end of season shut-down

DaveB55

I am the supt. at a 70 unit bldg. We have two steam boilers & a two pipe system .

My question: Would it be advisable to completely drain the water from the boilers at the end of each heating season when we shut-down the system on May1st?

nicholas bonham-carter

End of season

Why bother? The boiler water has been deoxygenated and will not go bad over the summer. I assume you are not making hot water with it?

We love to see picture and details of all systems, especially big ones!

Has the system been operating well in general?--nbc

nicholas bonham-carter

Dupe

DaveB55

uneven heating issue

we have two boilers;one is a weil mclain 10 sections (about 5 yrs. old) and one Smith series 7 section (brand new installed 3 weeks ago) I will get some pictures soon to post. We have had some troubles with the Weil mclain. There are three apartments on the same tier which are very difficult to heat properly ( I have a feeling it might be improper vents in the basement return lines) . These are at the end of the run of piping and do not heat up as fast as the rest of the building.I was planning to replace the existing Gorton Air Eliminators with some larger Hoffman 40's 0r 74's later this week. there is also a 'knocking' noise when the boiler first starts up, especially when its cold . I was told that it may need a special insulating 'blanket' installed in the bottom or possibly the take offs were not installed properly. When I send some pictures maybe you will be able to give me some advise on this problem. I would appreciate any input you may give me on these issues. Thanks again   DaveB55

DaveB55

uneven heating issue

we have two boilers;one is a weil mclain 10 sections (about 5 yrs. old) and one Smith series 7 section (brand new installed 3 weeks ago) I will get some pictures soon to post. We have had some troubles with the Weil mclain. There are three apartments on the same tier which are very difficult to heat properly ( I have a feeling it might be improper vents in the basement return lines) . These are at the end of the run of piping and do not heat up as fast as the rest of the building.I was planning to replace the existing Gorton Air Eliminators with some larger Hoffman 40's 0r 74's later this week. there is also a 'knocking' noise when the boiler first starts up, especially when its cold . I was told that it may need a special insulating 'blanket' installed in the bottom or possibly the take offs were not installed properly. When I send some pictures maybe you will be able to give me some advise on this problem. I would appreciate any input you may give me on these issues. Thanks again   DaveB55

DaveB55

uneven heating issue

we have two boilers;one is a weil mclain 10 sections (about 5 yrs. old) and one Smith series 7 section (brand new installed 3 weeks ago) I will get some pictures soon to post. We have had some troubles with the Weil mclain. There are three apartments on the same tier which are very difficult to heat properly ( I have a feeling it might be improper vents in the basement return lines) . These are at the end of the run of piping and do not heat up as fast as the rest of the building.I was planning to replace the existing Gorton Air Eliminators with some larger Hoffman 40's 0r 74's later this week. there is also a 'knocking' noise when the boiler first starts up, especially when its cold . I was told that it may need a special insulating 'blanket' installed in the bottom or possibly the take offs were not installed properly. When I send some pictures maybe you will be able to give me some advise on this problem. I would appreciate any input you may give me on these issues. Thanks again   DaveB55

DaveB55

end of season shut-down followup

I guess my concern would be that the water left in the boiler may cause chemicals in the water to corrode the boiler. Is that a possible or not?

Jamie Hall

Look at it this way:

You have a good charge of water in your boilers, and you have added relatively little (I hope) during the heating season.  And, being residential boilers, you do not use additives.  The water which is in there will probably have done almost all the chemical attack -- corrosion -- which it can possibly do; leaving it in there won't cause more.



However -- if you drain the boilers, they won't really dry out (particularly the wet returns) and then you do have the problem of corrosion, as the combination of 100% relative humidity in there and air, with some oxygen, will surely cause continued corrosion.



So... I'd leave 'em be.

nicholas bonham-carter

Getting the air out

A system of this size has a lot of air to be removed so the steam can get in, so look at how that can be improved.

Many 2-pipe systems were designed to run at very low pressures (1 ounce per floor). So also look at that, and get a good low-pressure gauge (gaugestore.com, 0-3 psi, mounted on the same pigtail as the pressuretrol. Are both boilers firing simultaneously, and can the burners do hi-lo firing?--nbc