Older Weil McLain boiler; fire box corrosion

Greetings.
There have been no updates in a while because there have been few events.

To continue our serial, at last post, I had received a proposal from Big Company, informally accepted it, and suggested modifications to the proposal, such as: a pre-assembled & tested boiler rather than the knockdown they proposed; a smaller boiler size, and drop headers, according to the mage right from the Burnham manual. These were accepted, equally informally. Since then I've heard nothing substantive, wrote a reminder email a week ago, was told to expect a call last Wednesday, and nada.

This is not a confidence builder for Big Company. However, I may still go with them. I'm waiting for mid-week to talk to them and meanwhile give the solo guy a chance.

Solo Contractor actually got back to me after a couple silent weeks, and it was an interesting interaction. We will meet again two days from now, when he wants to settle the details. My biggest problem with him is that he wanted to start working some time in October, when it can be quite cold already. That is not going to happen.

On the good side, he is detail-oriented. When I told him I'd removed the copper piping, he immediately asked, did I get the 2-1/4" reducer out of the 2-1/2" elbow? I told him no, and he said "I'll have to split-cut it, no problem." Then he sent me a hand drawing of the near-boiler piping, again indicating he'd paid attention… for instance, I wanted the vent moved, and he incorporated that. I'll attach the drawing below, at the risk of using someone else's work product. I figure I owe him a some $$ for all the work he's put in even if I go a different route. I learned a few things from the man.

I will insist on swing joints, though, and on an early-September start date.

-Matt

Learned Friends:

There's been progress. Thanks to all who responded,and especially to @ethicalpaul — we spoke on the phone last week. The man is generous with his time and knowledge.

I'll give an update and then ask a general piping/physics question in the next post, because it's a basic question that might help someone else down the road.

I had three contractors give estimates; two of them knew what they were doing, and I was all set to go with the representative from a large local company — but he dropped off the face of the earth for a week, and when I got in touch again, I was promised a phone call, followed by another week of silence. I figured I'd take the hint.

The problem with the second knowledgeable gentleman was speed; at the first visit a month ago he was talking about October to start work, and when he came on Wednesday with a finished proposal, I figured there was no chance now. Sure enough, he reckoned that if he ordered a boiler immediately, we'd have it in four weeks — "probably."

So then I laid out what my thinking, namely that I don't like to push the job any later than it has to be, that I'm capable of doing it myself but not efficiently, and that I would much rather have him do the work and gladly pay for it.

And since I could have a boiler in my driveway within a week, would he be willing to help under those conditions? The concern being time, not a desire to cut into his fee. At that point, we started understanding each other, and we got things rolling:

(i) I ordered a Peerless 63-03 (rated for 308 squ. ft) ordered from supplyhouse, that day. Suggested delivery anywhere from tomorrow to Monday, Aug 26.

(ii) We agreed that I'd get the piping kit as supplied by Peerless — see time image three posts up. Ordered the same day from Oswald — the recommendations here on the forum made me feel OK about them — and the pipes showed up yesterday.

(iii) He then called another solo guy for help with the heavy lifting — they routinely help each other — and we set the start of the job for Aug 27 — the Tuesday before Labor Day. I can work with that.

Best of all, I think he finally understood my mindset, AND I stay in control and worst case, have the material to finish the job.

Below is a sketch of what the piping will look like. One thing that his professional eye caught, that wasn't even on my radar: The 2-1/2 inch main goes into a 90-degree elbow, which goes into a reducer, which was where the copper piping had been attached. We talked about cutting the reducer out, but then we looked more closely and realized that the elbow was a 2-1/2 to 3-inch adaptor in itself.. and the reducer just brought it to the desired 2-/12 inches. And to think I'd almost started cutting… It's not easy to see, and the idea had not occurred to me. One of those differences between professionals and amateurs.

Here's the sketch, with the orange line indicating where we go from the two-inch tee straight up to the two-and-a-half-inch main. HOW exactly to do that I will ask in the next post.

Secondly, I'd like to replace the elbow after the swing joint with a tee + short nipple + cap, with the idea of having the option of going to a second riser. There's basic question there, too. Read on.

-Matt

Yes the main is 2-7/8" outer diameter.

The Venturi effect is the opposite of my situation; it's when the passage narrows and the gas speeds up, like in a carburetor. The speed-up causes a pressure decrease, counterintuitively. By that principle, the pressure in the main should increase where it widens to 2-1/2 inches, which is incompatible with gas flow, of course.

In reality, the slight overpressure from the boiler will force the gas outward so long as there is proper venting, and wherever steam condenses, the resulting pressure drop will move the gas along nicely.

Paul, I'm inclined to agree with you that the second riser is unnecessary.. but in your video with the raised water level and one riser valved off, there there is some water splashing up. My water level will be three inches lower, but keep in mind my boiler has 20% more input power.

A second riser will help and won't hurt and won't cost a lot.

Another Saturday, another update.
Much has happened.

Wednesday before last, I came to a tentative agreement with my contractor and made a down payment.
Early this week, he sent me his proposal, and it turned out we had a leetle misunderstanding; what I thought was the price for the job turned out to the 70% up-front fee.

I don't haggle with craftsmen about their livelihood, but at the same time, this went over my pain threshold for a job I think™ I can do in a week or so. So told him I'd do the job myself, thanked him for the conversations we'd had, and told him to keep the down payment as a well-earned "consultation fee."

Before I did that, I'd called the City inspector — you can't fight City Hall — and made sure there wouldn't be hard pushback from him. He turned out to quite reasonable, another devoté of the Dan Hollohan's books, and he pointed out some pitfalls and requirements (backflow preventer, modern AGW valves, etc.)

To my suprise, my contractor called me to talk things over and said to "call me if you run into trouble." Apparently he liked that I recognized his contributions so far, and he also knew how much worked I'd put in so far. Truly a nice guy.

Next I made an effort to get the old main vent out. It's been there since '29 and it wasn't fun, but I got it out by levering my wrench against the main with a crow bar. Here it is.. prettiest thing you ever did see in a basement — now I have clean surfaces to work against. It's close to the elbow but you can't have everything…

My boiler will finally ship "Monday; Tuesday latest."
OK then. I was scheduled to ride a bicycle tour from Lansing to the Mackinac Bridge, like we do every Labor Day (google DALMAC if you're into that sort of thing; big fun). But I guess I'll do part of it. Shipping a 450-lb boiler is not like shipping some fittings, apparently.

Meanwhile, the piping arrived a week ago already, and it looks OK.
To be continued…

-Matt

And finally, there are some things I can't get locally, so I'm thinking Supplyhouse.com. There's the 2-1/2 inch nipples etc. I need to tap into the main, and of course the main vent — which Hoffman # should I use?

I assume a "vacuum vent" is a vent that'll let air back in even when the vent is still hot? I guess I need to read more, but it's time to order stuff.

And finally, since the factory piping kit only uses one riser — the other one doesn't even have an opening in the jacket! — is the unused riser capped from the factory? If it isn't, I need to buy a 3"-to-2" bushing, a short nipple, and a cap. Yes?

I'm also considering putting a 2" ball valve into the line up to the main, for leak checking and blow-down purposes.. they're all brass, do I need to worry about galvanic corrosion?

So many questions.
Many thanks as always!

-Matt

» how long are your steam mains?

One square loop around the basement; about 80 ft total.

Learned Friends:

Now we are cooking boiling with gas.
Boiler delivery will be Friday around noon.
That messes with my weekend plans, but so be it. I have an annual bike ride from Lansing to the Mackinac Bridge but I'll cut it short at two days.

Here's how my boiler looks like when it's on the truck — unless some of that stuff gets removed:

I'll have to liberate it from it's packaging — unlike @ethicalpaul, I don't have outside access to my basement, I'll have to go through 22" wide doors and up and down stairs. So I'll be using one of these things, which I just reserved for Friday; a powered stair-climbing dolly.

A potential problem may be that I can't get the cast-iron foot of the boiler onto the bottom support — see the picture below for an illustration.

If that happens, I'll have to take all the cladding off, which I'd rather avoid. We'll see. I'm abusing one of Paul's pictures to show the concern. Also the circled bolts gave ma an idea: I bought 3" hard-rubber swivel casters and will put the boiler on wheels once it's in the basement. I can then position it horizontally to tie in to the main, and then use bricks or pavers or even pieces of steel to fine tune the vertical position — after I take the wheels off — to get the main tilted just the right amount. That means I won't need to cut a nipple to size, I just have to pick the proper length + the proper spacers. Generally, I think I want my boiler sitting low and level. More height to the main is a good thing.

Anyway, that's the plan. Let's see if it survives contact with the enemy.

-Matt

» Or maybe the jacket has to come off.

On the OLD boiler, the jacket of course did have to come off, which was straightforward enough except the electrical connections had to be cut to allow some of the controls to be twisted out.

Someone please tell me that won't be necessary on a newly delivered Peerless?

I've looked at @ethicalpaul 's pictures and can't tell the extent of the mayhem that would have to be conducted.

I do get @JUGHNE 's argument about "the experience of what's under the jacket" and the transport will definitely be easier — but I'm worried about opening a can of worms.

-Matt

To make it findable for future users, I will continue this discussion here:

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/197722/diy-boiler-installation-peerless-63-03