question re boiler overfill

lchmb

Odd's are the original diagnosis was correct and the crack's were there prior. you would not have seen steam in your basement because it would have gone up the chimney. 29 year's old earned it's pay. IMHO

Paul G.

question re boiler overfill

My wife and I recently moved into a rental house with a 29 yr old gas Bryant steam boiler. A few days after moving in and after the radiators had an especially noisy night, my well-intentioned but boiler-naive wife turned the water feed valve on and left it on, until a few minutes later when she told me about it and I ran down to see that water was overflowing the unit and down into the burners. I had a professional look at it, we were able to reproduce what had happened, and he concluded that it was cracked and needed to be replaced. He assured us that the overfilling did not cause it to break, only revealed the problem, something about the cracks being above the normal water level.
Our landlord's guy then came and looked at it and came to the same conclusion, also said we were not at fault, but now after a month our landlord has apparently had a change of heart and is saying we should bear some responsibility for the cost of the new boiler since we overfilled and caused the cracking. I told him that two service professionals agreed that the cracks were pre-existing, but he said his guy "changed his mind" and there's no way the cracks could have been there before because they would have seen steam in the basement over the winter and they did not. He said that when my wife overfilled, cool water was added to an already-on / hot boiler, which probably caused the cracking.
Is there any merit to this? I'm a reasonable person and will pay for what I'm responsible for, but I'm looking for expert opinions before deciding what stance to take. Are we responsible for breaking the boiler simply for overfilling it? I'm no expert in this field but it doesn't seem very smart (or safe) to make something so easy to break. Should the fact that it was 29 years old (installed 1979) enter into my decision to fight this?
Thanks for any input.
Paul

mike@BORO

OXIDATION CORROSION

sounds to me like corrosion not cracks, condition proably existed for years, your landlord should focus on finding steam leaks on the system [rads. returns etc.] maybe the best thing that you could have done was flood the boiler, at least it was brought to your land lords attention, may never have found the leak. good luck mike s

nicholas bonham-carter

boiler depreciation

i anyone were able to claim the replacement cost for this boiler from an insurance company they would depreciate the present value of the boiler to practically zero.just as if you have a hailstorm on a 20 year-old shingle roof your compensation from insurance would be very low.
even if your actions were responsable for the demise of the boiler[which i doubt] you should not be liable for the entire expense of the replacement.
were you ever shown what NOT to do with this boiler?
the fact that boiler had a long and noisy night [uncouth noises as the ARCO manual describes them] leads me to believe that the whole system is in a state of disrepair due to lack of maintainance.
hopefully you have renters insurance and that the adjuster will take on the disagreeable job of dealing with your landlord.
make sure that when this boiler is replaced that the installer follows the good advice found in dan's books[available on this site] so all your heating money isn't wasted up the chimney. good luck--nbc

Paul G.

Thanks for the responses-- all good points. I should also mention that the house is up for sale, not really a true rental property, so the landlord isn't exactly thanking me for demonstrating the problem with his boiler. So on the one hand I feel bad that he's on the line for a new boiler of a house he's trying to get rid of, but I do agree, as did the service professional who looked at it, that the overfilling revealed the problem and may have averted a potentially dangerous situation.

So just so I'm clear on this point, am I correct in saying that adding water after a few minutes of operation is not a very likely cause of the boiler's breakdown? How big of a "no-no" is that?

nicholas bonham-carter

boiloer overfill

i luckily have never attended a boiler cracking ;however from all i have heard is that:
the boiler would have to be steaming..or
dry firing..or
have badly installsd return piping without the makeup feed line connected to the RETURN [as opposed to a direct connection to the boiler]..or
so dirty and filled with rust and mud that the sections heat unevenly and crack[dirty burner can cause imbalanced heating too]
i would think a fresh crack would be below the waterline and not be rusty.
does this have a hot water coil? if so its level should be higher in summer for economy,but not lose any water at all unless there were a preexisting leak.
once again this would be a good time to have insurance to help sort this out.good luck
and have a nice 4th--nbc