Steam Boiler Work with Power Out?

Eagle1017

I've got a new gas fired Burham steam boiler and was wondering if it will continue to work if the power goes out. I know my thermostat runs on batteries but does the boiler itself need electricity to run? If so and the power goes out is there anything I can do to keep it running?

Fred

The controls and flue damper do need power for the boiler to run.

EDIT: A backup power source is the only way to keep it running in an outage.

nicholas bonham-carter

make sure you do not try to rig up some batteries to provide emergency power, as the gas valves and controls will only work with 24v ac!--nbc

jch1

How exactly would one go about installing a backup?

Jamie Hall

If it is a power burner you need 110 AC to run it. No way out. And most inverters don't have enough capacity.

If it isn't a power burner, you can get it to run as Hatterasguy suggests. NONE of you safeties -- probably including the LWCO and pressurestat -- will be available, if they are on the AC side. If you can get it to run that way, don't leave it. Stand there at all times. I can't recommend doing it.

jch1

The alternative would be to get a portable generator of sorts and tapping into the circuit on your panel?

Snowmelt

You would need a generator, either natural gas or gasoline.

Fred

For about the same amount of money you can get a portable car battery charger (built-in battery and inverter) It has a built in 110v AC outlet (Craftsman makes the one that I have) All of my controls are 24 volt fed off of one transformer mounted near the boiler. I can take the house 110 off (in an extended power failure) run a power cord to the 110 side of the transformer and plug it into the Charger.

KC_Jones

Hatterasguy said:

1) If you don't have or forget to switch the main breaker to the panel, you energize the grid and potentially kill any linemen working on the system.

I worked for the power company for 7 years. Anytime I worked emergency and heard a generator I knocked and told people this. You can't imagine how many people thought I was nuts and how many people just didn't know this! Oh and then the people trying to feed their house with a huge generator plugged in through a dryer outlet. Nothing surprises me with electricity anymore.

JUGHNE

What has worked in my area is this; it enters into a grey area of the National Electrical Code and some local inspectors may frown on this method:
With power off of course, I replace the typical toggle service switch for the unit (boiler, furnace etc) with a good quality GFCI outlet.
Then completely eliminate any and all connections between the service switch (which is now a 120 vac outlet) box and the appliance.
Connect a good quality 3' appliance cord (14 gauge minimum)
factory formed angle plug end preferred, as used for garbage disposal, to the box where the appliance used to get its power from the switch.
Plug the appliance into your new outlet, that qualifies as service disconnect.
In a power outage you unplug from the dead outlet and plug into auxiliary power source....good generator or UPS.
I have done this setup for heating equipment and 120 VAC water pumps.
Not technically code compliant in all areas, but safe for all involved, IF done correctly!
Edit: If I was in an area expecting a power outage and had a steam boiler with small load requirements, I would do this setup and get a fair sized UPS unit ( $100 to $200) and plug it in now and run the boiler power thru it. Upon power failure then ration boiler heat as needed.

PMJ

If power outages are a problem just pay the money to have an electrician change your main breaker panel to one with a transfer switch. Then you can run a gas generator safely as it is impossible to have it and line power connected at the same time.
The panels are not cheap but the convenience downstream is well worth it if you have even a few outages a year. Someone else in the family can even hook things up safely if you are away. Then everything in the house is able to be powered. It is worth it.

BobC

In 2013 a blizzard went through new england that saw many folks lose power for a week. Pipes froze and people shivered.

Some folks had inverters that they ran in their cars to run the heat a several times a day, I suspect it was done on an ad hoc basis and not to the codes intent code in most cases.

I lost power for a day, a buddy lost his for 5 days. He was able to keep a little heat in the core of the house with a fireplace so he didn't lose any pipes. Another friend lost a fhw pipe in the garage ceiling (for the bedroom above) that had a void in the insulation on the 4th day. He talked about getting a generator and transfer switch installed but eventually decided to not spend the money because power outages while not unheard of usually don't last more than a day.

If there is no over riding issue it becomes a question of discomfort vs allocating the money. If you decide not to spend the money i would make sure I know how to drain the pipes down, including the heating system if a prolonged power outage occurs.

Bob

Jamie Hall

We have a generator and a transfer switch arrangement. No, it wasn't cheap. It doesn't get used all that much (I have to remind myself to exercise the generator now and then!). And the local power company is amazingly good at limiting power outages -- we get a few, but rarely more than an hour or two (when someone tries to drive through a power pole, almost always).

But... it's all worth it. We keep heat, we keep water (we have livestock), we keep lights, we don't have to worry much. And when the power is off for a week, as it was a couple of years ago, there's no substitute.

icesailor

You have no idea how much electrical line personnel hate back fed generators. They can kill them.

Jamie Hall

icesailor said:

You have no idea how much electrical line personnel hate back fed generators. They can kill them.

Oh yes I do. In my humble opinion anyone who operates a generator without an approved, break before make, properly fused transfer switch should be disconnected from the grid immediately. And have to pay heavily to reconnect.

KC_Jones

People don't understand that transformers don't care which way the electricity goes. If the power is out and you feed your generator 110 into that transformer it will step it up and energize those lines and if fuses are blown on the lines and a section is isolated it will just be sitting there live waiting for someone to touch it. Or if you turn your generator on while they are working on the line that is supposed to be dead...bam. Lineman have enough safety concerns that they shouldn't have to worry about that too, but the world is an imperfect place.

jch1

I think that EZ Generator Switch is exactly what I'm looking for.

KC_Jones

If the fuses are blown before the transformer all you do is power up a small section of line...or if some other fuse is blown same thing, but yes if they are connected to a load of any kind...it SHOULD trip the generator.

BobC

If lines are down a lot of the external load might be disconnected from the transformer on the street.

Bob

Randy-LeeBraman

Get a transfer switch,safer for you safer for the line crews.

Jamie Hall

Hatterasguy said:

I was always curious why the breaker on the generator doesn't immediately trip when they try to do that. In theory, they are tying to power the entire neighborhood (actually, the entire grid) and the load from the grid is well in excess of the capability of the generator.

Even if it did -- and "immediately" isn't instantaneous -- that quick shot of 23,000 volts or so will knock the lineman off the ladder or bucket, even if it doesn't kill him instantaneously. Could ruin his whole day.

KC_Jones

I have stood within 10 feet of a 34KV line arcing to ground...it's no joke. You can watch videos of this stuff all day long, but until you experience and FEEL what it's like you really can't appreciate it fully. I wasn't hurt, didn't know the line was live. The wind blew and it got just close enough to ground to arc over. I almost needed new pants. The daily safety procedures a lineman goes through would blow your mind. One example they have to blow their gloves up and "pressure" test them daily. The reason is it is the best way to find a pin hole in the rubber glove. If you take a needle and push it through the glove and remove it that hole is enough to electrocute a man. They demonstrate this by putting a hot dog in the finger and cooking it inside the glove with the arc....tastes good too. Electricity is fascinating stuff....and deadly.

BobC

When I used to work on radar transmitter power supplies i ALWAYS shorted the output with a #8 wire BEFORE laying hands on. I melted a couple of #8 wires doing that but the dowel the wire was attached to survived with just some scorch marks.

Bob

vaporvac

Hi. will any of these suggestions work for gas power burners? We don't have many outages due to snow, but ice storms are common. I've been without power for as long as 10 days! Usually the problem is in the swing season, specifically Fall when all the trees still have their leaves.

Fred

The generator and transfer switch will work fine.

BobC

They should all work, you probably need 800 watts or so per gas gun. The key s to make sure your power source can never feed into the utility lines

Bob

Dean_7

I'm just a homeowner but I'm going to throw my 2 cents in here. There have been 3 home fires in my area in the last month all total losses of building and contents, all occupied by young family's, and all attributed to faulty electric wiring. We are talking about connecting a major appliance to a power supply so it will work in a power outage. And work for an extended period of time. To do that correctly a standby generator really is needed and it needs to be properly connected to the home service panel through a generator transfer switch either a manual one or an automatic one. Anything else amounts to trying to jury rig something that may or may not work and may be unsafe or illegal or both. Yes a generator costs money, yes a transfer switch cost money, and yes it costs money to connect it properly. But we are talking about something that if done wrong has the potential to destroy your home and property and possibly severely injure or kill you and your family.

Shalom

Gotta watch out trying to power boilers from inverters; I tried it once and it didn't work.

I have two boilers, one for each floor of this two-family house.

Mine is a 1963-vintage Peerless that works with no external power source, bar the four AAA batteries in the thermostat I installed, and the original "round" thermostat didn't even have that.

The tenants' is a 2009-vintage Utica. That one requires external power, in the form of a 24 volt, 2 amp transformer, which powers everything on it.

When the power went out during Sandy, I tried powering this thing from an inverter. The damper opened, the LWCO went through its startup sequence, and then at the point when the gas valve should have opened, instead the LEDs on the LWCO dimmed as if there was an overload, then the transformer let go with a bang, followed immediately by the inverter itself. Both are now scrap metal. (The transformer apparently has an internal short, and the inverter blows its fuse with no load connected as soon as you apply power.)

No idea why that happened. Once power came back, I replaced the transformer, temporarily, with a plug-in 24VAC 2A wall wart probably intended for powering security cameras, plugged into an extension cord to the nearest outlet (I considered installing an outlet in the box where the transformer had been and plugging it into that, but decided not to mess with it, leaving the dead transformer screwed in there for the time being); also bought a new inverter at Harbor Freight. Once the PSEG guy came out to install a new transformer, the plug-in went into storage.

I don't know how come the transformer blew up, nor why it took the whole inverter with it instead of just blowing the inverter's fuse. Maybe it doesn't like square waves.

SWEI

Kids these days... They just don't get paid to play with REALLY dangerous stuff the way we did

BobC

Just be thankful you didn't try and power your flat panel TV with that inverter. You really need to look for an inverter that puts out a sinewave, they cost more but they usually work.

Bob

Fred

SWEI said:

Kids these days... They just don't get paid to play with REALLY dangerous stuff the way we did

That is so true!

Shalom

Ha. I don't actually have a TV of any kind, let alone a flat panel... Looks like the replacement inverter I bought also uses "Modified Sine Wave" a.k.a. square waves as well. I guess I know what not to use it on now...