Water over gauge glass

Peteys

Oversized 22 year old wm 968 (930 sq feet) boiler feeding 500 sq feet of radiation. Pressure set at 1.5 cutout, cut in at .5. Repiped header to drop header. Insulated all mains and header and added steam master tabs. Cleaned and flushed.

Boiled boiler water and it looks good, no foaming, yet I'm still getting water coming over the top of the gauge glass. When making steam water line only moves about a half inch. Any ideas why the water still coming over gauge glass? The only thing I haven't done that I can think of is wash boiler with a wand as the skim tap is so close to a wall. I have skimmed repeatly though.



Also, boiler water in gauge glass does slowly moves down when making steam pressure. So much so that the feeder was adding too much water. Solved that temporarily by throttling back the water feed valve.



Also as an unrelated question, when water is drained from the wet return pipe from the boiler before the Hartford loop, the water in boiler drains too. I thought the purpose of the loop was to prevent the boiler from having no water if there was a return leak?

Hap_Hazzard

Returns

When you drain water from the return, the water in the boiler should not drop below the level of the bottom of the Hartford loop. The top of the Hartford loop should be 2" below the normal water level, which should be at about 2/3 the height of the gauge glass, so usually the bottom of the Hartford loop should be above the bottom of the gauge glass, so you should see a little water in the bottom of the glass, but if your Hartford loop is lower, you won't see the water. If you have a spirit level, hold it even with the bottom of the Hartford loop and see if it meets the gauge glass when you hold it level. If it's too low it's going to be hard to tell exactly where the water stops draining, but if it's actually draining below the bottom of the Hartford loop, there's something very strange about the way your boiler is piped. Some detailed pictures might help shed some light on what's going on.



There are three possible causes for slow condensate return in a 1-pipe system. You've already eliminated one--wet steam--by installing a drop header, so that leaves two: either your return is obstructed or your "A" dimension is insufficient to keep the condensate from backing up into the mains or other steam-carrying piping. Two-pipe systems can have other problems, depending on their design, so if you have a two-pipe system we'll need the details.



To distinguish an obstructed return from an "A" dimension issue, shut down the boiler when the water level is at its lowest point, wait a minute, then open the pressure relief valve (with a string or wire from a safe distance). If the water level rises rapidly, it's the "A" dimension. If it returns very slowly, your return is obstructed.

Peteys

Wow

Wow, very detailed response. Much appreciated. I will check all those out and see where that leads me. Thank you