This way, the boiler drain doesn't stick out but is still easy to access, and if anything plugs up we can clean it out easily.

Thanks all for the kind words!

lchmb · May 2016

I just saved it to photo's on my computer..(windows 10) and used the edit function on it. nice job btw..love to see you guys work on steam...

Danny Scully · May 2016

@Steamhead, as a member of a fraternal organization, I can tell you that we prefer the term "fraternity", not "frat". So, it was in a fraternity house near Johns Hopkins...

Steamhead · May 2016

In Baltimore, there are a bunch of different names for these places............

The Force Is With Us, and We Hope Ron Jr. Would Approve

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