Flushing out boiler with inexpensive and easy tool

Christian Garibaldi

Chris J was kind enough to share a link to a video online made by Gerry Gill showing him washing out the inside of a steam boiler.



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1tw9rz-pUk&feature=share&list=UU7gDszI9COdVbfvJP2YdY5Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1tw9rz-pUk&feature=share&list=UU7gDszI9COdVbfvJP2YdY5Q</a>



I give both Chris and Gerry credit for the idea and sharing.



I decided to use that approach myself, and thought I would share what I found to be a pretty easy and inexpensive tool to construct to do so.



Home depot sells a telescoping wand for cleaning out your gutters. Its about $20 and connects to a garden hose. I picked one up the other day and modified it. The hooked end on it is too large to fit through an inch and a half skim port, so i cut off the half of the U bend leaving only a slight 90 degree of the metal bend. Then I filed down the plastic ribs on the locking collar to extend the wand, otherwise, they did not fit through the skim port opening. I extended it full length, locked it, made sure the curved end fitting is on TIGHT (It would suck if it blows or screws off and dropped inside the boiler) and I marked the position of the nozzle with a marker along the shaft so that I knew which direction I was shooting the water when the wand is inside the boiler.



Connect it to the hose, carefully feed it into the port, turn on the faucet balls out and work the wand along the inside of the chest, clocking it as you go. The wand was long enough to reach the far end of my boiler no problem and I watched a lot of brown junk come out of both the skim port, lower drain, and LWCO. I let the entire boiler drain empty, then hit it again. Refilled and fired it up.



So i just thought Id share that in case anyone was looking to make a wand that can flush out the inside fairly easily and inexpensively. Worked like a charm.



Heres a link to the wand on home depots website



<a href="http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/100212565?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051&N=5yc1vZbx6c&R=100212565#.UWoyE45pfIs">http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/100212565?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051&N=5yc1vZbx6c&R=100212565#.UWoyE45pfIs</a>



Hope this helps!

Hap_Hazzard

While you're there

If you don't have a drain in your basement or you just don't want to get the floor wet, you might want to get one of these: http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/202086174 (concrete mixing tub) or a couple of the smaller ones. They hold 20 gallons, but they're only about 6" tall, so you can usually position them under the return, and they're wide enough to catch water from the return and drain if they're on the same side of the boiler.

Boiler Talk

empty the boiler

When I had my boiler replaced, the plumber used a pump to drain the boiler faster. 

Steam_Starter

Super Genius!

This is a BRILLIANT idea!  I'm going to make one of these puppies up shortly and blow all the sediment out of my boiler.



Its surprising how something so simple can make life a lot easier!



(And I am fortunate that I have a sump pump well about 5 feet away from my skim port so I can build a trough right to the well from the port!



Outstanding!



JLG

Christian Garibaldi

heres some pics

this should give you the idea of how i set it up and had to modify

Detroiter48214

Anybody ever make one of these wands with black iron? I have some nipples and fittings that would work, but I'm a little worried about all of the oil that comes with iron. Would it blast out if I just spray it for a while?

ChrisJ

I'd be worried about the oil too.

Take all of the pieces and clean them in the sink with dish soap or something. You may be able to get 99% oil off and out of it. Problem is, it will rust for sure.

Detroiter48214

Definitely. I'm thinking I should probably just go with copper.

Abracadabra

I have one made of 3/4" PVC 4' sections with replaceable threaded caps that I have drilled different spray patterns on. If the boiler I'm flushing out is longer than 3", I can just throw on another 4" section. If I need a different angle spray I just replace the PVC cap.