This beautiful Italianate farmhouse was built in 1860 and has been in the same family ever since. It’s located in Thurmont, Maryland, just north of Frederick.

 

The current owner’s father was a steamfitter and installed the steam heating system in the 1940s. The home originally had two Kewanee steel oil boilers. We replaced one several years ago and returned again to replace the second boiler.

 

We specified a Burnham Mega Steam cast iron oil boiler with a Beckett burner. Our lead fitter Brian Golden, technician Slavko Nisevic, and their talented crew did a masterful job piping this boiler, with two risers feeding a drop header to slow down the velocity of the steam in this one-pipe system. We also added new main vents and radiator vents to complete the restoration of this old system.  –Dan Foley

 

 

 

 

Steam boilers are one of our specialties here at Foley Mechanical. Steam heating systems haven’t been installed since the 1940s, but they’re still out there in the basements of older buildings all across America. Repairing and maintaining them is a dying art, which is why we see many botched systems out there during the course of our work.

We performed a re-pipe and re-install of this boiler to fix the problems. We re-piped the header and Hartford Loop to manufacturer specifications.  We also flushed out the wet returns, replaced the crossover vents, and added a main venting system.

After the piping was complete, we cleaned and skimmed the boiler to remove dirt and oil.  The fuel filter and nozzle were replaced and the burner was tuned up using a digital combustion analyzer.

Steam systems are finicky and notoriously difficult to work on.  It’s very satisfying when one is restored to its original glory, like this one was.

— Dan Foley