One pipe residential steam and boiler water loss

TRob

I have the data and just did a calculation that with our IN7 boiler, we use .0087 gallons of water per hour of steaming.  Last year it ran for 582 hrs and 5.0 gallons of water were fed to the boiler.  Maybe this is not the best but the auto feeder doesn't run very often.

Hap_Hazzard

The auto-feeder should never run.

Think of the auto-feeder in the same category as a sprinkler system in a building. It's good to have when you need it, but you hope you never need it. Maintaining your water level is something you need to do, and if you're adding too much water you need to figure out where it's going. If your radiator vents are bad, you're wasting money on heat and before you know it you'll see paint or wallpaper peeling off the walls. If you have a leaky return, that won't get better by itself. Little leaks turn into big leaks, and if the leaks are happening behind basement walls, you probably have a lovely mold garden back there already.



The purpose of an auto-feeder is to keep you from losing heat if your system develops a leak by replacing the lost water and letting the LWCO turn the burner back on. It buys time to allow you to fix the leak before it worsens to the point at which the boiler will no longer operate. If a feeder fails, in three consecutive attempts, to reverse a low water condition, it stops trying, and the boiler will not fire. You don't want to wait for this to happen before you start working on finding that leak. If you're losing more than 3 cups of water a month, you should be working on it now (or calling a professional).