skimming propblem

David Nadle

Maybe the pipe you're buying lately has oil on the inside surface?

My installers twice used the sodium carbonate stuff that turns green. It's not Squick. In my opinion it didn't help and may have made things worse by bringing contaminants back from the mains and radiators. The boiler still had to be skimmed 5 times.

After 5 skims, and rather late in the first heating season, I removed all the green water and refilled, then tried Squick. It turns the water dark brown, not green. After a few days it lightens up considerably and you can start draining out the precipitate. The first time I did that a thick clump of sludge oozed out. I don't know how much of that was contaminate and how much was the Squick itself. I apologize for the terrible pun but that clump was unsettling. However, all in all I think Squick did help. I beleive it's nearly all out by now, and so far in the second heating season I haven't had to add a thing and I have no priming or surging.

Dan C.

skimming problem

All of the steam boilers that I have installed since the end of last heating season up until now I have had to go back several times to skim. Some of them 5 or 6 times. In the past, I only have to skim once and rarely go back for a second or third time even on large boilers with a lot of piping. All of the steam boilers that I put in are Burnham and always have been. 95% of them are IN series The last six or seven I have had real problems with and they are all small boilers with one or two mains and dry returns. I have never needed to use any chemicals before. I tried squick on one of them and it didn't seem to do anything but make the water turn green. The only thing that I have done differently is I now use Rectorseal # 5 special and I used to use pro dope but I can't imagine enough of the dope would get into the water to cause this problems. Any ideas? Does anyone have a chemical that they use that works well?

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Dan C.

Anyone else have anything they use that works well?

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bob young

hercules liquid cleaner

upsellovoto

Just follow the burnham directions for boiler clean out. The piping should be flushed prior to install. No fancy product names, just trisodium phosphate, soda ash etc....

V8toilet

I've used the Hercules liquid cleaner too and it did help but you cannot leave it in for long because (at least with mine) it causes the water to prime and surge. If you put the Hercules liquid cleaner in plan on skinning the boiler a couple of day after.

The thing that works the best is cleaning the pipe before you install. That eliminates a lot of the oil from getting in, in the first place.