condesate problem

Jim Hynes

We have a customer with an old system , which in my opinion either the customer messed with or someelse did. the piping is all crossed and such.
thats not why im writing...He is having flooding issues, he has what looks like a 2 pipe system (but has no traps )...He has a condensate pump below the boiler. When his boiler runs, it makes steam, the water level drops to where the lowater cutoff sesnse low water and turns the feeder on....when the condensate pump fills up it fills the boiler thus flodding it. I tried lowering the float level in the tank, but the boiler makes the staem faster than the condensate returns...Also it has no strainer on the pump inlet to clean out...the house is an old home in lancaster county penn. which has had some addition work to it...I do not know what was in here origanlly, but there is a sm weil mcclain in there now with a blue angel burner. There is no way for me to know if the return lines are clogged to the point where they are delaying the retun water...what can I do??? The owner is kinda a pian and will say it worked fine for yrs....also why is there no steam traps on these rads???I am goinna go now and search thru these staem books and see if i can find an answer as well.

Dave_12

Look into a boiler feed system

If you cannot solve the overfilling problem, consider installing a boiler feed system. The tank capacity would be much larger that the condensate system that now exists, and the makeup water would go to the boiler feed tank instead of to the boiler.

A level control on the boiler would turn on the pump to maintain a precise water level in the boiler, eliminating overfilling.

Good luck with this problem.

Jim Hynes

steam cond.

how does this solve my problem?? If the fresh water is being pumped into the boiler feed resivior then beong pumped into the boiler...when the lwco senses low water it will shut off the boiler??? or does the feed start to pump into the boiler?? If so if i have a slow condensate retuirn isnt this gonn abe the same problem...if there is a level switch on the bolier to sense low water, how is it any different if the water is gonna be pum,ped from the resivio or from the feeder??? It still will flood when the condensate pump resivior fills up, no???
i am very curious