Heating Help

Near boiler piping question

@ November 10, 2010 10:03 AM in Near boiler piping question

I have a customer who had another company install a gas/steam boiler approx 5 years ago and has had nothing but problems since. All the near boiler piping is incorrect, no equalizer, no header, only one riser. The manufacture calls for (2) 2" risers and a 3" header. The house has 2 1/2" supply piping. So the boiler is over-sized. Which would be the most correct? Make the header 3 and reduced to 2 1/2 supply or is that just a waste of 3" or do I just make the header 2 1/2".I'm just looking to make the best of a bad situation. Also is there any problems I can expect be doing it this way?

Stale air

@ March 29, 2010 2:09 PM in Hot Forced Air - stale air / dry mouth

I am with everyone in regards to their love of steam. That being said I feel forced air gets a bad wrap the same way steam gets a bad wrap and that's because of uninformed techs. Many service people screw up steam systems with improper piping and lack of knowledge about steam. The same goes for forced air. There are many things that can be done to achieve proper humidification and air quality. Unfortunately air to air heat exchangers and proper sized humidification and properly sized ducts are not the norm. Things like multi-staged with variable speed can go a long way to reach very comfortable indoor air. To answer your problems would take knowledge of what is currently in your house (photos would be of great help..the more the merrier). Many simple things usually can be done to help, like putting the humidifier on hot-water instead of cold, you can set blower setting differently. Insulating the ducts can in some situations be a big benefit. The humistat location may be wrong. The list can go on and on.The board here can be a great help, please don't get discouraged as there is surely a way to achieve the desired comfort to which you strive for.

Constant fresh water

@ March 10, 2010 4:54 PM in Constant fresh water

I have a church that called me with a boiler that is about 5 years old (one-pipe steam) Installed by others and shoe-horned into a pit, so piping the return was nearly impossible. Anyway the call was to repair a leak. To my suprise the return was spaying a stream of water a 1/2 inch in diameter 3 feet right to a floor drain. I thought it will be difficult to get wrenches in there but surely there's a way. I then asked him how long has it been leaking like this and he said 4 YEARS. He said they couldn't afford to repair it since it was just out of warranty from the installer and they said as long as the water is hitting the floor drain it's not harming anyone. Is there anything I should be recommending to help them out? I of course repaired the leak but I can't imagine the damage all the constant fresh water did.

Cast fitting

@ March 10, 2010 2:39 PM in Re-piping Job

Yes we try to always use cast fitting for steam. As I said earlier this was really a gift repair so I decided to use up some extra inventory. I don't understand your "bullhead" tee idea either if you could explain it further?

Re-piping Job

@ March 8, 2010 12:16 PM in Re-piping Job

My workers were too fast with the removal to show pictures of the old piping but it basically had no header at all. It came out in 2 inch across the top of the boiler and elbowed up into 3 inch. It had no equalizer at all on it and the pressure-trol was at 9 psi. You could feel the boiler shaking like a rocket ship ready for blast-off. The owners could only get a little heat if they cranked the stat up to 95 degrees. I asked the homeowner who installed it last year and she said she can't get a hold of him because he is in re-hab. I hope it's a new school Dan is running "Boiler piping re-hab" ; yes Dan you can use that lol.The customer was really hurting on the fiscal side so we did as much as she could afford(we went very low for her on this). We now at least have quiet heat at 67 degrees @ 1psi and no rocket ship ready for blast-off.

Wholesalers

@ March 5, 2010 11:30 AM in Wholesalers

Contractors hate homeowners????? This is what you take away from this discussion? To say that is completely unfair and nothing could be farther from the truth. Sites like this are here for the homeowners to get a wealth of knowledge for free because we care about our homeowners. As far as your auto parts reference. When you go to an auto parts store you can tell the counter-person I have a 2005 ford f150 and there computer can tell you every part in that truck, so in theory you can be sure the brakes your getting are the correct ones. Your heating "System" is a constant evolving thing being changed with the times. Just because you have model number for a Utica boiler doesn't tell me how it's piped or if it's a vapor system, 2 pipe system ect. So I think there is a difference between the 2 fields.

Vaporstat

@ March 4, 2010 11:02 AM in Wholesalers

You complain about the mark-up for the vaporstat and say that a 10%-30% mark-up is fair. Do you really think that covers the gas,insurance and service techs time to get the part ; and if he has it on his truck or inventory do you really feel he's covering all his overhead at 10-30%. There is also liability issues with selling to the public, I could see senerios where a customer comes in and explains what there looking for slightly wrong or just paints a bad picture to the counter-person and gets a wrong part with terrible consequences. Then the homeowners just going to point the finger at the couter-person because thats what they gave you. Our industry has so many parts, many of which can be used properly in many different scenerios but if used wrong can lead to very bad results. If I were a wholesaler I wouldn't want that on my head not to mention upsetting your biggest customers (contractors) along the way.

Ignitor

@ March 3, 2010 7:32 PM in frustration!

I'm assuming this is not a "smartvalve", if not make sure you check every molex plug. A drop of moisture can make trouble. Your probably right with the board replacement but I would check all neutral connections again just to make sure, it's seem unlikely to have a board and HSI both fail together (not impossible though). Hope it helps a little.

Recommended reading

@ March 3, 2010 7:12 PM in Expert Advise Needed

I was lucky enough to take over a well established company so I can't give advice on starting from scratch, but I would recommend reading "HVAC spells wealth" by Ron Smith (I believe that is his name). Many wonderful tips and ideas in there. This book seems to be a model for every successful company I've seen. I don't hear enough people talk about this book, but they are all doing the things in this book whether or not they know it. I was a service tech for 20 years before purchasing my company and will say it takes a big change to make the switch. I also recommend " run your business so it doesn't run you" (you can purchase that right here from Dan). Both of these I feel are must reads before making the jump. I wish you lots of luck which ever you chose, it's a great business.

Honeywell rep

@ February 25, 2010 2:41 PM in Honeywell Tru Steam humidifer

I can't image it being too hard to field modify, I don't have any wiring diagrams on me for it. Our Honeywell rep is Gary Crosby, he's a smart guy who used to be a serviceman himself. I'm sure he would be more than happy to help. I believe he is located in Indiana.
Good luck with it, I haven't really thought about your application coming up before so I' curious myself.

T.V.

@ February 24, 2010 9:42 AM in T.V.

Maybe I'm late and you have already done this and I just haven't seen it. I was watching the t.v. show "This old house" and thought to myself what a perfect marriage it would be to match Dan with This old house (I'm sure the lovely Maryianne would understand). The episode I saw was an entire show dedicated to Colonial houses, they showed maybe 5 houses and explained the differences. How great of an episode would a Dead Men show be with Dan's witty charm explaining different types of steam systems  in 4 or 5 different homes. I believe in the win-win-win theory. The people watching get to learn about the different types of systems, contractors can record it to give merit to future "unknuckleheading" quotes, and think of the new viewership to the wall  not to mention all the copies of "We have that darn steam heat"  flying off the shelves. Seems to be a good location too, they always seem to be on the east coast anyway.
Anyway I'm just trying to think of anyway to put your name out there to the public because educated customers are by far the best customers.
Bob L.
Guardian Heating
Chicago Il.

Pressuretrol location and equalizing question

@ February 19, 2010 9:25 AM in Pressuretrol location and equalizing question

In Dan's new book "Greening Steam", he make mention of not putting 2 pressuetrols off the same pigtail or boiler opening. I understand why but on many boilers it's hard to find additional opening and I have seen the top removed from a 47-2 L.W.C. and a union installed going to a reducer and the pigtail and then a pressuretrol. Is this o.k.? Or is there any reason this would effect the 47-2 or maybe get improper readings in this location?
Question #2 is on the equalizing line I have been told forever and ever that the fitting should be a reducing elbow at the end of the header, but in Dan's book on page 85 "Greening Steam" it shows a reducing coupling about a foot or two from the last elbow off the header.  Is a reducer acceptable anywhere there? (above the water line I'm assuming) Is one way better or does it not matter? In trying to think like steam I can't think of a reason it would matter other than I've been told forever to use a reducing elbow there.

Equalizer side?

@ February 16, 2010 7:51 PM in Equalizer side?

My question is about your equalizer line. If you had a boiler with 2 risers going into a drop header and your return piping was on the right side of the boiler but you had to go left to the supply piping, could you equalize off the right side or do you have to equalize in this scenario off the left side and pipe back around the boiler to pick the returns up. Basically my question is can you equalize off the opposite direction the steam is headed, when you have multiple risers. If not what are the results if done this way?

@ March 9, 2009 2:50 PM in Dimension \"a\" question per a \"drop header\"

I'm over here in Chi-Town and here drop headers are never used. My question is about your Dimension "A" with this type of header, I'm assuming it's from the water-line to the bottom of the Drop- header and is 28" still your magic number?

Boiler Sizing with indirect hot water

@ November 3, 2008 5:02 PM in Boiler sizing

Just want to give myself peace of mind. I'm quoting a house that currently has 260k btu Hot water heat(1 zone) Lots of the radiation in the house has been removed when they put in air. I did a count on the radiators and come up with 367 sq. ft. of radiation * 150 (hot water)= 55,050 * 1.25 = 68,813 + 15% (85% boiler)= 79,135 total btu's I'm putting in a tekmar 260 reset on it with a 40 gall hwt. and have quoted 100,000 btu's and everyone else is way higher on btu's. Am I the dope or am I safe and everyone else just looked at the old boiler rating plate? If I'm off somewhere please correct me before I install a blunder.