Quick Question: Monthly Boiler Water CHurn

DFH

How many gallons of new Water should a Boiler be drawing a month during peak winter weeks?

Facts:

Brand new Nat Gas Boiler with electronic auto water feed

3500 sq foot house, 3 floors of heating, and a basement, where Boiler is.

21 Radiators of various shapes and sizes.

nicholas bonham-carter

How deep is a well?

The best you can do is keep a log of the water added regularly by the auto feed, or valve it off and see how many days you can go before the LWCO turns off the system. In my 1,050,000 btu system, there is only about 3 gallons of water to lose from normal level to cutoff point, so fix any leaks you find, including wisps of steam from packing nuts, etc.--NBC

Jamie Hall

Your mileage may vary...

but in principle a steam system shouldn't draw any water at all.  In practice, yeah; there is always a little lost from valve stems and such like and depending on the system, there may be a little lost from vents.



To give you an idea, the system I care for has used a grand total of 6 gallons since the new boiler was installed four years ago, not counting the water lost in blowing down the LWCO and the yearly flush of the cold returns (the rest of the system, beyond the boiler, is 80 years old).

DFH

drastic water use

10 gallons a month.  Uh oh.  Not sure what/where the cause could be, not seeing any obvious steady steam leakage.

JStar

Leak

You can overfill the boiler to see if there's a leak above the water line. Fill the boiler until the water is completely filling the sight glass. Then keep going some more. If the boiler is leaking, water will drip onto the floor or inside the boiler.