At last! Or... not quite!

So...just did a lot of reading to find out what I missed. Looks like the tech did some fine pipework, but not what was needed. The level of the tees where the steam mains, and the dry return drip still connect above the water line (so steam could still back up into the dry return and shut down the venting) and the Hartford is still on the other side of the boiler with the equalizer. Am I missing anything?

It's true there's no syphon break, but why do people ignore that the boiler will drain itself even with a syphon break by … wait for it… creating steam that then gets delivered to the leaking return

I think its more the speed of the draining by syphonage (not sure if that's a word, but i like it damn it) that is the concern. Any leak will eventually end up with a dry boiler.

As we have talked about before @ethicalpaul, the Hartford loop is a proven technology from a time gone by. That design reduced the amount of boiler failures by the thousands. But that technology was for a boiler that did not have a LWCO or a pressure limit because there was nothing electrical to turn off. Hand fired boilers were blowing up at a rate of 2 boiler every 3 days in the 1880s and 90s. That little twist un the pipes stopped a lot of boilers from failing.

Does @markmarlatt need a proper Hartford loop? Will that technology ever save that particular boiler from a failure? Probably not. That boiler has a well maintained LWCO and pressure shut off switch on a well maintained pig tail. Just look at the photos of the inside of those pipes. Well maintained over the years.

If that technology is so obsolete, then why do the manufacturers still require if in the installation instructions? And try to get boiler insurance for a commercial steam boiler without one. It just ain't happening.

I say if your are going to do it at all, you may as well do it right! Or ,like your boiler install with two risers into a drop header. Way overkill in my opinion.

I'm not Paul but I'd have to ask what kind of boilers were exploding and stopped with the addition? Were these small residential systems or huge fire tube boilers etc. What other changes happened around the same time etc.

The small residential systems I've seen in person from the 1920s didn't have a Hartford loop or even a header. I have to think many do, but the ones I've seen didn't. I'm sure we've all seen plenty of snowmen with no header or anything on here as well.

Me? I read the book and do as it says and Ed is right, it needs to be piped per the book.
But it's good to question the book too.

Go here:

https://www.heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/explosion-reports-from-the-early-1930s/

Wow, that is some terrifying stuff!

You are right about the 500 comment thread, but when the topic comes up, it comes up. Has anyone ever seen a wet return "break"? In my short experience I've only seen them drip (including mine!)—that makes homeowners call a plumber or DIY it.

I agree fully about mains being tied together above the water line, that's no good.

Well the old tale says that thousands of boilers were exploding every year all over the place and so an insurance company had to swoop in and solve the problem. I don't think the root cause was forklifts, but I could be mistaken.

This insurance company mandated their solution (reportedly) in all homes in the US including mine so I am indeed trying to make sense of it in residential context.

@ethicalpaul asked:"Did anyone see in that document any cases where the Hartford Loop, or lack thereof, was involved? Most of these cases seem to involve hot water tanks."

As a matter of fact, Paul, I don’t believe there are any actual records of boiler failures avoided as a result of installing a Hartford Loop. That would be a 'non-event,' and I don’t believe there are records of 'non-events'—only records of actual events.

Now, you could research the number of events where the Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance Co. (HSB) paid for boiler failure claims in the years leading up to the requirement to have that piping arrangement, and compare it to the number of claims that occurred after the requirement was enforced. That would be the definitive answer to the question about the effectiveness of that piping arrangement.

The problem is that the only historical reporting of boiler failures prior to 1919 would be in local newspapers that reported a boiler explosion in a given location. You might need to look up several—or even hundreds of—newspapers in public library archives to find out how many boiler failures were documented before 1919. HSB does not have this information in a cataloged format prior to 1919. The Smithsonian does have HSB records from about the mid-1930s to the 1950s that can be researched.

Our host, Dan Holohan, has done a lot of this research, and I am willing to take his word for it. According to his statements in many a steam seminar, it appears that boiler explosions were reported (not if, but) by how many occurred in a given week in some large metropolitan cities—like baseball box scores. They were a way of life at the turn of the century, just like seeing the farm report, or the weather forecast for tomorrow, or which horse and buggy ended up in a collision with one of these new-fangled horseless carriage things. The news of the day always included the number of boiler explosions that were going on in the places we lived.

That's why we need boiler insurance!

I asked AI if there were any documentation for these statics on this before and after 1919 and there are none that are easily accessible. And since you like this stuff Paul, I think that it would be a great project for your next video to see if you can take a field trip to Hartford and go thru the pre 1919 boiler failure archives and start to document and catalogue your findings and have them published. Perhaps your findings will help us abolish the need for the Hartford Loop on all future Steam Boilers in residences with 10 radiators or less. Especially if they have glass pipes

Any of those are fine. As long as you don't reduce it in the horizontal in such a way that it can trap water(and in an equalizer even that is less important) you can do it whatever way works out best.

As a matter of fact, I replaced one in a church in October that had a catastrophic break in a wet return. The boiler had been decommissioned before I was brought in so I had no idea what had gone wrong. Replaced boiler, put on an auto feed with a counter. Left for about 14 hrs after firing and the boiler had filled 128 gallons. After opening the cement around the only wet return that went under ground, we found about a 2" section of 1 1/2 steel just missing. It had rotted away, probably at least a year prior. There was a sump pump pit about 2 feet away and about 16 inches lower in elevation that they told me later had been running nonstop the prior heating season. Without a counter, without a Hartford loop, and a stuck m&m 67, that would have become cherry red. I've also seen some substantial rot outs when the underground return isnt wrapped or at a minimum painted to protect it from the cement.

I think the difference here is not so much how fast the boiler empties, but who gets the blame. When a professional installs something for a consumer and doesnt take as many precautions as possible to prevent a catastrophe, and a catastrophe occurs, guess who gets the blame. If you are a homeowner who DIY'S your steam, its ok, do what you want...I dont think you can file suit against yourself even in NJ. I bet your wife could though. You are right that water will eventually leave through a leak in one direction or the other, but im pretty sure the Hartford Boiler Insurance company knew that then, and knows that now. Im also aware of the order of the invention of safeties and controls, but when you are (as a professional) called out to homes and businesses during the heating season who have no heat and frozen pipes, and you need to get them fired up as quickly as possible, you still dont skip installing a Hartford Loop because wet return leak will eventually dry out a boiler through boiling and condensating.

The Hartford Loop plus LWCO plus one of these water alarms is pretty foolproof imo, although it would be better if it were powered by an AC/DC power supply instead of 9V battery.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Basement-Watchdog-Battery-Operated-Water-Alarm-Sump-Accessory-BWD-HWA/100038838#see-more-details

That water leak detector I mentioned can have the sensor placed at the low part of the floor by the wet return and the actual alarm unit can be placed up in the living space where anybody who isn't totally deaf will hear the 110dB alarm. I have one in my sump pump sump, one in my water heater pan, and one by my wet return.

Obviously someone has to be there since it doesn't have the ability to shut down the boiler automatically and obviously you cannot "neglect" the boiler.

I've seen a few cast iron boilers with Hartford Loops run out of water and continue to fire. Until dry. And hot. They cracked and once cooled they leaked. I've been in cellars that only got visited once a year, by me. There's no accounting for neglect.

In the late 1970's I was living on the first floor of a 2 family house. One day I noticed a "hot" smell in the kitchen that seemed strong in the back hall and stronger still when I opened the door to the cellar stairs. I went down cellar and saw a glow on the back of the boiler for the second floor. I went around and killed the power to the boiler and moved everything close to the boiler away from it to be safe. I realized feeding cold water into a glowing boiler was not safe.

These were old Delco D4 steam boilers with hot water coils from the 40's, no Hartford loop and no LWCO. I called the landlords daughter and told them what I found and that they should have the boiler checked before trying to use it. That boiler was replaced with a Burnham V74 a week later.

Bob