carbon monoxide from steam rad vents?

CHRISBPS

I work in a plumbing supply house and recently sold a small peerless gas steam boiler to a contractor. For whatever reason pseg came to the house and found

carbon monoxide coming out of the vents on the rads! Has anyone ever heard of this?

Hitzkup

How?

How did they determine that the air vent is the source?

Unknown

Someone has alot to learn,,,,

If that were true,,, our morning coffeemaker would have killed us all long ago!  :-)

Tim McElwain

Yes I had this happen

many years ago on an old steam boiler which had a crack in the top of the boiler above the water line. The air shutter on the burner was closed and the burner was burning yellow making CO it got through the crack and up into two radiators and vented into the room.



I also had this happen on a brand new steam boiler install several years ago replacing an old steam system and it somehow got in to the piping through a crack in a fitting. The cause was a plugged chimney that the installer failed to find which eventually caused the new boiler to soot up and CO to come out the vent on the radiator on a one pipe system. 

Unknown

"got in to the piping through a crack in a fitting"

C`mon Tim,, arent you reaching just a bit??

Anyone with steam will be scared silly!



I`m curious to know the detector used.

Steamhead

If Tim says it can happen

I believe him.



I think it could also happen if the main vent was in the boiler room and the CO in the boiler room was high (blocked chimney and no blocked-flue switch, anyone?). When the system cooled and the main vent opened, the vacuum would draw CO into the system.



This is yet another reason to test everything you work on. We do.



Any home or building owners reading this, no matter what type of system you have- if someone comes to work on your system, ask if they use a digital combustion analyzer. If they don't- throw them out immediately and get someone in there who does!

CHRISBPS

MORE TESTING

Thank you for your replies!

The contractor went back to the job with a digital CO meter and did the following.

1- Went into boiler room and fired up all units (a small packaged hw boiler and a water heater, along with the steam boiler in question) and got a clean reading in the boiler room.

2- Removed the releif valve from the steam boiler and took a reading near the opening, readings climbed to 250 ppm and stopped as soon as the boiler started to steam.

3-Checked general area and around the 2 end of main vents(at ends of building) to see if near garage, drier vent, or anything maybe producing CO.Nothing found

4- next step trying to set up appt with rep and contractor to repeat tests and hopefully find something overlooked

Mark Eatherton

What gets out, must go in....

Try flooding the boiler and near boiler piping and see if you have a leak in the vessel. If you do, you should replace the boiler any way.



Are any carbon based water treatments being used on the boiler that might have high VOC capabilities?



Interesting in deed.



ME

CHRISBPS

Good suggestion

great idea-- common sense(now that you said it)  as far as treatment/additives the only thing put in the boiler as far as we know was some steam clean, done after the problem was discovered.

made appt with rep, contractor,to meet on job thurs 5/13

Chris

Tim McElwain

Monoxer CO

tester was initially used then a commercial tester by the local Fire Department. I retested with a Testo Combustion Analyzer.



I have also had a case that gasoline fumes came out of the vent on a radiator.



When you work for a gas utility you get many strange and unusual foreign odor complaints.