Maintenance

crash2009

  Last weeks cooler temperatures were a reminder for me to do the maintenance thing again.  I usually start out by removing all the junk that got stored in the boiler room over the summer, then wipe everything down with a damp rag.  Then I  vacuum the fresh air intake, the burner tubes, and the floor. 



Then for the water side, drain the boiler enough to get the LWCO out, remove the low water cut-off, clean the element, and re-install.  Remove a gauge and blow in the hole to clear the pigtail, prime it, and re-install the gauge.  Then, while the boiler is still cool I make sure drain valves 1,2,3,4 will drain.  Close Hartford valve 7, open the manual fill valve and flush out returns through 4 with a 50 foot garden hose to outside.  Open Hartford valve 7 and fill boiler to required level and make some steam.  

Next to clean out the bottom of the boiler, I close Hartford valve 7 and King valves 5 and 6, and while watching the pressure gauge I open drain valves 1,2,3 individually and spit the crap outside through the 50 foot garden hose.

The vapor-stat is tested while the King 5,6 and Hartford 7 are closed.  Burner off at 8 ounces, and back on at 3 ounces.  The LWCO is tested at this time as well.  I usually continue spitting the crap out through 1,2, or 3 until the LWCO shuts me down.  When this happens, slowly, open the Kings and Hartford valve to equalize the pressure and or vacuum with the rest of the system.  Let it cool, fill it up, replace all the caps.  Steam for 20 minutes to clean the new water, and I'm ready for Dennis and his analyzer to do a combustion test.

Hap_Hazzard

Where'd that insulation go?

Were you the guy selling it on e-bay? :-)



Do me a favor and check/tighten all your pipe unions. They can work themselves loose, especially on those boiler risers.



Before you clean your burner tubes you should brush your flueways. Your IOM should have instructions on how to do that, but you need some special brushes. You can pick them up from your heating supply store. They're great for cleaning big radiators too. I usually take my burner tubes out and blow them out with compressed air

BobC

It should last a long time

That has to be the best cared for boiler in the state!



Bob

Dave in QCA

Clean Pipes

Ah, and so you removed the insulation so that you could clean the outside of the pipes too? 

And, looks like you changed the boiler room color for the summer. 

crash2009

This boiler

wasn't always easy to maintain.  As a matter of fact it was downright impossible.  It was so bad, I thought I should enter it in  "The Ugly Boiler Contest"

Many things I am unable to describe.  I had a long list of annoyances.  No drains on the returns was a big one.  The one drain that it did have was aimed at a brick wall, you had to use a mirror to see the pressure gauge.  As you can imagine, it wasn't running very well.  When I inherited this thing all it would do was boil all the water out of itself, the water would stack up at the end of the main, the returns were plugged.  The water feeder was piped into the other side of the plugged Hartford (if you can call it that)  Every week it had to be drained because of flooding.  I'm not trying to start a contest, but think of something wrong, and you will find it in the following pictures.