Steam boiler draining and water guage help-Newbie

mcguicm

Hey Guys new to Steam heat and boilers in general. recently heard a lot of banging in the pipes. We usually have a little but very faint. This time the banging has been really loud.

I went to check the boiler and the water was really dirty and the gauge was completely full. I called our boiler guy, told me to drain it and let the water go down. I put the hose on it and ran the water to the floor drain, after a while it stopped draining at the gauge is still full! I waited to till morning and was able to drain about 1/3 gallon more of water.

I called our boiler guy again and said it still might have water in it and asked if I truly drained it all the way. I'm not sure who much water actually drained out since it went right to a floor drain, and since the gauge still says full I really don't know. (I don't think he wants to have to charge us for sending himself of an employee out for something easy)

Can anyone guide me on the next step. Ive looked around on-line possibly the gauge is clogged....anyone have a DIY for removal and inspection.

It has an Automatic feeder from what I was told but was afraid to turn the boiler on last night since i drained the water. and I was not sure if the low water cut off reads from the gauge or somewhere else.

Any help would be great. Assume I don't know anything and please explain like I'm your 5 year old kid.

I have a Smith Steam boiler (residential), about 12 yeats old.

(I did order the book "We've got steam heat" BTW)



Cody

Jamie Hall

Ordering the book

was an excellent step 1!



As to the water level -- if you have drained water out of the boiler, and there is still water in the gauge glass, then the most likely thing is that the bottom fitting of the gauge glass is either clogged or, if it is has a valve, it's closed.  Neither one is good.



If you are rather handy, you can take that whole assembly off and clean it all out -- but it is quite easy to break the glass doing that, and from the sound of it you might be more comfortable getting you plumber to come out and check it.



Of course, if the automatic feeder was on while you were draining, it was valiantly trying to refill the boiler while you were draining!  It should be off (there are valves to turn it off, or there should be) while you are draining, and then you should refill manually (there should be a valve for that, too) until the glass is half full, more or less.



But I'm going to venture that the fittings to the gauge are plugged up -- and that quite possibly the automatic feeder's control is full of gunk, too.