Heating Help

Gravity Heat

@ February 23, 2010 5:48 PM in Existing Steam versus New Forced Air?

I have one of these houses.  However, they had gravity air and not forced air heating:  heated air, but no fan.  Forced air heating was not introduced until the mid-1930s.

Gravity air is basically a less effective version of forced air.  It has most of the disadvantages and not all of the advantages.

Radiant barrier

@ February 22, 2010 5:54 PM in Insulating the Brick Wall Next to the Radiator

I have done this .. kind of.

What you would be doing is creating a radiant barrier.  The insulation won't do much since it won't cover the whole wall - so there is not really any pointin getting the thicker panels - but the foil facing can have an effect.  Just remember that for it to work, the foil must face out and it must remain uncovered.  The radiant barrier property of the foil will only work if one surface of the foil remains exposed.  This could be kind of unsightly, but it will retard radiant losses from the radiator through the wall.

one-coat stucco systems

@ February 22, 2010 5:49 PM in Insulating the Brick Wall Next to the Radiator

Exterior insulated one-coat stucco (like Dryvit) is a system that is just asking for failure.  The one-coat cannot be patched.  And as much as the manufacturers would like to believe otherwise, water will get in, and it will rot out the material behind.  When that happens, there goes its insulating advantages.  But it will affect the construction behind and not just the styrofoam insulation.  This is not as big of an issue with brick as it would be with wood construction, but it is still a concern.  

CO detectors

@ February 18, 2010 5:10 PM in thirsty boiler, high gas bill

I like this one from Kiddie:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=202026789

It's easy to find and reasonably priced.  I have two houses with boilers and have one mounted right by each boiler.  Sucker is loud.  If your boiler is in a basement like just about every boiler, you should get good warning before CO gets to the living areas.

This one:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100003545

Looks better, especially if you have a gas boiler, but I don't have any experience with it.

Upstream vents

@ February 16, 2010 6:46 PM in Main Venting w/ diagram

I've been thinking more about my approach...

The configuration and condition of the pipe beyond the kitchen run-out lateral T may not allow me to put the vents there.  However, I know I can put the vents upstream of the kitchen runout.  It would put the vents farther from the end of the main, but it would separate them from the radiator run-out.  So while neither is ideal, which do you think would be better?

Thanks again for all your input.

Missing Ducts

@ February 16, 2010 11:22 AM in Steam history question

I've seen missing ducts, especially in the return .. I've seen systems with no return ducting at all, just sucking air from the attic or crawlspace.  I've seen ducts disconnected from registers or plenums.  I've seen systems with over 50% duct leakage.  I've seen ducts coated in some built-up goop.  I've seen dessicated animals in ducts.

The reality is that there are horribly built systems of all kinds.  Forced air will tolerate a lot of horrible problems and still work, it will just be really inefficient.  Unfortunately, forced air is probably the worst way to condition a space, but it is just so hard to beat it on price.

Gravity Air

@ February 13, 2010 4:08 PM in Steam history question

If your house is 1883, then it did not originally have forced air. That was the era of gravity air. The furnace heated air and convection currents carried it through the ducts into the rooms. It was popular for a short period - it was put in the capital building in DC and that sent off a trend - but they were replaced in most houses because the technology just wasn't there at the residential scale.

If you want to use the ducts for AC you need to take a hard look at duct capacity. Gravity ductwork was designed for continuous air delivery. But modern AC was designed to do bursts of air, and that means bigger ducts. This means that the velocity and pressure will have to be much, much higher in your historic ducts (unless you want to run the AC continuously with low velocity air, not a very efficient way to use it). Since the ducts were not constructed for high pressure - they are just tin boxes fitted into each other - you will lose a lot of air through the ducts, which will make the system way more inefficient .. as if forced air weren't inefficient as it is. I have heard that there are duct-liner technologies that can solve the leaky seam problem, but I've not seen them commercially.

My steam-heated house is in a neighborhood that was all built with a later generation gravity air (around 1900), but almost all of them were replaced with steam and hot water systems. The ones that stayed air and went forced air have astoundingly high heating and cooling bills (imagine heating bills of over $1000/mo with a modern, high-efficiency furnace).

It still might make sense to you to go ahead with the AC conversion, but keep the impact that the ducts will have in mind.

2 trip plan

@ February 9, 2010 2:22 PM in Special warning for all newbees

I've found that a good system is to get everything I might possibly need on the first trip and then return everything I don't use.  Sometimes I still end up with three trips, but I can often keep it down to two this way.  ;)

marketing

@ February 9, 2010 2:18 PM in Steam history question

In addition to what other people have said, don't forget the impact of marketing. 

Forced air was marketed as providing "instant" heat.  For people accustomed to the heating lag of steam and water, this could be a very big deal.  Forced air was also marketed as "maintenance free."  No more filling, no more draining, no more bleeding, no more blow-downs, no more balancing.  Just a filter replacement, if even that.  This too could be quite attractive to people accustomed to the ongoing tuning and maintenance of steam and hot water. 

The "maintenance free" marketing concept has been *very* successful in the US.  Paneling, aluminum and vinyl siding, perma-stone, drop ceilings, etc., all of these really ugly products had great success because of their promise of maintenance-free operation.

As people have begun to see how really bad forced air is, the main thing that has kept radiant systems from making a bigger come-back is air conditioning and de-humidification.  Forced air systems allow you integrate all of these in one system.  Radiant systems usually mean that if you need air conditioning or de-humidification, you will probably need another system on top .. and that is a big expense.

galv

@ January 29, 2010 7:04 PM in The Evolution of a Header

It is unfortunately. When I did the original install, I relied too heavily on the guys at the plumbing supply and that's what they told me to use. I'm using black for all the re-piping, but I can't afford to replace all the galvanized (2.5" is about 4x as expensive as 2" in my area).

So, in my limited redesign, I'm putting in good traps and clean-outs to accommodate any flaking. I'll also be very judicious about the cleaning schedule.

The Evolution of a Header

@ January 29, 2010 12:54 PM in The Evolution of a Header

It's probably my preservationist background, but I'm fascinated by how buildings are changed over time. I thought I'd share my fascination and see if any of the pros want to weigh in.

This picture is of the header that I replaced when I installed a new boiler. The house is a turn of the 20th c. Victorian twin. It originally had a gravity air-based system. Within only a couple of years, this was replaced with a one-pipe, parallel flow steam system with a wet return. Based on the piping, I'm assuming that there were a total of three boilers before my new one.

The First Generation

I assume this first boiler was coal-fired for a couple of reasons. It has only one long main that loops down one side of the basement, around the front, and down the length of the other side and the original piping has no provision for main venting, both of which I understand are characteristic of coal-fired boilers. Plus, the house had provisions for coal storage, a coal-grate in the family parlor and a coal kitchen stove. I am also surmising that there were two more boilers between that original and the new one.

I've denoted what I think is the original piping with red. (I might be wrong about the S-bend though.) The take-off at the main elbow circumvented the main and directly fed a radiator by the front door. The radiator is gone, but the piping remained and was capped off. I assume this piping was original because there would not have been heat in the front hall without this radiator and there were no other piping provisions.

The Second Generation

I've denoted what I think was the second generation boiler and header with blue. The pipe had different manufacturing marks and was in substantially different condition. They added another main circumvention. That pipe went directly from the header to the kitchen radiator. There is original piping that had been capped off that would have connected the kitchen radiator to the main. I figure this was done because the coal kitchen stove had been replaced and the kitchen was no longer getting enough heat. I figure they added a bigger radiator and a direct line to the header because that was easier than dismantling and reassembling the main to add fittings for a larger runout. The kitchen radiator also does not match any of the other radiators in the house.

I also assume that this first boiler replacement was oil. Long before the original coal boiler should have been ready for replacement, we would have been out of the coal age.

The terrible Third Generation

I've circled what I assume to be the third generation near-boiler piping in green. The copper is a big cue. So is the tortuous routes that the pipes take from the boiler to the header. The copper used for steam pipes also probably at least partially explains why the boiler that was there when I bought the house was dead even though it didn't seem all that old. This boiler was certainly oil. This was a horrendously done job. It actually made my soul hurt.

The Next Generation

As you can see, I took out all of the previous headers. The front hall and formal parlor had been combined into a single modern living room, which is probably why the radiator was removed in the first place, so I took out the capped runout for the front hall radiator. A problem in the main necessitated a repair that allowed me to retrofit the main for a sufficiently-sized run-out, so I also took out the home run for the kitchen radiator. These sure did clean up my basement piping.

Now, I just need to fix my hartford loop and add main vents:

http://www.heatinghelp.com/forum-thread/129538/Main-Venting-w-diagram"

Maybe then my soul will stop hurting completely. ;)

Ditto

@ January 26, 2010 1:13 PM in Can Large Hartford Loop Elbow Cause EOC Water Hammer?

I'd be interested in the answer to this as well. 

I'm rebuilding my Hartford Loop and this is one of the potential ways for me to assemble it (although with a reducing elbow instead of an elbow with brushing).  Finding asymmetrical reducing Tee's is a major problem in my area, so I might have to get creative.  But if it's going to cause hammer, I'll want to do it another way.

Main Venting w/ diagram

@ January 25, 2010 4:18 PM in Main Venting w/ diagram

Thanks to Rod for the great responses to my last post (http://www.heatinghelp.com/forum-thread/129465/New-Hartford-Loop-and-Venting). If anyone else wants to weigh in, I'd appreciate it. In that post, I promised diagrams of what I was thinking for the main vents, so here they are.

The short of it is that I have cold rooms on my furthest riser, most likely because I have no main vents. I'd rather avoid tapping my main (the last operation on the main resulted in the need to replace a section), or cutting it apart to add fittings. But I do have a run-out for the kitchen radiator just about 24" from the end of the main. Is there any reason that I couldn't also pipe the vents in here?

As you can see in the first diagram, the run-out branches vertically from the main .. a definite no-no. (Incidentally, I imagine this is making my steam (more) wet and contributing to my cold radiator problem.) So, my thought is that I can fix both problems at once: rotate my connection to leave the main at 45 degrees and then pipe the new main vents (either in an antler like I've drawn or a menorah) into the newly configured run-out. I'd include a union and a y-strainer to the vents.


So, my questions are:

- Is this approach kosher?
- If it is, do I need more than the 1 1/4" pipe before the split between vents and radiator? I figure it is either venting or supplying steam to the radiator, never both, so it should be fine.
- Did I miss anything?


Thanks in advance guys.

High temp

@ January 23, 2010 5:39 PM in radiator painting

I know several people have said they've used low temp enamel or even latex with no trouble, but they aren't going to last long .. well, long in steam system terms. I'll give you my experience from historic site surveys.

Latex *will* eventually peel. It might last as long as 15 years before then if it was a quality job, but it will peel.

Enamel seems to last quite a bit longer, but it will flake off.

Actual radiator paint - what we would call "high heat" - is in another class altogether. I've not seen paint jobs that I can verify are over 40 years old, but all of those have been in really good shape unless they were compromised by really bad applications or pretty significant steam leaks.

You can brush it or spray it. Surface prep is really important, but when you use high-heat paint, you don't need to prime because it was meant to adhere directly to metal (although read the label for info about multiple coats, there might be between coat prep). I like engine paint just because it is available in more colors and finishes than high-heat bar-b-que paint or most other high-heat enamels.

You might also check with the guys who powder-coat engine parts. That is probably the highest quality finish you can get on metal and it will have no problem with the heat. And you don't have the same kind of off-gassing while it cures.


When you think about all it takes to get a radiator out and to prep it for paint, I don't think 15 years is nearly long enough of a life-span. Stick with the high-heat paint.

RE: Observations

@ January 22, 2010 5:10 PM in New Hartford Loop and Venting

Thanks Rod,

I seem to remember that the install specs specifically called for the gauges to be at an angle, but I will double-check this.

Is there a reason to put the auto-feed above the water line?  Is it just an insurance policy against back-flow of boiler water into the potable water system?  Something else?

I've got a couple of elbows in the wet return, so I think I'll install a drain on one and a plug on another.  That's a good suggestion.  Perhaps that's the reason for the cross?  to provide the same full-port access to the bottom of the boiler?  I think I might try to track one down just so that my install looks exactly like the manufacturer's spec.

I have a dedicated cut-off switch for the boiler, it is just above and out of sight.  And I have a combo CO/smoke detector directly above the boiler.  That's a must in my mind if you have any kind of combustion source.  Although a yearly burner inspection is still in my maintenance schedule. 

I've been mocking up a couple of vent configurations and will probably post them in the next couple of days.


Thanks again for all of your input.

RE: Observations

@ January 22, 2010 12:39 PM in New Hartford Loop and Venting

Thanks so much for your response!

My first thought is since this is a rental unit it might be a good idea to get a steam pro involved.

I understand your point about finding a Pro, but unfortunately the quality of the "pros" available is one of the reasons that I am doing it myself.  I'm getting estimates of $1500-2000 for proposals to do it wrong.  Most of them aren't even proposing to add main vents.

Your header piping while not too bad, could be improved, Having it drop
down the face of the boiler and block the gauges etc isn't the best
configuration.

The gauges aren't actually blocked by the equalizer, they are offset on the boiler so that they are completely accessible.  The header is one part that I followed the manufacturer's specs to the "T."  It has the dimensions and lengths called out and it has the slope.  Is there any other concern except blocking the gauges?

You need to insulate your steam pipes

All the steam pipes in the basement are insulated.  I just used this picture since it showed everything more clearly.  The water hammer only happens when the tenants extend the cycle by turning off the radiators in the room with the thermostat.  (They have found that this will get the rear radiators to finally warm.)  My mangled Hartford Loop has a really long nipple joining the equalizer, which would be the primary candidate for the hammer.  But it joins so far below the water line, maybe not.  The lack of main venting would be another candidate.  So, hopefully with my plan to fix both, the water hammer problem will be solved.

As for the Gifford Loop, since this is a rental, I'd stick to the type every insurance inspector knows - The Hartford Loop!

That's a really good point.  Keeping things recognizable and straightforward probably has more benefit than whatever advantages the Gifford might provide. 

Thanks again for your reply.