Cast iron boiler with a sloppy piping design has problems.

Kingfisher

I wish I had a picture of it. I will take one and try to post is here soon.



basically the system only has one pump. its pumping straight into the boiler through the return side.



Coming directly off the supply side is a T with one end going through a watts air seperator (which also is where the boiler feed is) and then to a threeway valve.



the other end of the T goes directly back to the inlet side of the pump and has a ballvalve turned half off like the original installer was trying to throttle the flow back to the pump so as to keep the heat above 140 degrees so the boiler doesnt condense. BUT i thought that was what the threeway valve was for. maybe im wrong.



anyways whenever I turn that ballvalve on all the way the boiler starts to gurgle, even though I've flushed the air out of the system for two days.

the customer had me replace a honeywell valve on the radiant manifold. To do this I had to shut down the system, drain it, and flush the air out. but he refuses to pay me until I get rid of that gurgling noise even though his system runs fine, gets heat to all zones and is perfectly silent when that ballvalve is slightly more than halfway closed.



the customer does not want to pay to overhaul the system to current standards. Am I putting the boiler at risk by letting it run with the ballvalve half off? and what could be causing the gurgling noises besides an airblock?

Tim McElwain

The Honeywell valve you

replaced on the radiant was it a differential pressure valve perhaps a D146?



The throttling may be in addition to the three way valve, I would have to see the actual piping to tell.



Is this system all radiant or mixed?



What is the return temperature back to the boiler with the valve throttled down versus full open?

Kingfisher

good news. and not so good news.

no it was just a plain normally closed honeywell zonevalve.



unfortunately I completely forgot my camera the other day.



the system is All radiant. and its not just the boiler where the piping design is so sloppy. the radiant pipes running to the house are all manifolded off 1/2 inch mains. I think it was a DIY'er who installed it. and unfortunately nothing is labelled so there is no way for me to properly balance the system.



well there is no temp sensor except for on the boiler. the pipes are cool to the touch when that valve is throttled down and too hot to handle with it fully open.



I went back there the other day to make sure they were getting heat. It looks like I've gotten all the air out of the system and all the zones atleast are getting heat. I let the customer know that they should do a major overhaul of their system in order to maintain its longevity. They were happy enough to get their heat back and paid me.



but they are going to wait until the boiler dies and replace the whole thing with a high efficiency wall-hung boiler.



unfortunately I still have not confirmed %100 that the gurgling noise coming from the boiler when that valve is throttled on all the way is debris or not. There are some small metal tinking noises that you can hear amongst the gurgling. so perhaps im not completely wrong.