Death By Boiler?
I just had a plumber over to discuss on-demand water heating. He told me that he would not spend another night in my house, and that we needed to turn off our boiler immediately, and that our existing tank heater could easily become a missile and blow straight up, through our three floors and the…
I just had a plumber over to discuss on-demand water heating.
He told me that he would not spend another night in my house, and that we needed to turn off our boiler immediately, and that our existing tank heater could easily become a missile and blow straight up, through our three floors and the roof and into the sky…
…So, I am in desperate need of a reality check.
Problems below:
1. The plumbing runs from the boiler/water heater at 3/4″ and gets smaller as it gets toward the meter, until it’s like 3/8″. This is inefficient, and it creates a small flame, and it’s retarded, I can see that it makes no sense for the pipe to start small and get big. And this, he says, will create a lot of pressure in the water heater and make it explode. He says that we need 1 1/4″ consistent from the meter to the boiler.
2. And similarly too-small copper pipe runs from the boiler to the radiators. There is another issue where there is steam issuing from the (hot water) boiler pretty regularly. Apparently this is very dangerous, and I was directed to shut off the boiler because the plumber did not want me to die.
3. There is a thing on the boiler that causes this steam to come out of the boiler that is not to code and therefore dangerous. I forget the name of this thing.
Diagnosis from plumber: Get rid of all this dangerous gas plumbing between the meter and the boiler, re-plumb “with a better strategy” that, I assume, follows code and is not going to kill me, pressure test lines upstairs. Then we can discuss heating water.
Total cost, before any water gets heated: $4800.
I am skeptical, and am getting a second opinion Monday. But I have larger questions. I am a welder, so I know that pressurized tanks can become missiles, but I can’t imagine the water heater exploding if it’s just sitting there, with too-few BTUs getting to it through the gas line. Is this true? Is my water heater going to explode because the pipes are too small?
And while I am a pretty handy person, I don’t see how too *little* gas coming in (remember, he’s suggesting upping the diameter to 1 1/4 inches) is creating a dangerous quantity of pressure. When I think about it, I see too little gas meaning too little heat and too few BTU’s, and I don’t see where the dangerous pressure happens.
The steam bugs me. It’s eroding the concrete floor. But again, I don’t see the *danger* aspect.
In short, I think that I am either being tooled, or that the plumber I consulted is slightly autistic. I kept asking him to explain why it’s dangerous, and he couldn’t give me a good answer. We didn’t really have a *conversation* as much as we had a very defensive little battle over plumbing code.
Master Plumber, Anyone. I turn my heat back on, right? Or do I fundamentally misunderstand gas plumbing?
OP here.
Yeah, MP you hit the nail on the head with the specifics.
We have decided to keep the boiler off because we don’t want to break it (We are huddled way upstairs while we gut most of the rest of the house, and right now the whole place is so drafty that I can’t imagine Carbon Monoxide being such a problem). But we don’t know whether it fills itself up with water, and we don’t know what will happen if it runs dry, and we have space heaters, so why find out?
And we are going to get a couple more opinions and choose a different plumber. This guy (Gerald from All Mechanical) is obviously right about our plumbing not being correct, and therefore inefficient, and we are not against paying for gas plumbing that works better. We are also really into fixing our boiler, for obvious reasons.
But it’s increasingly obvious that he lied to us–he presented us with a nonexistent *threat* for manipulative reasons. I am not going to work with anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to be straightforward with me.
Someone trying to sell you plumbing by threatening you repeatedly with DEATH is, IMO, a Big Red Flag.
Thanks for the help.
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Me neither.
Just for curiosities sake, where is the steam coming out?
FYI Two days after my wife and I moved into our house the furnace died and we were without heat for a week with temperatures in the 30-40 deg range, we survived it just fine with a couple electric space heaters and some long underwear… I would turn of the boiler and call another plumber. (We ran all the faucets every few hours when it was near freezing outside.)
Hi, everyone.
I’m going to assume the same run of gas piping serves both the boiler and the water heater.
I’ll also assume the boiler is about 160,000 BTU and the water heater is a 40-gallon unit burning about 40,000 BTU per hour.
I’ll take another shot that there is about 30 feet of pipe from the meter to the heating equipment and that somewhere along that run is a tee branching off to a clothes dryer. Add 25,000 BTU.
Seeing as how natural gas carries1,000 BTU per cubic foot, and that 1†pipe can carry 245,000 BTU up to 40 feet and that 1-1/4†will deliver a cool 500,000,
It seems to me like 1-1/4†pipe is overdoing it, but not by much; just one pipe size.
For the record: Gas pressure in our homes is about one quarter pound per square inch which remains constant no matter what the pipe size. It’s the volume of gas that changes.
Having diminished volume, or pressure, of gas at your water heater will only make it not work, not blow up.
As for your boiler problem:
If steam is coming out of it:
1. The heat exchanger may be in danger of separating which would allow carbon monoxide to escape from the flue passages.
2. The boiler is overheating the water which is costing you money.
3. After “1â€, you should’ve stopped reading.
I can’t think of a single good thing about steam coming out of your hot water boiler.
Whatever the problem is;
a) you obviously suck at describing it precisely and accurately enough (i.e; where EXACTLY does the steam come out of?) in order to obtain meaningful help
and
b) asking opinions from people who have no actual way of SEEING what you describe seems purty dumb. Particularly given the importance of the issue. After all, a plumber DID tell you to, “disconnect it now or it’ll blow”. I’d IMMEDIATELY get a second opinion if in doubt. AFTER I shut it off.
Of course, if it turns out it was a scam I’d track that first plumber down and beat the livin’ crap outta him.
6:07 here again. Sorry for my bad punctuation and muddled grammar.
Disclaimer: I’m more familiar with steam systems than hot water…
So, that said… where is the steam shooting out of? Steam shooting out of anywhere is generally a safety issue (steam burns), although it may not mean it’s going to blow sky high. First thing I’d do is make sure the expansion tanks are functioning properly.
Safety issues aside, it would make sense to remedy the steam problem.
Not only is it bad for safety to have steam shooting out, it also means that your boiler will lose water more rapidly than normal (if you have a functional automatic feeder, it should keep the water level at a safe level).
The more steam shoots out, the more you have to refill the boiler with fresh water which means there is more air in your system. Air corrodes the cast iron belly of the boiler which gums up your system with sediment and shortens the life of your boiler.
Also, excess steam will introduce a lot of humidity into your basement which can result in an environment that will make termites happy. If it’s enough steam to erode your concrete floor, it’s probably introducing quite a bit of moisture into the air as well.
As for the gas, I agree with danielk – the ever increasing pipe diameter is definitely going to result in a drop in gas pressure, not an increase. It does sound like whoever did your gas plumbing was a bit sloppy, but it may not be a safety issue.
Hey OP here, I can clarify a few things:
1. It’s a hot water system. And no, it shouldn’t be shooting steam. That is a problem, obviously. But I don’t see why it’s unsafe.
Steam is not shooting out of the T&P valve. The water heater is not doing anything out of the ordinary. It’s just kinda small.
2. And yeah. I do know that household gas is running, in general, at around 4-5 psi, which is definitely LOW pressure.
Again, I do see issues here… I am assuming that the boiler needs to be fixed because steam should not be pouring out of it regularly. But I don’t see the dangerousness.
Who was the plumber that recommended re-plumbing the system.
I had a similar experience with a All State Plumbing – different problem entirely, but they recommended changing my entire 1-pipe steam system to a dry return which makes no sense to me as water + air = rust & sediment & gunked up boiler, which was the problem in the first place.
Get a second opinion from someone who’s gotten consistently good reviews (ie: I’ve had very good experiences with John Hlad).
If you’re going with another plumber, ask who is doing the repairs – many of the larger firms will send out an estimator who will tell you all kinds of bad news and then they send out young guys to actually do the repair. Often the young guys are inexperienced and it also adds a layer of communication to the process which also adds potential for miscommunication and mistakes (not to mention less accountability).
On to the problem at hand – is this a steam system or a hot water system? All boilers are hot water boilers. Generally none of them should be shooting out steam.
Regarding #1 – you’re talking about gas pipe? I’m not a plumber so don’t take my word on this, but 1 1/4″ pipe sounds awfully large for gas. If I remember my physics properly, generally when dealing with gasses under pressure, smaller pipes have a higher tolerance (less surface area for the gas to push against). I don’t think household gas is under a lot of pressure but definitely get a second opinion…
From your description it looks like this plumber doesn’t know what he’s doing, or more likely he’s trying to scam you.
The increasing pipe diameter in the gas pipe will reduce pressure, not increase it. But the pipe diameter is probably decreased in the burner, so it doesn’t make any difference.
Now this doesn’t mean that the boiler is safe, just that this plumber is a crackpot. If the T&P valve is defective than your tank can blow up and shoot up through the building and clear another 100ft too boot. The problem is that if the normal temperature control mechanism fails and the gas stays on continously then an enourmous amount of energy will slowly build up in the water as it super heats well above 100 C (since it is under pressure). Eventually the pressure in the tank becomes too great for the tank and it bursts, then all that water returns to 1 atmosphere in a matter of a second or two and expands explosively ad it turns into steam.
The T&P (Temperature and Pressure) valve is intended as the last line of defence against this catastrophy. But if it has been engaged in the past or the basement is damp it can rust and then you have no fail-safe for when the normal heater control system fails. If the T&P valve is functioning it will release steam and lower the pressure in the tank to safe levels whenever it gets too hot or the pressure builds up too high. This is why you are supposed to check the T&P valve for corrosion as part of your montly circuit breaker, GFCI and smoke alarm checking rutine.
BTW Steam is eroding the concrete floor in the basement? Maybe the T&P valve is engaging at too low a pressure and releasing the steam because the pipe to the radiators is too small or maybe it is just malfunctioning?
Anyway you need to get a plumber that knows steam systems and knows _why_ XYZ isn’t code. Someone just following the code may give you a safe system, but you want one that is both safe and _functions_…
BTW2 I’m not a plumber, so I may have missed something in my description. I only know enough to tell when the plumber has been smoking too much crack. 🙂
BTW3 Master Plvmber is not the plumber that will be visiting me tomorrow morning, but if I had a steam system he would probably be my plumber…