Near boiler piping

In direct answer to 1 — if it's working fine, don't fix it. I can't say that I've ever seen that particular configuration, but… thinking about it it actually might work remarkably well. Leave it alone.

Your sketch acually isn't as good. If you were to do something like that, the equalizer should take off from one end of the dropped section. The sequence of piping across the dropped section should be riser, riser, main takeoff, equalizer.

It would make his life much easier if you brought the right side riser over to the left and entered the header relatively close to the left side riser. This also provides much more time for the steam to drop water than would otherwise be available if the right side entered per the sketch. He could then keep the equalizer in relatively the same position as it is currently.

But, as stated, it's not worth all that work if it operates properly.

Since the risers and main takeoff are generally in the same plane, and the risers are quite tall, you don't need to resort to a drop header. What you have shown in #3 will work quite nicely HOWEVER, you MUST ensure that the header is pitched down to the LEFT, the piping going rearward toward the main is pitched DOWN, and the crossover pipe that is attached to the main is pitched DOWN toward the equalizer. If you screw this up, any water that accumulates in the header and the crossover pipe below the main will NOT make it to the equalizer………..which is where you want it!

What you have here is a well designed use of a cross tee. Both risers are tall, the ells provide a swing joint to handle movement. The only thing I would have done different is make the cross tee the size of the riser above it and bush down to the lower three connections. But since this connection may have been oversized it works. I donot like to bull head opposing flows together but it works. But like some have said, if it works. How can you argue against it? AS long as all three return drops are attached to the same Hartford loop its good. I see no worries with header condensate returning to boiler either way.

I bet it works fairly well. Two tall risers, separates the water from the steam and slows the velocity down, at the cross the steam goes up to the lower pressure and any water gravity takes it down into the equalizer. Not typical by the book method, but I bet it works well enough to not mess with it.

You've done a good job. Getting a steam boiler to perform properly is a series of incremental steps. Sometimes one step impacts the next. It's a slow process.

A sight glass on the equalizer will tell you nothing about how much is carried upwards into the mains. It will only tell you that a certain percentage (maybe even 95%) of the water is NOT going up into the mains. Worthless.

it won’t necessarily tell you because the water could be going up to the mains and not down your equalizer (trust me, it happens)

Put the glasses here if you really want to see how dry your steam is. Installers should be doing that instead of using two pipe sizes bigger than directed by the manufacturer, then they’d see they are wasting customers’ money, but I digress

Even easier you can put a glass on the vertical drop at the end of your main to see if boiler water is exiting the main.

But really you can tell by watching the normal gauge glass for a sudden drop instead.

I think it is rather typical that no water would appear at those locations, provided the correct size pipe was used. My boiler never shows a drop of water even directly above the boiler where my sight glasses are. And I'm currently running my water level at 1/2" from the top of the gauge glass.

Sounds like you have a good handle on tackling several issues there. If your water level in your gauge glass doesn't dramatically drop during steaming I think you can safely assert that your system isn't surging, and to my mind, that is by far the most important thing.

Somebody chastised me for making assumptions today. 😀