Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

boiler flooding

Jack_44
Jack_44 Member Posts: 35
in THE MAIN WALL
Is there also an automatic water feed? If so, how recently has it been inspected, cleaned, reconditioned, etc?

Comments

  • Brother Crispin
    Brother Crispin Member Posts: 7
    boiler flooding and surging

    Our system flooded after we skimmed it. I have a large one pipe system which is very old. we cleaned the boiler after a lot of piping was replaced and a new boiler was installed (2 million BTU). We put some MEX cleaner into the boiler and let the water heat up then we skimmed the boiler for 5 hours to rinse and flush. Afterward the boiler was surging and appeared more dirty than ever and the system flooded in 2 days. The manual fill valve was not left on and the water level in the boiler was returned to normal after the skimming.

    Any pointers on this one?
  • nicholas bonham-carter
    nicholas bonham-carter Member Posts: 8,578
    old system dirty

    you will probably have to skim your boiler 5-6 times [once a week or so], to get all the oil out.
    get a copy of dan's book on steam from here, and become more familiar with these systems in general, and yours in particular.it is a good read while you are babysitting the boiler during skimming!
    post some pictures of the steam and return piping here so the experts can see any glring errors if there are any.
    keep your pressure down to 12 OUNCES with a vaporstat and verify that with a good low pressure gauge on the same pigtail [from gaugestore.com].
    check your main vents as you want to get the air out of the mains asap at the start of firing.
    when you have worked the bugs out of the system you will love how it operates! --nbc
  • Brother Crispin
    Brother Crispin Member Posts: 7
    boiler flooding

    Thanks for the input. To answer John's question,the water feeder is as old as the boiler whcih is 4 years. Although the piping is over 60 years and I replaced alot of the wet return runs already because they rotted through! So there is a lot of sediment in the water that I think may be the rust from the the returns. The loops for this system can run 500 feet in areas.

    Since I posted thsi problem we skimmed it once more for 5 hours and that seems to have stopped the flooding. The water meter on the supply indicates that only 2 gallons of water have been added in 3 days.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories