Heating Help

insulation

@ September 26, 2011 5:39 PM in main pitch

It seems that if you do leave it as a counterflow pipe, then insulation becomes much more important in order to minimize condensation in that pipe.  You want it to be a pipe, not a radiator.

electrical

@ September 20, 2011 1:58 PM in Pipe through foundation walls

That's a good point.  I had envisioned the wire going through a separate, small conduit inside the jacket.  Creating a hole in the insulation for conduit would be much easier than creating a new hole in the foundation.  

I def. see your point...

@ September 20, 2011 1:55 PM in water feed on which side of the Hartford Loop

... but I still struggle with *where* I could put the water feed on my system.  My only available locations are *really* close to the boiler and that makes me really nervous.  Barring a complete repipe that will give me some distance, are the two locations noted in the picture even viable?

It's a rental...

@ September 20, 2011 1:40 PM in water feed on which side of the Hartford Loop

... and it has an auto-feed, so I can definitely see erring on the side of caution when it come to thermal shock.  Also, the piping is almost a century old and the wet returns just now need to be replaced, so worry about the impact of oxygenated water seems to be less than the worry about thermal shock.

PVC

@ September 16, 2011 7:35 PM in Pipe through foundation walls

I would think that 3" should be fine, and at that size you can put both pipes in together. However, 4" wouldn't be a bad idea. It would give you a little more insulation. It would also leave you more room for future changes .. maybe you need a bigger pipe in the future, maybe you want to run some wire, etc. It's such a small incremental cost, I think it is worth it.

Your plan...

@ September 16, 2011 6:40 PM in Pipe through foundation walls

... sounds like it would work to me. Just a couple of thoughts:

- One of the reasons to jacket is to protect your pipe and your insulation. If you insulate, a PVC jacket should have no problem with the heat.

- The 2" scrap won't give you much room to insulate and is going to create one hell of a thermal bridge to the foundation wall. The little gap of insulation will help, but if you use metal, and metal that small, you will be essentially creating a thermal siphon on your system. That is another advantage of PVC, it doesn't conduct heat like metal. We're talking about a pretty short length of jacket here, just go ahead and buy a short scrap of PVC that leaves room for plenty of insulation.

- There's no reason the two pipes have to go through the same jacket. You're already dealing with pretty limited space here. Having them that tight is just asking for them to rub. (As they heat and cool, they are going to move.) It seems like it would make a lot more sense to run them through separate jackets and take some risk out of it.

water feed on which side of the Hartford Loop

@ September 16, 2011 6:28 PM in water feed on which side of the Hartford Loop

I checked the Wall for this question and found conflicting answers, so I figured I'd ask directly: Which side of the Hartford Loop should the water feed be on?

The contradictory answers all gave good reasons. Put it on the boiler side so that the water gets de-oxygenated as soon as possible and will cause less rust. Put it on the wet return side in order to avoid the temperature shock danger of introducing cold feed water to a hot boiler.

Now let me give some particulars of my situation to see if they might over-ride the general principle. My boiler piping diagram calls for wet-return side. Also, I'm not too thrilled about the two places I have on the boiler side: below the boiler tapping above the mud leg or above the boiler tap just below the equalizer. And finally, would using a water feed from the water heater change any of this? I imagine it de-oxygenates some, but enough? Is it hot enough to prevent thermal shock?

Jacket

@ September 13, 2011 2:28 PM in Pipe through foundation walls

I would third (fourth?) jacketing those pipes.  They're going to move, and when they do they're either going to slowly destroy themselves or you infill or both.

If you already have the pipes in, you can take a thinner-walled PVC and slice it lengthwise.  You can then open it and get it around your pipes.  (Or, if you have the skill, you can use a table saw to split thicker pipe
and then use zip-ties or duct tape to secure the two halves back
together around the pipe.) Pick a jacket that is big enough to fit around your insulation.

When you insulate, you need to think about infiltration (I'm assuming you are going from a basement to an unconditioned crawl space).  Unless your insulation is truly continuous and truly sealed, standard fiberglass jacket insulation is going to allow infiltration.  One way to minimize this impact would be to allow a break in your insulation inside the jacket and to seal with spray-foam insulation.  You want the kind that remains somewhat pliable and should probably go with the fire-break grade stuff.  This will also seal up the area between the insulation and the jacket.

give me a lever big enough

@ April 1, 2011 12:43 PM in Removing a boiler plug

Don't know about a big Scotch marine, but with a 6' persuasion bar I can tip over a modern residential boiler with one hand.

persuasion

@ March 31, 2011 11:51 AM in Removing a boiler plug

Heat helps if you can get it to the fitting.  There are lots of "break loose" fluids available at lots of hardware stores.  Some people swear by a certain brand, but I've not noticed any real difference. 

But I find that the key is the persuasion bar.  Get a length of pipe or hollow fence post and slip it over your wrench handle.  The added length gives you a lot more force.  Unlike an impact wrench, you can get a lot of torque without sudden shock .. or buying an impact wrench.  Be careful of the boiler itself though.  It's basically a big lever and you can end up moving the boiler if it isn't bolted down.

diagram

@ March 31, 2011 11:45 AM in Adding vent to 45 degree riser towrard end of supply line

Good point.  A pipe diagram and pictures would help.

wet vs dry

@ March 31, 2011 11:23 AM in Adding vent to 45 degree riser towrard end of supply line

I have a wet return, so my main terminates at an elbow with a vertical pipe that drops below the water line (the vertical pipe is a drainable mud leg that I added to keep my drip from getting clogged again).  With a wet return, the vents go at the end of the main before it drops down to the wet return.

Since you have a dry return, your system is a little different, but the vents should still be just before the main turns from dry to wet.  You may just not have enough venting on your main.  That is the first thing to check.  Just four Gorton #1s for 12 flats just seems a bit slim to me. 
jpf321 has put together an excellent worksheet for calculating your venting needs (you can search the wall for it). 

If you do have enough venting, and D is the only one not getting hot, putting the vent at the riser take-off may not do you any good; it would essentially be just more main venting.  12 flats with 4 risers, I'm assuming 3 story?  If main venting isn't your problem, you'd likely be better off venting at the top of D.  That will get the air out and the steam in faster.

yes

@ March 30, 2011 8:28 PM in Adding vent to 45 degree riser towrard end of supply line

I did, until the main drip clogged .. flooded main means vents don't matter.  Since I had to replace that drip, I moved the vents all the way to the end of my main

I did it like this

@ March 30, 2011 7:43 PM in Adding vent to 45 degree riser towrard end of supply line

I did something similar.  It was a less than ideal solution for me and I have since changed it. 

One thing that is less than ideal here is that the Tee meets the angled pipe on the topside.  That means that some condensation could potentially drip into the steam and wet it somewhat.  A better solution would be to have the Tee exit on the side, so that any condensation would flow into the bottom of the angled pipe.

ICE

@ March 26, 2011 9:38 PM in Steam versus Hot Air

I'll third them. I worked with them a couple of times when I was in CA.

radiant

@ March 25, 2011 6:24 PM in Steam versus Hot Air

Is AC part of their reasoning?  If it isn't then forced air is an idiotic choice for a space like a church, especially a stone church.  The costs will be higher and the comfort will be lower.

However, if AC is one of their reasons, it is more difficult.  A better answer would be ductless heat pumps installed at strategic locations in addition to the heat.  Honestly, if they really need a new system and if possible, an even better answer would be be a radiant slab for both heating and cooling.  It would be a more consistent radiant heat than the radiators for greater comfort.  Depending on your climate, you might need to deal with humidity and condensation in the summer.  But that is a doable thing.

battery losses too

@ March 16, 2011 6:14 PM in OT: Time Shifting My Electrical Usage

Not just inverter losses, but battery losses too.  Lead-acid batteries have a charge efficiency profile that varies depending on how much of a charge the battery has.  So, at lower charge levels, charge efficiency can be very high, but at higher charge levels, charge efficiency drops precipitously.  A frequently-used rule of thumb is 80% aggregated charging efficiency. 

This rate differential certainly seems to be large enough to more than cover the efficiency losses, but it would not take a whole lot of charging at the "top" of the battery capacity to obliterate that differential.

cast iron

@ February 23, 2011 6:17 PM in Steam Fittings

One of the reasons that I have heard for the use of cast iron is that the walls are thicker, so they can take more of a thermal beating.  I was also told that it is therefore most important to get cast iron in the risers and header and the mains, but less critical farther out.

I wouldn't wait

@ February 3, 2011 3:12 PM in Draining problem with Steam Boiler

I would give it at least a try now.  You have to do it one way or the other. 

If there is enough gunk in there to clog the drain valve, there is a lot of gunk.  At the least it is having a negative impact on performance, at worse it could be causing damage rattling around in there. 

Also, I see a lot of copper there.  If it is below the water line, it is OK.  But if that copper is above the water, that is one of the big no-no's with steam.  You'll really want to get rid of any copper above the water line.  An advantage of doing a repipe is that you can also add a mud leg to your return to catch a lot of that gunk in the future.

full port

@ February 2, 2011 7:25 PM in Draining problem with Steam Boiler

I think your best bet is going to be to remove the drain completely.  It looks like you have a coupling there, so you should be able to do it.  If it won't come off, you can search the wall for "persuasion" techniques for fittings.

Once you take it off, you should be able to clear everything out.  You might want to think about replacing your drain valve.  It looks like you have a gate valve on there and I think ball valves are less prone to clogging.

not a pro

@ January 26, 2011 5:58 PM in installing threaded pipes

...but I use just teflon.  I've found that between me making mistakes, me taking a very staged approach to repairs on my system and me making more mistakes, being able to take the pipes back apart is a huge benefit.

paint

@ January 13, 2011 8:23 PM in Best Pipe fittings?

They make some nice brass engine paint.  Just point the black pipe.  IIRC, the Gorton is painted anyway.