Steam Boiler Loses Water Too Quickly

kiemside

Hi all,

I have a steam boiler and it loses water too quickly. I don't have an auto water feeder. Approximately once a week I have to manually add water to it. I have noticed loud leaking air noise and steam coming out a "vent looking thing" at the top of the pipes coming in/out of the boiler. See picture for the said vents http://imgur.com/a/LBpf3

Sometimes the steam comes out of the left "vent" and sometimes it comes out of the right "vent." I suspect the reason why the boiler is losing water too quickly is because it is releasing too much steam through the vent.

My questions are:

- Are these vents to release the steam pressure when it gets too high?
- Is it supposed to be loud when it releases the steam through the vent that you can hear the noise as you are walking down the stairs to the basement?
- Am I correct to assume that the boiler is losing water too quickly is because it is releasing too much steam through the vent?

Thank you all so much

http://imgur.com/a/LBpf3

New England SteamWorks

The vents should only release air. They are designed to close on temperature, so when steam hits them they should close tight. They should be replaced, and they are almost certainly undersized, probably by quite a bit. Check the setting on your pressuretrol, it should be <2lbs.

Jamie Hall

Well, that is a vent. And no, steam is not supposed to come out of it. It is supposed to close tight on steam. The purpose is to let air out of the system when the boiler raises steam, so the steam can fill the pipes.

If steam is coming out -- at all -- the vent is probably damaged and needs to be replaced, although sometimes they can be cleaned.

I wonder what pressure your system is cutting out at Anything over about 1.8 psi is too high for most systems. Anything much over 3 psi will ruin the vents in short order.

kiemside

Thank you all

I removed the faulty vent. Had to use some WD40 and an extension to my wrench to get the sucker out.

Then I went to Home Depot and got this
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Plumbers-Edge-3-4-in-x-1-2-in-Steam-Straight-Vent-PE883/300198965

Put teflon tape on and tightened it in. So far, no more screeching noise

New England SteamWorks

Oops. Wrong. Where is @Fred when you need him?

Go to Amazon and get two of these. You might need four, but you'll need @Fred for that determination.

Those vents will stop the water usage, but the Big Mouths will have your system humming and your fuel bill tanking. Honest.

Fred

LOL @RI_SteamWorks , I'm back! @kiemside how long are your mains (each one) and what diameter pipe? That will tell us how many vents you will need on each main. The Bigmouths the RISteamworks recommended are the best you can get for mains. Each of those vents is equal to about two Gorton #2's and cost a bit less than one.

BobC

That vent is almost certainly too small, the barnes and Jones has about 10X the capacity of the vent you bought. If you don't vent the air fast enough you will just burn fuel for nothing so the right vent will soon pay for itself.

How many and long are the steam mains?

Bob

Big Ed_4

Also check the vents on the radiators , Same way if it's hot and leaks replace ... Slow venting on residential steam radiators , Float type like an economical Hoffman 40 or for adjustments of balance Hoffman #1 . The float helps with water damage if boiler is over filled ..

Abracadabra

Don't use crappy home depot vents.



That vent was pulled from a radiator. Same manufacturer. Vaporstat on system, max pressure 14 oz. Rolled sheet metal with **** seams.

kiemside

I'm not sure which one is the main but there is a pipe coming out the top of the boiler, about 2", then splits into two horizontals. The two pipes with the two vents connects together at the bottom before going in the bottom of the boiler, about 1" each.

Fred

The pipe out of the boiler is the boiler riser. If it's piped correctly, the horizontal pipe should be a Header and the Main(s) should tie in on top of that Header. The pipes that drop down at the boiler, with the vents are your returns.

kiemside

Found the culprit. I opened all the radiators and found a leak through a loose 1.5" nut under one of the radiators. Water was dripping. Got a big wrench and tightened it.

I'm still not sure what's the difference between a header and a main. I drew a diagram of what I have. I've read about the importance of the main vents and now it's clear to me that you should not go cheap on them and the Home Depot vents are not sufficient. But I'm still reluctant to spend $70 on that Big Mouth vent and I need two vents. Looking at the diagram, is Big Mouth the only option I have or is there other cheaper vent that will also serve my system well?

http://imgur.com/jspjA3f

Fred

@kiemside , that first horizontal pipe above your boiler is the header. The rest of the horizontals are either Mains or dry returns. Given it looks like you have a loop that goes around the left half of the basement and a loop that goes around the right half of the basement, and that your vent location is at the end of the dry returns, A BigMouth on each of those mains is what you need to do. They are the best priced and best value you will get for the money. Each one is equal to almost two Gorton #2's and so much better built.

Jamie Hall

Very basically -- the header is the pipe (on older boilers it was actually a big drum laid horizontal) which collects steam from the riser or risers from the boiler. Once the steam is in the header, then it should flow along and the steam main{s} should take off from the top of it. Then at the far end of the header from the end where the riser(s) tie in there needs to be a pipe called the equalizer which drops down to the return water connection to the boiler -- which should be through a Hartford loop or similar. This pipe does two things: it allows the water droplets in the steam from the riser, which should fall out of the steam as it goes along the header and makes a 90 up into the mains, to collect and return to the boiler. It also makes sure that the pressure on the wet return where it enters the boiler is the same as the steam, which makes sure that the steam pressure -- if any -- in the boiler doesn't force the water out of the boiler into the wet returns.

Bigger is better for headers, but there is a cost/benefit consideration. Drop headers -- where the risers make two 90s and drop back down into the header -- will give dryer steam.

The sequence of connections to the header is important in modern work (it was much less so when headers were great big drums, back in the day) and should be riser(s), then main takeoff(s), then equalizer. Any other sequence will allow more water to get into the mains -- which you don't want.

A steam main would be any pipe carrying live steam which serves two or more radiators -- in general. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to decide whether a given pipe should be classed as a main or a runout.