Cast Iron Radiators with Wood Boiler

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The radiators are connected with (for lack of a better term) a tube across the top and across the bottom. The water will work itself not only side to side but up and down. My radiators are hot from top to bottom telling me the hot water is traveling ok. I am not a expert at this, just letting you guys know how I hooked my system up.
 
Sorry for being a pain. How would the bleeder bleed the air when the air won't push through if they are both piped in the bottom?? How would the radiator get full of water to have max heat transfer??

The radiator will fill up with water, once you can get the air out of it.

I see what you mean about the straight flow through it, and if this was an "open" system, you would be right. Open systems have something exposed to the atmosphere all the time, so the radiator would stay full of air and never get hot if this was the case.

Since the water flows back to the boiler, is heated back up and then pumped, This is a "closed" system that shouldnt ever need water once its full (in theory). Since the piping and the associated water is under pressure, it will want to flow into the radiator and do whatever it can to get back to low pressure (outside the radiator). This will pressurize the air inside the radiator (just a little) to the point where if you open up the bleed valve, the air will come out. The water will then fill up the space in that radiator where the air used to be.

You are also right in thinking that if your flow rate on your system is really high, the bulk of the hot water would want to shoot straight through the radiator. However, if its the right flow rate, the water will take a little more time to move through the radiator, and then it will give off a lot of its heat to the room.

Sorry if some of this was really basic, not trying to talk down to anyone at all.
 
The radiators are connected with (for lack of a better term) a tube across the top and across the bottom. The water will work itself not only side to side but up and down. My radiators are hot from top to bottom telling me the hot water is traveling ok. I am not a expert at this, just letting you guys know how I hooked my system up.

Right, the vertical peices are connected by "tubes." But if you connect just the bottom it will only fill the bottom. The heat must be transfering to the top on you system. If it is workin out for you, thats great. Just saying on heating hot water systems there is a rule of " in the bottom out the top." Now on your steam system it is backwards "in the top out the bottom." Sorry if I'm not making much sense. I do mostly Industial systems not residental.
 
Just trying to learn something.

Sorry if some of this was really basic, not trying to talk down to anyone at all.

I appreciate your simple explanation. You are not talking down to me. I am actually learning something here. I realize there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. Please carry on.
 
The vertical pieces are hollow also, so the water not only travels sideways but up and down. the water will constantly run through the radiator. By the time the call for heat is met I don't know how many gallons of hot water has gone through but the entire radiator is hot. Then what makes this system nice is the hot water is retained in the radiator witch is slowly used up in the room
 
I would take a trip over to www.heatinghelp.com and go to "the wall"
Great bunch of guys over there that will give you all the right answers.


And for those of you who are doing a similar conversion, or have just found a pile of old radiators to use, EDR/BTU capacities of most all old radiators can be found in the specs listed there.


You are right hedgecutter.

A one pipe system would have been for steam supply as well as condensate return. The pipes have to be sloped properly to work this way, and it went out of practice due to the restrictions on pipe runs. The two pipe system had the steam in and condensate out like you mentioned. Typically the condensate return line is a few inches above the bottom, so that any of the crud that would flake off or settle out of the steam would become trapped in the bottom of the radiator. That way it wouldnt plug up your condensate return line.

Here is a page worth a read....

http://www.masterplumbers.com/plumbviews/2000/convertsteama.asp

And Another...

http://search.thisoldhouse.com/search.html?Ntt=radiator&bu=

Mostly true. at first, steam condensate lines were piped directly into the bottom of the boilers...then, they would go BOOM!....do a search on "The Hartford Loop"

No, no and no! Damn.

I grew up with a radiator steam system that had been converted over to oil fired hot water. Both in and out pipes hook to the bottom of the radiator. Ours had a small valve and a special key for bleeding the air out of the top of each radiator. They only need bleeding every blue moon. The valve had a little outlet so you could bleed air until a small amount of water came out. An auto water fill system on the oil boiler in the basement kept the system at 8 psi. It worked flawlessly.


True. Unless you have a leaky old-school expansion tank. Placing the circs on the supply side of the boiler, using a good air separator have mostly eliminated these problems.
 
Sorry if some of this was really basic, not trying to talk down to anyone at all.

I don't think so either. I have never seen it done with the cast iron radiators. I have takin hundreds out of some dorms at Purdue. They were all steam radiators. We replaced the with fin tube radiators and fan coil units. If it works like darnet said then go with that.
 
Wish I would have known that last year. I ended up buying 3 more from a guy in vt. I added 1 in the bathroom and put 2 large ones in the basement. Nothing better than warm floors. You can't find them often and when you do people want to much money for them.
 
Wish I would have known that last year. I ended up buying 3 more from a guy in vt. I added 1 in the bathroom and put 2 large ones in the basement. Nothing better than warm floors. You can't find them often and when you do people want to much money for them.

They went to the scrap yard. Wish I knew someone would want them. Probably haul only 4 or 5 though. Those things are heavy.
 
Ya tell me about it. We disconnected them and brought them outside and hosed them out. Then brought them back in, some up and down a flight of stairs.
 
Working on an udated chilled water and heating system now. We may be tearing some more out. Not sure yet. Still workin in the mechanical room hookin up the pumps.
 
I should take some pic of my system and see what you think.I have been meaning to do it but haven't got around to it. Just the header is 7ft long plus the water tank. I still have not did anything with the steam boiler. If you know of anybody that needs one it is a wel-mcclain 76. I think it is 350,000 btu
 
Yeah, take a picture. That would be cool. Seems like everyone is getting away from steam. No one on the top of my head, but I'll keep that in mind.
 
A plumber works on plumbing kinda things. Ask a pipefitter how to hook it up.

I can tell you work on the commercial/industrial side of things :)

I work on commercial design, and I started as a plumbing designer.

I had to learn quick that "plumbers" deal with water, sewer pipes, compressed air, and for some reason natural gas. The "pipefitters" (we also called them "steamfitters", which may be wrong) were the ones that used black iron for just about everything. That included all of the piping for hot and chilled water for heating, fuel oil and diesel piping for generators and boilers, and then all of the steam and condensate lines.

In regards to the steam systems that put steam in the top and it comes out the bottom, those usually tend to be commercial steam coils or heat exchangers. They have the steam trap on them to regulate the flow of condensate that goes out, so they have to be located at the bottom of whatever equipment it is.
 
I can tell you work on the commercial/industrial side of things :)

I work on commercial design, and I started as a plumbing designer.

I had to learn quick that "plumbers" deal with water, sewer pipes, compressed air, and for some reason natural gas. The "pipefitters" (we also called them "steamfitters", which may be wrong) were the ones that used black iron for just about everything. That included all of the piping for hot and chilled water for heating, fuel oil and diesel piping for generators and boilers, and then all of the steam and condensate lines.

In regards to the steam systems that put steam in the top and it comes out the bottom, those usually tend to be commercial steam coils or heat exchangers. They have the steam trap on them to regulate the flow of condensate that goes out, so they have to be located at the bottom of whatever equipment it is.

You are correct. Pipefitters are steamfitters. Seen a new guy call an old pipefitter a plumber...it wasn't pretty.
 
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