Flooded Boiler

clammy

if it's mystery why it flooded and it has no automatic water fed i may have been a leaking hand valve trickling water into the boiler or do you get your domestic water via a tankless coil?That could have a slow leak and flooded your boiler.Nosey around your basement and see what you can are any of your return piping undergroung ?Or has any plumbing work been done never know professinal are people to and they do make mistakes .good luck and peace clammy

Charlie_13

Boiler Flooded - Not Sure Why

I have a 1 pipe steam system with manual water feed. I have had to add water to the boiler about twice a week, since I turned the boiler on in the fall, to keep the water level in the middle of the sight glass. I always thought it was a lot of water to evaporate off. Several days ago, my wife heard sloshing, gurgling and scratching noises in a few radiators. I went down to the boiler and the sight glass was full (flooded). I drained off about 18-20 gallons of water before the water level was back to mid-height on the sight glass. It seems to be running fine now. Where was the water hiding? How do I prevent this from happening again? It happened for the first time last year. We have been in the house for 14 years. After the first time, I called in a knucklehead who was not able to fix.

My guess is that something was clogged then cleared?, piping near sight glass or wet return? Has anyone heard of this?

Rodney Summers

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use the search feature above for "flooding".
This topic has been addressed before.

Motivated Amateur

possible answer

Charlie- same thing happend to me 2 weeks ago. I thought the water feeder might have gone out of control, or a leak in the water supply. Turned out that while taking garbage out, someone accidently hit the ball valve on the water supply, and it flowed in over a matter of hours. Anybody working around the boiler the other day? Also, if you have a union below the water inlet (BUT ABOVE THE WATER LINE!!!!), open it up, and leafve a bucket under it for while- see if anything is leaking out- that would mean a defective valve (learned that from a few wallies here.) Good luck.

Big Ed

High Water

I have seen a gauge assembly plug which would give a wrong reading and the home owner keeped feeding in water trying raise level.

If the boiler is over feed the glass it sometimes fools people thinking they have no water....

First fix replace the feed valve put in a ball valve and add a spring to auto shut it..

Nine times out of ten someone left it open .