Water Ups and Downs

SPP

I recently had a Weil Mclain SGO 3  oil fired steam boiler installed and had a problem with the water level in the boiler fluctuating quite a bit. The boiler heats the hot water for the indirect hot water tank as well and has a manual ball valve to fill the boiler as needed.  I posted photos of the piping in my original post on this forum named "Getting Hissed" and several of you pointed out that the boiler had not been piped correctly according to manual specs, more specifically, the header was not 24" or more above the water line.  Since then, the header piping has been corrected but the water fluctuation problem has not gone away. The boiler has also been skimmed once as well to try and eliminate that as a cause of surging. My tech, for his next attempt, is going to change out the circulator pump to one that pumps at a lower rate with the theory that the the lower pressure pump will be more compatible with the boiler. Same as before, when the water heater kicks on the water level drops three or four inches on the glass gauge but when all is back at rest the water settles to above the top of the glass gauge or pretty close to it. Does this newest theory hold any water or do you suppose there is some other problem?

crash2009

Same Problem

So now you have it piped to manufacturers specifications, and you still have the same problem?

http://www.heatinghelp.com/forum-thread/133189/Getting-Hissed#p1208419

SPP

Fluctuating water remains

Yes.  The water still drops dramatically when the water heater comes on. 

crash2009

Returns Hartford

Have you corrected the returns and the Hartford?

SPP

Header Piping Changed

I have attached a couple of photos showing that the only piping that was changed was the header piping. A rep from Weil Mclain came to my house with the installer and okayed the hartford loop and return piping. By the way, he also claimed that it was okay to use copper...but let me just stick with the arrangement for the moment.

The Steam Whisperer (Formerly Boilerpro)

Probably not the problem, but....

the header piping is still incorrect.   The steam supply to the system should come off the top of the header, not the side.  With the supply coming off the side the water that settles to the bottom of the header can be drawn out into the system.

SPP

flow check

I think my indirect hot water needed a flow check on the supply because the water level in the indirect water tank was not staying constant. This in turn drew water from the boiler when the hot water tank kicked on but then flowed back into the boiler when it came to a rest. So my oil tech took off the circulator pump and replaced it with a pump with a flow check. This problem did not exist before because the tech who installed the hot water tank closed the air vent on the top of the tank which created a vacuum and kept the water in the tank. The water level in the boiler does not fluctuate more than a half inch on the glass gauge with the flow check in place. Hopefully, that is the end of the problem.

Jean-David Beyer

Flow check?

I am not a professional, but I do have an indirect fired hot water heater; it is a tank within a tank model with the boiler water in the outer tank. There is a little Taco Hy-Vent in the top (that lets air out, but would also let air in if there were a vacuum in the outer tank). I always leave the cap unscrewed one turn as recommended by the indirect's manufacturer. The circulator has an integral flow check in it (Taco 007-IFC). Now since the top of the indirect's top is lower than the water level in the system (hot water system running very slightly over 13 PSI), the tank is never likely to empty. If it even got close, my Low Water CutOff would power down the entire system.



I guess with a steam system, you should arrange that the top of the water heater is lower than the water line in the boiler. But this might not allow you a large enough indirect unless  you dig a hole in the floor for it, and I doubt that would be practical. I do not like the idea of screwing the top of the vent closed.



One approach is to have two circulators. One in a loop from the boiler that pumps the boiler water to a heat exchanger and back. Locate the heat exchanger below the water line of the boiler; then you will not have air in it. And have the output of the heat exchanger circulator routed to the indirect. I guess you would need makeup water in that loop, and a relief valve. But that way you could use cast iron circulator to drive the indirect. I do not know if you want to bother with all this, but I would certainly think about it. I understand you do not normally want to pump steam boiler around because it is hard on plumbing system components.