Bouncing Level in Sight Glass

Owen

Crime Detectives

Sir, if you like that sort of thing check out the Vidocq Society. Google it. There is a book about them also that is fascinating but sad and gruesome. The book is "The Murder Room".

Real retired detectives and forensic scientists who sove cold case murders for free. They have done some incredible work, over dinner!

Owen

Sharp Eyed furnacefigher15

This is an email I sent to our steamfitters and my FD:



From Holohan's "Lost Art of Steam Heating"



"The low-water cutoff needs a surge column.

Do you know about surge columns? It's a Dead Man's piping trick. A surge column can lessen the surging in the gauge glass and the low-water cutoff.



A surge column looks just like a gauge glass, except it's made of pipe, not glass. You build it from two tees, a few nipples, and a short length of steel pipe, which you'll place between the bulls of the two tees. Hook up your low-water cutoff to the runs of the two tees.

The surge column takes up most of the surging, leaving you with a more-stable water line in the low-water cutoff and the gauge glass. A surge column doesn't solve the surging problem, but it can keep the low-water cutoff from bouncing up and down (and on and off) so much."





Gentlemen, the above paragraph is from Holohan's "The Lost Art of Steam Heating".

The existence of one on the old boiler at BHS was pointed out to me by a sharp eyed

steamhead on the HeatingHelp blog who was looking at photos I posted of the NEW boiler.

I suspect the boiler that was replaced had one also, and they in fact had this

piping arrangement because THE OLD BOILERS SURGED.

Perhaps it was done AFTER all the various additions because the problem may be THE LOAD.

It may be just too much for one boiler to handle or rather too much for a 5-6 MBUH boiler.

I don't know about the sizing and I have not yet done all the calculations to size a boiler for this system.

I suspect the design engineer (Sudweeks) didn't either. Sizing new boilers based on the

the size of the old one is a common mistake, according to Holohan.



Anyway, I plan to install a "surge column" on the new boiler ASAP. That means another weekend.

As Holohan says, "a surge column doesn't solve the surging problem, but it can keep the LWCO from

bouncing up and down (and on and off) so much".

That may be the best we can hope for.



With the attached photo:

furnacefigher15

Well

Good luck.



Hopefully adding the surge column will buy you some time, and perhaps allow for the lowering of the steam pressure.



Happy to be of service