Steam Boiler Operation?

terry ritter

I have an over sized boiler that I fired for the first time this season last evening. I've made a number of improvements (vapor 2 pipe system with two #2 gorton vents on each end of the supply & return) over the last couple of years which has lead to a very quite running system that runs until the stat is satisfied, running @ about 3oz of pressure. My question if this makes sense; from the cold start last evening this boiler ran about 50 min. to bring the temp up 8 deg. which I realize in my masonry home is not that bad, but the radiators were completely HOT into the traps for sometime until the stat was satisfied. I feel I'm wasting fuel if all is hot while the boiler continues to run? Am I missing something here? Thanks! Terry

Brad White_203

All that means to me is

that your radiators to heat loss are well-sized and perhaps your setback is too long. Could also be that you have a lot of air leakage.

An hour's run-time used to be a rule of thumb, not that this makes it right. You are in that range but it could be less of course.

But the fact that you are running on three ounces of pressure and that the radiators are getting hot means that the system is working fine, the vents and traps are doing their job (as far as I can tell) and the boiler has enough capacity to feed them.

Absent any leaking traps, I see it as just a "system and radiators to heat loss ratio" issue.

You are not wasting fuel if the radiators are hot and the space is coming up to temperature. If you were firing and having cold radiators, I would say otherwise.

Maybe you do not set it back so much or check into air sealing. Being a masonry home, your insulating options may be limited. Reducing air leakage is your best option in my experience.