one pipe steam smell

stembo

We just fired up our one pipe steam, and it is working great.  However, the air from the vents doesn't smell clean.  The boiler had been off all summer.  Is there a boiler water treatment that is preferred for steam systems with air vents because it smells better?  Most of the boiler treatments I see don't say whether or not they are for a system with air vents.  I imagine some smell awful.  I have heard that lemon juice can be put into a boiler, but I am not willing to try anything like that until I know more.

Thanks,

Rod

Try Changing the Water

Hi- You might just want to drain the boiler and fill it with new water a time or two.

An earlier poster on this board mentioned that his boiler water was black and smelled as a result of the stale water in the boiler growing algae during the summer. It cleared up by just draining it and refilling the boiler a couple of times. I think I'd try that first before adding anything to the boiler water.

Rod

stembo

OK

I will try that.  It does sound reasonable.

This is a small 125k btu boiler.  I have never heard of this, but since the make-up water is not pretreated, would it make any sense if the initial refill was with distilled water?  This wouldn't be difficult.  We would still use the make-up water for weekly draining, but it seems we would nevertheless be reducing impurities substantially.

Rod

Boil the New Water!

I'd just use regular tap water as I don't think there is that much benefit using distilled. Residential steam systems are open systems in that air, dust, spores etc. can enter the system when the boiler shuts off and air re enters the system through the vents on the radiators. Bacteria and spores are normally killed  by the steam and only get a chance to grow during the idle summer months.

When draining a boiler an  important thing to remember is to bring the boiler water to a boil right after you add "new" water. Heating it to a boil drives off dissolved oxygen in the new water. Dissolved oxygen can be very corrosive to your boiler and shorten the life its life.

- Rod

crash2009

distilled water is too acidic

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/distilled-water-ph-level.html



The national boiler institute reccomends a ph of 11, page 7