Unable to drain water from blow down

Kingkissel

Hi everyone. I just picked up Dan's book yesterday after being taken for a ride by a couple knuckleheads. The larger problem is that my Weil-Mclain eg/peg 45 Series 4 boiler is flooding for some reason. I am currently trying to drain some water from it while I figure out the bigger issue. When I open the blow down valve though, no water comes out. I have checked my owners manual and have looked online but I haven't been able to find anything on this. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!!

KC_Jones

Are you talking about the blowdown on your low water cutoff?

Kingkissel

I believe so. It's located on the boiler right below the low water cut off.

JStar

Is it attached to the LWCO? If so, SHUT DOWN THE BOILER IMMEDIATELY.

Make sure that the LWCO is functioning properly before doing anything else.

Kingkissel

The sight glass is completely full so I assume there is more than enough water in the boiler. What happened last week was that the house was only getting to 68 degrees before the boiler would shut off. It looks like this was happening because the system was unable to release pressure (I noticed I wasn't hearing the steam vents in the basement). I had a heating guy come out and after he drained water from it, everything was working. But within 3 days, the site glass was completely full again. I am worried that I will lose heat again if it just continues to fill, not to mention any larger issues this will cause.

vaporvac

Most boilers have a tap near the bottom to drain it. You need a way to verify if that LWCO is working before you continue to use the boiler! Do you have an auto water-fill? Can you shut it off and manually fill it? At least then you'll know if you have a leak or a defective auto-fill, but only after you verify the LWCO. A picture would help.

Fred

You must first get that LWCO working. It is an important safety device! It sounds like you have an auto water fill that is either faulty and letting water into the boiler or the Boiler water has so much bounce that the LWCO kicks in and the Auto water fill starts pumping water into the boiler. Clearly you will lose heat sooner or later. The sight glass should only be 2/3 to 3/4 full. That remaining space in the boiler block is called a steam chest. That is wher the steam is made and exits the boiler to the Mains. Take that chest away and there is no (or very little) steam for the boiler to supply to the Mains.

BobC

There should be a drain valve lower down on the boiler (it may be on the back or side of the boiler) that has a hose fitting on it , try draining water from that valve when the boiler is off (cold or just warm to the touch), drain water from it until the water is reasonably clean - add water to the boiler (ONLY IF IT IS COLD OR JUST WARM) until the drain water looks clean.

Next fill the boiler till the sight glass is about half full. Now fire up the boiler by rising the thermostat and turning the power back on. Open up that bottom drain and see if the boiler shuts down as the boiler water level falls below the bottom of the sight glass. IF IT DOESN'T SHUT DOWN AS THE WATER LEVEL HITS THE BOTTOM OF THE SIGHT GLASS _ STOP and turn the power off.

The low water cutoff might be blocked and that is a safety that has to work as the water level falls or the boiler could crack. the low water clean off might have to be cleaned before tou can safely operate the boiler.

Bob

Kingkissel

What's odd is that the LWCO I have installed has a digital display that shows how much water has been added. When the guy drained water from the blow down valve the last time, it drained for about 20 minutes or so. But, the LWCO display had the exact same reading on it from when he was there previously.

Also, I am typing this up at work so I will be more than happy to provide some pictures and more specifics once I am home. Thank you all in advance for your responses.

KC_Jones

If I am interpreting you correctly I don't think what you are describing is a LWCO that sounds like an auto water feeder. See the attached picture...does that look like the device you are talking about?

Fred

Is the bypass valve on the water line, by chance partially open allowing a small amount of water to continously flow into the boiler? Still, we want to know that the LWCO is working for your safety.

Jamie Hall

First, shut it off until you find out what is happening.

Now, on the sight gauge there should be a small drain at the bottom. When you open that water should come out freely. Close it again. Further, there should be valves at the top and the bottom where it attaches to the boiler. Make sure that those valves are open.

Now when you let water out of the boiler using the drain valve as mentioned it should not be long before the water level is visible in the sight gauge (a few gallons to perhaps as many as ten, even on a really big, badly overfilled boiler). If you can get that far, you can turn the boiler back on and you should get heat.

You are not out of the woods yet. Keep an eye on that water level over a few cycles. It shouldn't change much (I find a clothes pin -- the spring type -- makes a handy reference). Iff the water level drops a lot when firing, you need to find out why you have a slow return or some other reason. If it rises from firing to firing, you may have a faulty feeder valve or manual valve which leaks or is stuck partly open.

Do send a picture of how the LWCO is set up.

Kingkissel

Ok guys, I managed to get some pictures of my system. I apologize for not having all of this yesterday; I was a knucklehead for assuming any steam related question could be a simple one. I'm just in a bit of a panic because the heating guy I had out here last charged me a grand between the two trips and now I don't really have the funds for someone else to come out and poke around.

I am going to follow up and go through the posts to try and answer your questions as best I can.







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Kingkissel

vaporvac said:

Most boilers have a tap near the bottom to drain it. You need a way to verify if that LWCO is working before you continue to use the boiler! Do you have an auto water-fill? Can you shut it off and manually fill it? At least then you'll know if you have a leak or a defective auto-fill, but only after you verify the LWCO. A picture would help.

I do have an auto water fill. I know there is a feed switch on the top of it and I have an actual flip switch towards the ceiling which kills all power to the boiler I can use. I have read about people filling their boilers but I have never done it myself. Up until this point (and still getting past it), I've been terrified of breaking something on the boiler if I mess with it. I believe the red lever on the top of the water feed is what I do to manually add the water? I would want to drain the extra water from the boiler before doing this, correct?

Kingkissel

Fred said:

You must first get that LWCO working. It is an important safety device! It sounds like you have an auto water fill that is either faulty and letting water into the boiler or the Boiler water has so much bounce that the LWCO kicks in and the Auto water fill starts pumping water into the boiler. Clearly you will lose heat sooner or later. The sight glass should only be 2/3 to 3/4 full. That remaining space in the boiler block is called a steam chest. That is wher the steam is made and exits the boiler to the Mains. Take that chest away and there is no (or very little) steam for the boiler to supply to the Mains.

I have been keeping track of the water feeder display and the amount of water added has not changed. I had this past heating guy out twice. The first time he drained the system and refilled it and the display read .05. The second time he was back last week he drained it and filled the site glass to about 1/4 full. The auto feeder kicked in and got it to about 3/4 and the display has been set at .10 since. I've been confused by this because I am wondering where else the water could be coming from. If it is a faulty water feeder and allowing water into the boiler, would the display necessarily show me the correct amount of water that has made its way into it?

The heating dude was trying to say that he thinks the boiler is oversized for my place and it may be creating more steam than the system can handle, causing it to flood. I think this would be odd considering the first two years in my place, the steam system worked beautifully. It was only the end of the last winter that I started noticing the site glass being too full.

Regarding the bounce, there is movement when the boiler is going but nothing I would consider violent. It bounces about half an inch or so I'd say.

Kingkissel

BobC said:

There should be a drain valve lower down on the boiler (it may be on the back or side of the boiler) that has a hose fitting on it , try draining water from that valve when the boiler is off (cold or just warm to the touch), drain water from it until the water is reasonably clean - add water to the boiler (ONLY IF IT IS COLD OR JUST WARM) until the drain water looks clean.

Next fill the boiler till the sight glass is about half full. Now fire up the boiler by rising the thermostat and turning the power back on. Open up that bottom drain and see if the boiler shuts down as the boiler water level falls below the bottom of the sight glass. IF IT DOESN'T SHUT DOWN AS THE WATER LEVEL HITS THE BOTTOM OF THE SIGHT GLASS _ STOP and turn the power off.

The low water cutoff might be blocked and that is a safety that has to work as the water level falls or the boiler could crack. the low water clean off might have to be cleaned before you can safely operate the boiler.

Bob

This is what I have been trying to do, though I haven't had the boiler cold or warm when attempting it. Would this prevent it from draining? I have killed power to the boiler for about 20 to 30 minutes before trying. When I open the drain valve, nothing comes out. I get some drips but nothing. I randomly tried doing this before having the heating guy out the second time and I opened the valve a couple of times with no luck. Then, I randomly opened it again and suddenly water started coming out. I was able to get one full bucket and when I came back and opened the valve again, no water. I thought maybe it was clogged which is why I had the guy back out. I was unable to get down to the basement in time to see how he drained it, but he had a hose hooked up to it and it was draining. I have tried calling him to ask him exactly how he was able to drain it but he flat out would not tell me.

Is there any other reason why water would not be leaving the system once the drain valve has been opened?

Kingkissel

KC_Jones said:

If I am interpreting you correctly I don't think what you are describing is a LWCO that sounds like an auto water feeder. See the attached picture...does that look like the device you are talking about?

As you can see from my pics KC, I was getting confused. This was my fault for trying to describe my setup from memory. The image you shared looks to be a very similar model to the water feeder I am currently using.

Kingkissel

Fred said:

Is the bypass valve on the water line, by chance partially open allowing a small amount of water to continously flow into the boiler? Still, we want to know that the LWCO is working for your safety.

I'm sorry Fred, can you explain what you are referring to here? I'm not familiar with the bypass valve, or it's just not ringing a bell with me.

Kingkissel

Jamie Hall said:

First, shut it off until you find out what is happening.

Now, on the sight gauge there should be a small drain at the bottom. When you open that water should come out freely. Close it again. Further, there should be valves at the top and the bottom where it attaches to the boiler. Make sure that those valves are open.

Now when you let water out of the boiler using the drain valve as mentioned it should not be long before the water level is visible in the sight gauge (a few gallons to perhaps as many as ten, even on a really big, badly overfilled boiler). If you can get that far, you can turn the boiler back on and you should get heat.

You are not out of the woods yet. Keep an eye on that water level over a few cycles. It shouldn't change much (I find a clothes pin -- the spring type -- makes a handy reference). Iff the water level drops a lot when firing, you need to find out why you have a slow return or some other reason. If it rises from firing to firing, you may have a faulty feeder valve or manual valve which leaks or is stuck partly open.

Do send a picture of how the LWCO is set up.

Ok, so when I open the drain on the bottom, nothing comes out. The valves at the top and bottom of the sight glass are both open (lefty loosey). You and Bob have both mentioned having the boiler off and cool, so is this what I am missing? I've tried shutting it down for about 15 - 20 minutes but still got nothing when I tried draining it.

If I can get to this point I will keep an eye on the water level. I had been doing this and I never seem to see the sight glass with less water in it. The glass is always a little more full the next time I check it. Again, this only started happening at the end of last winter. Up until this point I never saw much fluctuation in the water level.

Dave in QCA

Oh how I wish Rod was here with his arrows and labels! But, he isn't.
So... first thing Kingkissel, when you say you attempt to get water to come out of the "blow down", exactly what are you opening? My gut tells me that it is the device with the yellow tag. Is that right? If so, that is NOT a blow down. That is the high pressure relief valve. Water should never come out of this valve. If you open it when the boiler is making steam, steam will come out. Its purpose is to open and let steam out if the pressure exceeds its limit, usually 15 psi. The only way that would ever happen is if there is something are your boiler that has malfunctioned and your boiler is running wild. It blows off steam to prevent a continued pressure climb and a possible explosion.

Next, you have a low water cutoff probe type device, it is labeled "safeguard". It does two things. It operates the box labeled "VXT", which is your water feeder. It also will shut the boiler fire off if the water get's too low. That will keep your boiler from being ruined by a "dry fire" condition, which could also burn your house down.

The VXT has an electric valve mounted to the back of the box. That is what it opens electrically to add water when needed. The pipe the loops up and over the top of the VXT is called a "by pass" There is a valve in it. It is used to manually add water to the boiler, such as when you are filling the boiler in the beginning. It allows water to flow much faster than the VXT and can save time when it is necessary to use it.

Down at the bottom of the boiler, there is a spigot that looks like a faucet for a garden hose. This is the "boiler drain". You should open this occasionally to blow out mud and muck that may collect in the bottom of your boiler. A regular routine is needed. Once a month is usually enough, but if the water that comes out is VERY dirty, black and thick brown, you may need to do it every 2 weeks.

Hope this helps.

Please answer the points in here so we will know more what is going on.

Kingkissel

Thank you for breaking my system down for me, Dave. That was extremely helpful.

"... when you say you attempt to get water to come out of the "blow down", exactly what are you opening? My gut tells me that it is the device with the yellow tag. Is that right? If so, that is NOT a blow down. That is the high pressure relief valve. Water should never come out of this valve."

To your first question, I am not referring to the valve with the yellow tag but I do know where this is located. The "blow down" I am referring to is the spigot looking thing located below the sight glass. I circled it in the pic. I thought this was called the "blow down" in my owner's manual.



"Down at the bottom of the boiler, there is a spigot that looks like a faucet for a garden hose. This is the "boiler drain". You should open this occasionally to blow out mud and muck that may collect in the bottom of your boiler. A regular routine is needed. Once a month is usually enough, but if the water that comes out is VERY dirty, black and thick brown, you may need to do it every 2 weeks."

This is what I circled in the picture, correct? When I open this, nothing comes out. I keep reading about the process of draining the muck from the water every few weeks, but I can't figure out why there is no water when I open the boiler drain.

Fred

Directly Above the VXT box there is a shut valve. That is the water bypass that bypasses your water meter. Make sure that is completely closed as that will allow water to go into the boiler without registering on the meter.
Also, It sounds to me like your Drain spicket on the bottom of that boiler or the mud leg that feeds it is plugged up with gunk. I'm not sure why it works sometimes and not at other times but you may have luck getting water out of it when the boiler is running and under a little pressure. The next time the boiler runs, put a bucket under that spicket and open that valve slowly and see if you can get water out of it. Be careful because the water will be hot.

BobC

There must be some crud blocking that valve. I noticed the water in your sight glass is filthy, also the lower gauge glass fitting is cocked. How old is this boiler and do you know if water has ever been drained from the boiler.

If you open that circled valve all the way (boiler should be switched off) when the boiler is cold or just warm (so you don't get burned) take some wire and try and feed it into the end with the hose fitting, work it back and forth to see if you can poke through the crud. If that does not work you will have to use a wrench and remove the valve from the boiler. This will result in all the water pouring out of the boiler so have some buckets ready - you might have to deal with 12 - 20 gallons of water.

Then take the valve to a sink and try to flush out the gunk in it, if you can't the valve will have to be replaced. Once you have a working valve in place, turn on the power and see if the auto feeder starts to feed water, if it starts to fill the sight glass past 3/4 full shut the auto feeders input valve off. I suspect your auto feeder is leaking and overfilling the boiler, there should be a valve on it's input pipe that lets you shut off it's source of water.

Bob

Dave in QCA

I agree with all the posts after mine, as follow-up. In addition to the suggestions for clearing the blockage, if it were mine, I'd replace the standard boiler drain valve with a full port ball valve. You'll get much more flow, more effective flushing, and it will probably never get plugged up.

Abracadabra

1- 4.5 psi on the gauge? Yikes
2 - Clean out that sight glass. Can't tell if boiler is full or empty.

Fred

Unfotunately it is not a dirty sight glass. It is Full up with dirty water, and the drain valve is clogged.

Abracadabra

Does that pressure gauge move? Is the boiler on and it's showing 4.5PSI? If not, then that gauge is telling me there's about 10 feet of water above it.

Fred

That's a good question. We advised the OP to shut the water supply off and shut the boiler down until the problem is resolved but we haven't had an update since then.

Kingkissel

Hi Everyone. I apologize for the lack of updates as I've had some other issues come up. Not furnace related, just old house related.

I was able to get down there for a bit on Friday and was able to drain some water!! Thank you very much for your suggestion, BobC! A wire hanger did the trick and opened her up. I drained enough water to get the sight glass to half full. Since I haven't been able to do much else, I taped a section behind the sight glass and I've been marking when the water level goes up. Since Friday the level has raised about a half inch (didn't move at all Saturday, but when I checked yesterday afternoon I noticed it had increased).

BobC, can you explain what you meant when you said that the lower gauge glass fitting is cocked? I don't know the exact age but it's roughly 10 years old, according to the original heating guys that I had coming out. They were the ones that put the boiler in. The water has been drained before, since moving in in November of 2011, I had them out for maintenance at least once a year. Most recently it was drained when the last heating guy was here about 3 weeks ago. The water never used to be so dirty, this only started at the end of last year when I noticed the sight glass being full.

Kingkissel

Fred said:

Directly Above the VXT box there is a shut valve. That is the water bypass that bypasses your water meter. Make sure that is completely closed as that will allow water to go into the boiler without registering on the meter.

Fred: Thank you for your post. I did confirm that the shut valve is completely closed. Is there anyway this could still happening even with the valve closed?

Kingkissel

Abracadabra said:

1- 4.5 psi on the gauge? Yikes
2 - Clean out that sight glass. Can't tell if boiler is full or empty.

Abracadabra said:

Does that pressure gauge move? Is the boiler on and it's showing 4.5PSI? If not, then that gauge is telling me there's about 10 feet of water above it.

Hi Abracadabra. Yes, the pressure gauge does work. It will currently go all the way up to 5 on the gauge before shutting off (which is what was happening when it was flooded). It is currently set to .3 for the main and 3 for the differential. I tried changing this to what was suggested in Dan's book (.5 and 1) but I found that the boiler would not turn on when set this way. Since I didn't have time to mess with it, I set it back to the previous setting for the time being.

When the picture was taken, the boiler was on and the sight glass was completely full of water. I will take a new picture tonight showing the current water level.

BobC

The lower valve on the gauge glass looks cocked to me, as long as it doesn't leak it's of no real importance but it shows the installers were sloppy. Reminds me of an old saying "Work it may, but shine it must"

It's possible you have a slight leak into the boiler through the water feeder. Are you sure the water supply valve that feeds the water feeder is off, I know my water feed valve (manual in my case) has to be really tightly turned off - it's probably 60 years old but better made than most available now.

Bob

Kingkissel

Yeah well, with the little bit that I've learned in the past week, it doesn't surprise me. I am actually awaiting a phone call from the owner of this place at the moment.

I am saying that that the lever is closed just based on me pulling it towards the close position and it didn't budge.

Fred

You have two obvious problems that need to be fixed or you need to shut the boiler down until you get a knowledgeable STEAM SYSTEM TECH in there. The only way water can continue to flood the boiler is either through the VXT automatic water feeder or the by-pass (the shut-off valve above the VXT box. If you are sure the By-pass valve is fully shut off, then the VXT auto-feeder is defective and not closing completely. I suspect the valve inside of it is not closing completely but the meter thinks it is shut so it is not registering any water use. Somewhere in that copper piping near the boiler is a shut off valve that will shut the water to both the by-pass and the VXT auto feeder off. You need to close that valve, drain the water back to the normal level in the sight glass and watch it for a couple days. Then you need to get someone out to either fix or replace that VXT auto feeder.

The second issue is the Pressure. You can not continue to run that boiler at the pressures you are currently running. With the power to the boiler turned off, Take the Pressuretrol off of that pigtail (the curled pipe the Pressuretrol is mounted to) and blow into that pigtail to blow out and junk that may be blocking that tube. It would be betteer to take that pigtail off of the boiler and wash it out. It clearly is plugged up with gunk and not allowing the Pressuretrol to do its job. If, on the odd chance the pigtail is not blocked, leave the power to to the boiler off until the steam tech can come out. The Pressuretrol is an important safety device and a failed one is dangerous and could let the boiler run until the Pressure Relief valve blows and releases hot steam all over the basement and into you home. Hopefully that relief valve is working properly, otherwise the boiler could blow up on pressure.

These issues are not things you can take lightly and handle when you get around to them. They must be fixed immediately and the boiler should not be used until they are.

Kingkissel

Fred,

Thank you for your detailed post. However, please don't assume anything about my situation. This is not something I am taking lightly and anything done incorrectly on my part is due to my severe lack of steam heating knowledge. I have attempted to have this dealt with multiple times for the past year and unfortunately, the people I've had out here have not only done nothing to repair the issue, they've taken a large chunk of cash from me. The whole reason I am doing this myself now is because I'm broke and have no clue where else to turn. Believe me, if getting this fixed was as easy as making a phone call I would have had it fixed by now.

I do very much appreciate the steps you posted; I will look into these tonight. For the first one though I'm not sure if I'll be able to locate the shut off valve inside the copper piping. How exactly would I get to this? For the pressuretrol and pigtail suggestion you made, that does sound like something I can handle (removing the gauge from the pigtail and blowing the gunk out at least). I'm not so sure about removing the pigtail from the boiler though. I will have to take a look at it and see. I will post what I find later. Thanks again!

Fred

Hi Kingkissel. Please don't take offense of the sense of urgency I have tried to communicate. I understand this may not be easy for you but I'd rather see you shut the boiler down until it's fixed rather than risk your own safety or cause major damage to your home. If you're broke now, think about what shape you'd be in should something like that happen.
Removing that pigtail from the boiler should be really simple. It is above the water line (if you make sure the water is at the level it should be, in the sight glass before you take the pigtail off. You may be able to just blow into it if it is not too plugged up but I suspect with the amount of water that has been in that boiler and the pressure you are running at, it may need to come off to be washed out. Just be sure you have the power off to the boiler before yoou take it off.
As for the shut-off valve, it should look like any water shut off (may be a round handle or it may be a lever). It should look like the shut-off above your VXT box. It is not in the water line, it is "On" the water line. If it is not very near the VXT box, just follow the copper water pipe (on the right side of the VXT box) until you find the shut-off. I'm not sure if the cover lifts or comes off of the VXT box, if so, there may be a shut-off inside that box. It may be a smaller shut-off but it will be on the copper water line or inbetween the inlet water pipe and the water pipe that exits that box on its way to the boiler.

Kingkissel

No problem, Fred. I took a little offense but that's because I'm a sensitive guy. I just wanted to stress that this is a very serious matter for me and I am doing everything I can to get it resolved so your responses and everyone else's are much appreciated.

Also, thank you for clarifying your post from earlier. This makes it much clearer for me what and where to check. I will post my findings as soon as I get home and get down to the dungeon.

KC_Jones

I might also add if there is anything you are having trouble locating valve or anything post more pictures as necessary and we could probably point you in the correct direction. Everyone is very helpful on this site. Don't take offense most of us are very candid with our responses...if we see something wrong we don't hold back. It's not personal.

JUGHNE

Are you owner or tenant?

You mentioned paying for 2 high dollar "service" calls but was also trying to call the "owner of this place". Also just curious as to where you are located?

Kingkissel

Don't hold anything back, its the only way I'm going to get this beast back into shape. No more Mr. Sensitive guy over here. Also, I'm going to be taking you up on your offer soon so thanks, KC!

Kingkissel

Hey Jug.

I'm the owner. I apologize for the vague comments, I was referencing two different heating company's that I've had out here with essentially the same results, though the latest company charged me a great deal more. The owner I was referring to is the owner of the heating company that serviced my boiler last. Also, I'm located in PA.