dirty water and chemicals

jimmythegreek

I have a commercial building, late 1800s, 40+ rads and 400k btus single pipe steam.  I have gained tremendous knowledge on this site and have made huge improvements in getting heat to alot of cold/dead rads.  I have a 0-20 oz guage and 0-3 psi guage.  I just installed 2 gorton #2's on each main end (4 total) and reduced my readings of (avg.) 10-12 ozs and .5 to 1.0 psi of steam to 1-2 oz and 0-.5psi now.  I hope to see much diff in the heating, I'm on day 1 on the main vents, and had single gorton Ds on each B4(2 total).  while changing the vents/piping I drained out the water pretty low and did a light skimming.  I cleaned the site glass spotless (9am) and by 5pm the water was brown again and site glass almost unreadable.  Is there any way to get this water cleaner?  I know theres a 100yrs of rust in there, but I see alot of your guys pics and the water is clean. I read about SQUICK and TSP is either better or dont bother? I also have had wet steam from the day I bought this property, its alot better now since reading here, if I pull a vent off a rad and shake its got quite a bit of water in it. I have alot of bounce in my site glass water, it is dirt or needs skimming again?  I'll post pics of my setup 2moro, my piping isnto too bad near boiler, it could be better though and im thinkin of repiping the headers in spring after seeing some works of art posted here, makes me kinda jealous......thanks alot guys

crash2009

My boiler was very dirty

too.  I flushed it and skimmed it for hours and hours.  It got dirty again within minutes.  I was unable to get mine clean using normal blowdown methods.  When we re-piped we put in the "King valves" that Dan recomended in the following video  http://www.heatinghelp.com/article/107/Steam-Heating/118/Steam-boiler-near-boiler-piping Using the Kings to do a pressurised backflush got it clean after about 3 or 4 attempts and it has remained that way ever since.  So if you are planning to re-pipe in the spring spend the extra few dollars on the King valves in the video, and yours will be crystal clean too.  You don't need chemicals to get it clean, just some valves in the right places.

nicholas bonham-carter

cleanning the boiler

you could try the method recommended by peerless boilers, which we used on startup: use arm&hammer washing soda. the instructions follow here:

G. CLEAN THE BOILER

1. Clean the boiler as described below no later than

one week after the initial start-up. Cleaning will be

more effective if the boiler operates a day or two to

loosen sediment and impurities in the system.

2. The boiler must be cleaned to remove any

accumulation of oil, grease, sludge, etc. that may be

in the system. These substances can cause foaming

and surging of the boiler water, producing an

unstable water line and water carryover to the system.

3. The piping for a skim valve must be done as shown

in Section 5, “Pipe the Boiler,” of this manual, with

the skim valve mounted off of one of the end riser

connections.

4. Connect a 2 inch drain line off of the skim valve, run

to a point of safe discharge.

5. Close all valves to the system. Provide a means of

continuous fresh water to the boiler for the cleaning

process.

6. Use common washing soda (such as Arm and

Hammer Super Washing Soda). Mix the soda with

water in a 10 quart (9.5 liter) pail and pour into the

boiler through the safety valve tapping. Use a

proportion of one (1) pound (.5 kg) of washing soda

for each 800 square feet (74 m²) EDR net boiler rating.

7. Open the skim valve. Fill the boiler until water begins

to flow out the valve.

8. Turn burners on and allow the boiler water to heat

up to just below steaming [180 to 200ºF (82 to

93ºC)]. Cycle the burners to maintain temperature

during skimming. Do not allow the boiler to steam.

Steaming mixes up the contaminants in the water

instead of floating them at the surface.

9. Open the make-up water valve to continuously feed

water to the boiler. Allow water to flow out of the

skim tapping.

10. Continue skimming the boiler until the water flowing

from the skim tapping flows clear. This will take

some time, possibly several hours for a dirty system.

11. After skimming is complete, close the skim valve and

turn off the boiler.

12. Close the make-up water valve and open the boiler

blowdown valves.

13. Drain the boiler completely. Then refill and drain

again one or two times to make sure all of the soda

has been washed out.

14. Restore piping to normal. Pipe a nipple and cap in

the skim valve.

15. Note: If the gauge glass becomes dirty again, this

indicates more contaminants have worked loose in

the system. Repeat the cleaning and skimming

process as needed to clean the system.

Cleaning the boiler requires the use of very hot water

and corrosive chemicals. Use care when handling to

prevent injury.

WARNING

Do not leave the boiler unattended while firing.

Take great care not to allow the water level to drop

below the bottom of the gauge glass or to allow fresh

water make-up to flow in too fast. This will avoid the

possibility of causing the boiler sections to fractture.

Rod

Dirty Water

Hi- You just have to have patience and do repetitious cleanings. You can't expect to make up for 100 years of neglect in just a light flushing or two. 

 For just cleaning the boiler - You can use TSP or washing soda though that's just to clean the boiler. You can't leave them in the boiler and make steam.

You might try using Rhomar 9150 as one of its advantages is that you can leave it on the boiler for a week or until things get really dirty and then flush it out and repeat the process till your boiler and piping are clean. I've used it and been quite happy with it. I did a couple of boiler plain water flushings first before I used the Rhomar as I saw no sense is wasting it if I could get the primary dirt out with plain water.

http://www.rhomarwater.com/products/residential-steam-system/

Generally I would be cautious about boiler additives. Most of the steam pros seem stay away from them. Other people have used different additives from the ones I 've mentioned  but I can't help you on those as the only ones I've using is washing soda and the 9150

Skimming -  I've had to skim up to seven times on consecutive Saturdays before my water line finally got settled down. I'd skim for two hours at a time and collect about a 5 gal bucket.  It's one of the things that also needs patience.  Once you get setup to flush or skim it's fairly easy to do multiple times. If you are  loosening and removing a lot of "crud" from you boiler you may want to check your pigtail and connected items afterward just to see none of the loose dirt etc. has clogged them up.

- Rod

jimmythegreek

thanks

thanks for the responses.  I saw the video a while back about the king valves and return valves process, which id love to do.  The big problem is the ancient piping has these valves in place, the problem is they look like they belong on a battleship, theyre butt flanged gate valves the size of a basketball, I wouldnt even wanna chance playing with them.  Can someone give me some insight or point me in the right direction as fas as cleaning/skimming during heating season.  I did it after a cool off of 2 hours on a milder day, but were in dead of winter in NNJ and I am curious if theres a way to do so while still making steam........thanks again for all the great advice