I’ll tell you a story about a steam system, which illustrates the need for a knowledgeable installer. This isn’t even about a bad BOILER installation, so much as an illustration of why you need to be careful with steam.

The client contacted us out of desperation. The plumber they used had installed a new steam boiler, and they had a lot of problems, like the ones I mentioned in a previous post, but also very uneven heating and ridiculous gas bills. Unlike the low bidders that I mentioned in that post, this plumber was a good guy and responded to the complaints by getting the boiler company to send someone to check the near boiler piping and suggest corrections, which were done. They installed a more sensitive control on the boiler, and did just about everything they could think of to fix it. I was paid to come to the house and make an analysis of the system, to figure out why nothing they did helped.

Well, the boiler install, the header and etc. looked fine. I checked the radiators and found that except for one area, someone in the past had removed the steam radiators and installed iron pipe baseboards instead. Not to jump to any conclusions, I also checked the piping to the radiators and the pipe sizing throughout the system.  This is what I found. First, baseboard on one pipe steam just does not work. There are exceptions, and there are some clever ways to sometimes make it work, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that it really should not be used. It will never work the way it should, it will be noisy and often spray water onto the walls. When my clients ask me to do it I say no!  Sometimes you can put it on 2 pipe steam but even that can be a problem. Steam needs space and baseboard just doesn’t have it. Besides the baseboard, I found that much of the steam piping was installed poorly, with the wrong sizes, inadequate pitch and no insulation. The alterations that had been done over the years had just made things worse. Hey, even 80 years ago there were bad installers!

The moral of this story? If they had approached me about replacing the boiler, I would have told them not to waste their money. I would have told them that the system needs to be replaced as it will never perform the way it should. I would have told them to change to hot water with a 95% AFUE Buderus boiler and a lifetime hot water heater. It would have cost more, but in the long run they would have saved money and been more comfortable in their house. Their heating bills would, most likely, have been cut in half, or maybe even more! Instead they’ve spent many thousands of dollars to only make the problems worse. I would have seen this BEFORE they wasted their money.

Hey I’m a steam guy, but I do know when someone should give up on a botched up system. I’m only sorry that I didn’t get the call before they spent that money. I’m even sorry for the plumber, as he was trying to do right by his customer. He just didn’t know what to do!