Insulating Steam Pipes & Boiler

Our 100 year old brownstone has a 1989 steam boiler. Our utility room is extremely warm and so I have begun by insulating most of the hot steam pipes in an effort make the heater more efficient and use the energy to heat the upstairs better. It seems to be helping somehwat. Now that I will be putting a little freezer in that room, I want to cut down the heat more, thus making the freezer work less and the heating more efficient. I was looking into the insulating foils available for hot water tanks, and one vendor suggested I use it to wrap the boiler as they claim it has almost no heat transfer and it will be fine up to 180 degrees. Is this a good (safe) idea to cover the boiler (of course allowing holes for any vents & pipes? Other suggestions? Also- our roof hatch which is in a little closet upstairs is pretty drafty. What would be a good way to decrease the heat loss there?

xistent

in Energy Efficiency 13 years and 3 months ago

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xistent | 13 years and 3 months ago

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Thanks for the info. As I look for elbows and tees, I see that I could have purchase the steam pipe insulations 3 ft tubes in 1 inch rather thann the 1/2 ” that I installed. Seems most suppliers see the 1/2″, but the 1″ would have been the way to really insulate that heat.

steam_man | 13 years and 3 months ago

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Ahhhh.. We don’t do anything in Joisey, that’s why we have never met.   xistent, Everyone wants to leave out the big, thick hunks of iron that radiate heat like crazy. But don’t, they are important to cover. You will get a strip of insulation wrap from the supply house along with PVC covers for each of the fittings. Get a roll of tape too. Just tell them what size pipe it is and the quantity of fittings (tees, elbows, etc). Tell them you want PVC insulation covers for the fittings.

steam_man | 13 years and 3 months ago

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No. You use pipe insulation for the pipes. It comes in 3′ long tubes. If you want to get it locally go to Sunset Plumbing Supply on 60th & 4th ave. Make sure you cover the fittings too as wholesaler_bill described. Or maybe he even sells the stuff. Do you Bill? btw what supply house are you anyway?

wholesalerbill1 | 13 years and 3 months ago

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Insulating blankets on water heaters are useless. Your water heater is insulated from the factory. Blankets were a con by the utilities back in the days of the so called “energy crisis”. Like steam_man said. Just wrap the pipes with fiber glass insulation. They come in 3′ lengths. You can also cover the fittings too with PVC(insulation comes with it) 90’s, 45’s and tee’s as needed. It makes for a nicer tight wrap to use the fittings. Get pvc tape to join everything together.

steam_man | 13 years and 3 months ago

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You do not wrap a boiler. Just insulate the pipes with 2″ wall thickness insulation and that’s it. Call it a day, you aren’t going to get better than that. That is the stuff we use on steam pipe on nearly all our projects.   -SM