Lately here in Connecticut the weather has been described as steamy. Not outrageously hot, it's the tropical humidity that the makes the air heavy, sticky and just plain uncomfortable. Steam is also still used for heat in many homes here in Connecticut. I often find new and old boilers set up to produce steam for the old, ornate radiators through out the house.
As everyone knows steam is hot, very hot. Consequently the radiators in the house are also very hot. Over time they cool which then causes the steam to condense back to water. The water returns to the boiler to be reheated. While this water is certainly cooler than when it left the boiler, it is still hot.
Recently while inspecting an older house, I found a section of the return pipe for the steam boiler in basement had been replaced...with plastic pipe. This corner of the basement clearly has had, does have a water infiltration issue. Since the old iron pipe was installed right on the floor, my guess is the replaced section of pipe rusted out from the water infiltration.
Plastic pipe, especially white schedule 40 PVC is not in any way rated for hot water. PVC has one of the lowest melting points of any plastic. Why would someone knowingly replace a section of old iron pipe on a steam heating system with plastic pipe? My guess is price and convenience. PVC is very inexpensive, readily available and easy to install.
Does the return water through this pipe get hot? I took a temperature reading after running the system long enough to produce heat at the radiators. While the temperature is not overly hot, it shows that the water through the pipe is warm after just a short time. I would imagine once the system is in constant use, the return water will be hotter.
The water issue in this basement may end up being from two sources in the near future.
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