About to undertake a good cleaning and need advice

mgmine

There seems to be a lot of contradictory information on the web about skimming so I'm here to ask the experts. I have read the skimming articles here but even those don't agree.I know the process about letting the water in slow so that isn't a question.



1. Should I do it hot or cold?

2. If hot then how do you know when it is  180-200 degrees?

3.When it starts to cool down do I turn the burner back on while the skimming port is open or wait until things in the water settle down?

4. Somewhere I read that to let the steam start again and skim while it is steaming. Is this a good idea?

5. Would it be a good idea to wash it out with washing soda before skimming? Either before or after I plan on washing it out

6. When blowing down a boiler should the boiler be running or do it cold?

7. Since I have an automatic filler with no bypass can I put water into the bottom of the boiler through the drain cock?

Rod

Answers to your Questions

1. To answer yo9ur questions:
2. 
   
   
3. 1. Should I do it hot or cold?   -There are pros and cons to each. I skim hot.
4. 
   
   
   
   2. If hot then how do you know when it is  180-200 degrees?  - Think of a pan of water on the stove just before it boils. the indications are the same.
5. 
   
   
   
   3.When it starts to cool down do I turn the burner back on while the
   
   skimming port is open or wait until things in the water settle down?  - While you are skimming the skim port should be open at all times. If the water starts to really cool just turn the burner on again and heat the water up. You don't have to keep it at 180 - 200 degrees.
6. 
   
   
   
   4. Somewhere I read that to let the steam start again and skim while it is steaming. Is this a good idea? -   NO!! You don't want the water boiling as this will stir up the surface and mix the contaminates with the boiler water!
   
   
   
   5. Would it be a good idea to wash it out with washing soda before skimming? Either before or after I plan on washing it out    - It depends. If you're going to use the Rectorseal tablets follow Chris J's instructions.
   
   
   
   6. When blowing down a boiler should the boiler be running or do it cold? - Are you talking about blowing down the boiler or just the Low Water Cut Off?
   
   
   
   7. Since I have an automatic filler with no bypass can I put water into the bottom of the boiler through the drain cock?- I guess you could but you really need to put in the bypass which should have been dine in the first place when it was installed.

The idea of skimming is someone recently said is slowness not volume. You need to skim as slowly as possible. You want the water to just slowly trickle out the skim port. What I do is heat up the water to near boiling and then shut off the burner as I find having the burner on when skimming churns the surface of the water too much. I skim a while, reheat, skim some more etc. In about two hours I'll collect maybe 3 gals of water.  I will then run the boiler for a week and then skim again, In some case I've had to do this 5 times as oil and crud kept coming out of the system. The first time was a lot of my own fault as I didn't clean the pipe out properly before installing it.

- Rod

vaporvac

How to clean pipe?

Great thread here! Rod, you stated, "The first time was a lot of my own fault as I didn't clean the pipe out properly before installing it."  Could you share the best way to clean out the pipe prior to install; seems like this could really save some time skimming. Thank you. Colleen

Rod

Cleaning Pipe

Hi Colleen-  Most of the time you are dealing with pre cut - pre threaded pipe nipples or with fittings. Just a good wash with water and a good detergent (I use Simple Green Concentrated) in a bucket works well.   I use pieces of old towel soaked in water /detergent and ball them up and push them through larger nipples with a broom handle. You may have to repeat this several timers to get then internally clean. (on longer pipes I use a piece of nylon cord and use it like you would clean a rifle barrel.  You don't have to go for completely spotless as just one "push through" will remove 90 percent of the oil/dirt, though the cleaner it is, especially the inside, the less you have to skim out of the boiler.  Be sure to hose off the washed parts well to remove any detergent.

- Rod

Rod

You need to correct the Near Boiler Piping

Hi -  I was answering several threads at the same time and first sent this to Puff by mistake. Luckily he caught the mistake and didn't repipe his boiler!



 Original post-

 My general feeling is that all the efforts you are doing aren't

going to cure your basic problem. You need good main venting and you need to

be able to skim your boiler. However in the end I think you'll find you

still need to reconfigure your piping and doing a skim before that would

just be wasted.



The basic problem with your boiler riser joining the header between the

two risers to the steam mains is that  you are forcing the steam to

choose which way it wants to go and it obviously has chosen Main "B". 

There was the suggestion that you could choke off the venting in Main

"B" and while that might work you would be wasting fuel as it would slow

down the heating of the house which would result in longer burner

times.



I've sketched out a possible piping "fix" which I have attached below.

Most of which can be done with pre cut / pre threaded nipples. The

header pipe needs to be the same size all the way to where the boiler

riser joins it.  You'll need to put in pipe unions where appropriate.

It's always a good idea to put a pipe union in the boiler riser as that

makes it easy to change boiler in the future. Keep in mind that this sketch is just a concept as from photos I may not being seeing problems with clearance etc. Just wanted to give you an idea of what could be done.



One of my concerns would be the lack of pitch in the "B" Main and

whether the condensate in that main is flowing back towards the boiler.

If this is possibly happening you would want to attach a drip line to

the main at the boiler end and lead it to the wet return.



- Rod

mgmine

Thanks

Thanks Rod I appreciate the input on this and the other topics. I see what you mean now about the piping I'll have to address this problem