Posted by Tony Conner on February 10, 2000 at 19:19:10:
In Reply to: Re: escalated from merely annoying to emergency posted by david nadelson on February 10, 2000 at 18:49:18:
: Tony,
: Thanks for your response. It's an old house - touch one thing and something else breaks, especially the plumbing. My concern (and my complaint) is that this started when they they were still there and they didn't do anything about it (as in, "Hey buddy, 100-year-old return pipe is broken - here's how much it will cost to dig it up and replace it.").
You've gotta-gotta-gotta get that return line fixed/replaced. It's costing you money for fuel heating up city water to steam temp rather than a 180*F - 200*F running start you get from condensate. And, even worse, that cold city water is full of dissolved oxygen that will corrode your new boiler to death in a year or 2, and scale it up from hardess.
Also, "plumbing" is hot & cold domestic water, and drains. Important systems. Hot water heating is different. Steam is different again. Plumbing is mostly pipe, but not nearly all pipe is plumbing.