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No Hammer?

HowardLong
HowardLong Member Posts: 14
edited October 23 in Strictly Steam

I was recently working on a 1.4 million btu 2 pipe steam system. We went through all the crawl spaces and made sure that we had all of the main traps fixed and we had to replace radiator traps as well. We had a total of five broken traps on the system. I know steam was getting back into the return because the condensate tank was getting to 210 and started to put out Steam into the condensate pump.

Now that's all fixed. But I wonder how there wasn't any hammer in the system with this steam in the return? Never when it ran did we ever hear anything. We did hear gurgling into the condensate tank, which I believe was steam and air. What gives?

Comments

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 14,599

    you have to have steam colliding with a significant amount of water to get water hammer. if you don't have standing water or the air can't get out of where the standing water is so the steam can't get in, you won't get water hammer.

  • 109A_5
    109A_5 Member Posts: 3,042

    If it all works correctly now, the pipe pitch is probably all good.

    National - U.S. Gas Boiler 45+ Years Old
    Steam 300 SQ. FT. - EDR 347
    One Pipe System
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 18,828

    The steam was probably blowing out the condensate vent pipe and since it didn't meet any water it didn't hammer.

  • HowardLong
    HowardLong Member Posts: 14
    NoHammer.jpg

    Ok, so the steam was able to permeate through the water because it wasn't in a partially filled horizontal run? This is what the setup looks like.

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 14,599
    edited October 23

    Steam is unlikely to be able to get down here because there is no place for the air to get out.

    image.png

    The only way steam could get through there would be if it was at over 2.5' wc relative to the vessel on the left and could push the water out of it. This also brings up questions about how your mains vent since they aren't venting through that water.

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