Boiler Best Practices

cubicacres

Is there a reccomended way/amount to use the steamaster water treatment if our water is just a bit on the hard side? Our city water Dept. said the trade-off of softening water is it becomes more acidic (substituting calcium for potassium, and another few elements, I think?)

Also, just cleaning out the wet returns with the new install-should we use a wet-vac for a few feet, or blow from the top 2nd floor radiators down, or something else?

vaporvac

You'll just have to see with the cleaning. I had to scrape mine out. some of the crud in there is hard as a rock!

cubicacres

Did you start scraping the crud from the wet line that returned to the boiler once the boiler was removed before the new install? Could we try that ourselves, or is there anything dangerous about removing that crud (caustic, etc.) we should use special care with? I wonder how much might be in there?

cubicacres

For removing our old Weil Mclin EGH-85 from the boiler room, any tips or making it easier? (just remove the cover jacket & as many components as you can, breaking with sledge hammers or cutting with a torch, etc.) Is there any value to try and salvage the old boiler components such as the 2009 probe type LWC, gauge glass replaced a month ago with some new piping work before we found the leak in the block, auto water feeder from 10+ years ago, etc?

SWEI

How hard are we talking about here?

JUGHNE

Wet Returns: (this may have been mentioned in one of your other 4 postings but anyway)
Are they all above the basement floor?
Can you see all of them and any pipes that drop down into them? The dry part of the drop pipe might be clean and solid.
To clean them you probably have to cut the pipe drop about 2 feet above the floor. If that pipe looks good then cut about a foot above the floor.
I have cleaned out small sections of wet return that didn't leak until they were cleaned. The crud was sealing pinholes.
If possible you could seal all the drops and pressurize with house water pressure to find/create leaks and know where you stand. (You really want a good floor drain.)
If you have someone there turning the pipes anyway, it might be time to replace them. IMHO

cubicacres

I'm not sure what we'll find regarding hardness of the crud until we open it up, I guess :-) I didn't see any return piping going under the floor, just running into the boiler about 6-12 inches above the floor, running back into the boiler feed water supply from the condensate return piping. See pic below as the return joins the feed (just past where the bucket is behind it in the photo). Our drain is good-maybe a clean vs. replace decision...

JUGHNE

So does the returning water from the radiators and the end of steam mains return to the boiler in pipes that are above the boiler water line? If so then you have dry returns and the only wet return piping is right at the boiler. The dry returns need to slope towards the boiler without sags and dips. If they sloped correctly and held no pockets of water then they are probably good to go.

Wet return piping is always full of water and subject to corrosion and suspect to needing cleaning or replacement. With a new boiler install the wet return would probably have to be revamped and examined at that time. With dry returns that is one less thing on your plate. .

Boiler picture from farther back would show your dry returns dropping into the wet return at the boiler.

SWEI

My question was about the hardness of the water (in grains per gallon or PPM.)

cubicacres

Thanks-Here are some photos in a word doc that might show the returns better. I think they drop a few feet from the boiler.

cubicacres

Our Milwaukee city water dept. said the water PH ranges from 7.2-7.9, with median at 7.55. The hardness ranges form 7-9 grains/gal with median at 7.5, or 117-146 Mg/L with a median of 127 Mg/L. Anything reccomended with this type of water?

Jamie Hall

I wouldn't bother to treat that water. It's not a consumptive use.

SWEI

That's not hard enough to worry about IMO.

ChrisJ

No, but Steamaster will raise the ph a little more as well as reduce corrosion. It also helps prevent mineral build up.

There are many reasons to use water treatment such as Rectorseal Steamaster tablets or Rhomar 903 and very few reasons not to. The main reasons not to are either dirty water which is bad anyway, and using too much treatment causes problems.

Clean water plus the right amount of treatment will give you a long efficient boiler life.

cubicacres

One of the city water engineers said as we soften the water, there is a trade-off as the water becomes more corrosive by replacing the (was it calcium for possassium, and 2 other elements I forgot)? I think I had this right...but not sure.

Is this a trade-off you've noticed in boilers over time? (softness to reduce scale & lime buildup at the expense of higher acidity that tends to corrode with more rust?)

Rectorseal's tech line just reccomended their 8-way product:
http://www.rectorseal.com/index.php/8-way/

They said the steamaster just rasises PH to about 8-9, while the 8-way addresses the sludge, rust, and 8 different things, apparently...Any thoughts on using the 8-way each season?

Bio

Be aware that steamaster tablet is a Carcinogen product
http://ows.rectorseal.com/product-data/steamaster-tablets/Steamaster Tablets.html

ChrisJ

Bio said:

Be aware that steamaster tablet is a Carcinogen product
http://ows.rectorseal.com/product-data/steamaster-tablets/Steamaster Tablets.html

Do you tend to drink boiler water?
I don't.

"Toxic by ingestion"

ChrisJ

cubicacres said:

One of the city water engineers said as we soften the water, there is a trade-off as the water becomes more corrosive by replacing the (was it calcium for possassium, and 2 other elements I forgot)? I think I had this right...but not sure.

Is this a trade-off you've noticed in boilers over time? (softness to reduce scale & lime buildup at the expense of higher acidity that tends to corrode with more rust?)

Rectorseal's tech line just reccomended their 8-way product:
http://www.rectorseal.com/index.php/8-way/

They said the steamaster just rasises PH to about 8-9, while the 8-way addresses the sludge, rust, and 8 different things, apparently...Any thoughts on using the 8-way each season?

I had looked into 8-way and didn't care for it.
Steamaster does several things including preventing mineral buildup and reducing corrosion. It doesn't just raise ph.

I will admit, I had emailed Rectorseal twice regarding this and was ignored both times. This is a big reason I want to switch to Rhomar, their support seems fantastic.

I would NOT use a water softener on boiler water. Perhaps someone that knows more can comment, but I seem to recall water softeners being one of the worst things you could ever feed a boiler with.

SWEI

cubicacres said:

One of the city water engineers said as we soften the water, there is a trade-off as the water becomes more corrosive by replacing the (was it calcium for possassium, and 2 other elements I forgot)? I think I had this right...but not sure.

Is this a trade-off you've noticed in boilers over time? (softness to reduce scale & lime buildup at the expense of higher acidity that tends to corrode with more rust?)

Water softeners are ion exchange devices. They trade calcium and magnesium for sodium (or potassium, depending on what kind of salt you use to regenerate.) Neither plays well with ferrous metals.

Rectorseal's tech line just reccomended their 8-way product:
http://www.rectorseal.com/index.php/8-way/

They said the steamaster just rasises PH to about 8-9, while the 8-way addresses the sludge, rust, and 8 different things, apparently...Any thoughts on using the 8-way each season?

Definitely not each season. Might be worth using the 8-way as part of your cleaning process, though I'd be more inclined to use Rhomar 9150 for that.

After it's cleaned and skimmed, as long as you keep the pH up and don't use a lot of makeup water, you really should not need anything else.

Bio

"SUMMARY OF ACUTE HAZARDS
Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through skin. Causes irritation
to skin, eyes and respiratory tract." etc, etc...

That's correct Softening resins will absorb Ca & Mg through out the day, and during nightly regeneration resins will absorb sodium (stronger ion) and release Ca & Mg (weaker than Na) to the drain

ChrisJ

Bio said:

"SUMMARY OF ACUTE HAZARDS
Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through skin. Causes irritation
to skin, eyes and respiratory tract." etc, etc...

That's correct Softening resins will absorb Ca & Mg through out the day, and during nightly regeneration resins will absorb sodium (stronger ion) and release Ca & Mg (weaker than Na) to the drain

So handle carefully and wash your hands. Don't drink the boiler water or snort it.

Bio

ChrisJ said:

Bio said:

"SUMMARY OF ACUTE HAZARDS
Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through skin. Causes irritation
to skin, eyes and respiratory tract." etc, etc...

That's correct Softening resins will absorb Ca & Mg through out the day, and during nightly regeneration resins will absorb sodium (stronger ion) and release Ca & Mg (weaker than Na) to the drain

So handle carefully and wash your hands. Don't drink the boiler water or snort it.

Really?? Where are we in High School??? LOL

Buyer be Aware

ChrisJ

Bio said:

ChrisJ said:

Bio said:

"SUMMARY OF ACUTE HAZARDS
Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through skin. Causes irritation
to skin, eyes and respiratory tract." etc, etc...

That's correct Softening resins will absorb Ca & Mg through out the day, and during nightly regeneration resins will absorb sodium (stronger ion) and release Ca & Mg (weaker than Na) to the drain

So handle carefully and wash your hands. Don't drink the boiler water or snort it.

Really?? Where are we in High School??? LOL

Buyer be Aware

Perhaps I missed something.
What exactly was your point regarding the Steamaster MSDS?

The bottle has warnings on it about how to handle it.

Dave in QCA

Having run a large boiler plant that used a proper 3 product steam treatment, I have always been skeptical of a one product boiler treatment. The sales reps that promoted them usually had no knowledge of how the product worked, and they often didn't.

That being said, I have been VERY happy with Steammaster tablets. I have used 1/2 the recommended dosing, but I have a high water content boiler. I have reduced blowdowns to once in 60 days. Anything more often and there is nothing to flush out of the LWCO float chambers.

cubicacres

We'll be careful with the chemicals and not drink them, even if they look deliciously grape :-)

It would be nice to not use any chemicals once the new boiler has been skimmed upon install. Would you consider any other chemicals, or just some steamaster tablets or 8-way (but even the stemaster or 8-way seems not necessary?)

Any thoughts on adding a gravity condensate tank/resevior pipe for better water return management? (does this simply stabilize water levels as intake is needed, or also clean the condensate water before it returns to the boiler?).

Any thoughts on how many more years this could possibly keep our boiler running? It would be great to maximize our longevity.

ChrisJ

Using 2 Steamaster tablets in my boiler and rinsing it out once a year I don't expect to replace my boiler any time soon. I'd hope to get 30 years out of it and it's an EG series I put in back in 2011.

The reason I say this is I see no signs of any rusting or corrosion going on when I dump water.

Steam

The better the water treatment, the better the efficiency, and the longer the boiler and it's associated piping will last. If you want to add a pre-filter, use an activated carbon filter. The boiler shouldn't be using that much make up water.

First use a good system cleaner, flush the system, and then maintain the boiler water with boiler treatment. You might find some leaking returns, but it's better to replace them now than in the middle of the winter. If you happen to get a leak, don't use that leak stop nonsense. Bust up the floor and replace the return.

If you can, test your boiler water after cleaning. Then figure out what and how much treatment you need. A good treatment has an oxygen scavenger. Good boiler water is more than just PH. TDS, conductivity, chlorides, silica (although you're not running a turbine ) , phosphates, OH Alkalinity (if the P is good so should be the OH), Dissolved O2......

All the best,
Steam

cubicacres

I just saw a photo online of the wet return piping on a WMC steam boiler that looked like it was made of copper, not steel like the other near-boiling piping. Is that ever reccomended?

It looked like an EG series similar to what we might consider. Do you know if the EG 65 or EG75 can have two 3 inch risers, or just one?

Dave0176

cubicacres said:

For removing our old Weil Mclin EGH-85 from the boiler room, any tips or making it easier? (just remove the cover jacket & as many components as you can, breaking with sledge hammers or cutting with a torch, etc.) Is there any value to try and salvage the old boiler components such as the 2009 probe type LWC, gauge glass replaced a month ago with some new piping work before we found the leak in the block, auto water feeder from 10+ years ago, etc?

Just remove the jacket and all related components then the draw rods and tge sections should fall apart. Carry each section out easily.

ChrisJ

cubicacres said:

I just saw a photo online of the wet return piping on a WMC steam boiler that looked like it was made of copper, not steel like the other near-boiling piping. Is that ever reccomended?

It looked like an EG series similar to what we might consider. Do you know if the EG 65 or EG75 can have two 3 inch risers, or just one?

If you click the link in my signature at the bottom of this post you can see how I piped my EG series. I have all copper below the water line. Some guys like this, some don't.

Regarding risers, for an EG-65 or 75 I'd do both 3" risers.

JUGHNE

Dave, your last posting really made that removal sound easy.
My experiences were never that way.
The way things went for me was that nothing fell apart, (40 to 50 year old boilers) I used log splitting wedges to split the sections apart. Pound them in with 2 pound sledge, they would fly out heading for your head. It was like wrestling a cast iron pig; and eventually you realize the pig enjoyed it. Safety glasses, boots and heavy gloves seemed appropriate for the job.

And these were smaller boilers. Each section seems like a 100 pounds. (they were only 60) Someone suggested laying down old tires to keep from breaking the concrete floor. (Probably a good idea for larger sections.)

And for this it would weight up to $45-50 at the yard.

cubicacres

These discussions have helped me a lot. One more thing to add to the topic of selecting the best size - since the building is an apartment with tenants, our opportunity to fine tune the venting will have some limits. We can give the people TRV's (except not in the unit with the sensor tied to the thermostat) and add venting to the mains, but we won't have the chance to go around monitoring it so closely.

The way it seems to go is that if something isn't working, they tell us, then if our solution doesn't work, they might tell us again or they might take things into their own hands by opening a window or plugging in a space heater.

So... does that influence the recommendation about whether the EG-65, 75 or two 45's is best? Or something else? If you couldn't be as hands-on, what would you do?

vaporvac

That was me who used tires to help with the impact.. We found a single well-placed whack would split the sections apart and they'd drop to the tire. Maybe it was just beginner's luck!

@cubicacres, I'm not sure why you seem set on a condensate tank, but you can make provisions for adding one later if need be. My system is large (1466edr) and I haven't fallen short, although I did a thorough cleaning and scraping of my small section of wet returns. That said, a condensate tank is a better solution than an auto refill that constantly floods the boiler. I have had my burner go off on LW on occasion, especially when coming back from a set-back, but I don't really care. This enables my vacuum system to eliminate air more fully as my single vacuum vent could probably be bigger. By the time the condensate returns, i'm almost out of air, and it has never happened after the first run. This is also well into the cycle. Clean out the returns and see how it goes.

vaporvac

cubicacres said:

Did you start scraping the crud from the wet line that returned to the boiler once the boiler was removed before the new install? Could we try that ourselves, or is there anything dangerous about removing that crud (caustic, etc.) we should use special care with? I wonder how much might be in there?

I always wear gloves (except in pics!), but I'd don't see what would be too bad about the sludge, but it's pretty amazing how thick and gross it is, and how hard some parts are. I think the iron must bind and become rock-like. I read the actual explanation, but you just need to know you may need something to scape it out. i did mine after the boiler removal (I kept anything worthwhile ie vstat), and it was a DIY job, for us anyhow.

Abracadabra

Hatterasguy said:

What I do with the apartment building (50 miles away) is to get a pair of Extech TH-10's. Put one in each of two apartments...........one on the first floor and one on the top floor.

I used to use Extechs till I ran across wireless tags. I can check on temps at the job without having to haul halfway across the city to pickup the extechs.

http://wirelesstag.net/

Abracadabra

Hatterasguy said:

How do those transmit from a remote location? Do you need some type of internet access at that location for them to work? Or do you just provide them with a smartphone and leave it there?

They need an internet connection. I'll discuss what I'm doing with the customer and utilize their internet connection. When I discuss the benefits of what I'll be able to accomplish the customer usually has no issues allowing me to connect the hub to their internet. You could probably setup just a smartphone with data as an internet connection. I just haven't done it with the tags yet. Haven't had a need to.

cubicacres

In addition to the EDR radiator calculations, have you identified the inside vs. outside wall pipes between floors, and the pipes in conditioned space to reduce that pickup factor down from 33%?

We read the WMC boiler replacement guide to learn how to do EDR radiator calcs, and saw the hot water radiator heat loss calcs in there too using the heat loss of the building.

We were advised by the state to not go down more than 15% on our new boiler install unless we did a heat loss calc on the building with an engineering firm for a few thousand dollars.

Do you think the heat loss estimate example from the chart on p8 of the attatched WMC Boiler Replacement guide would get us a reasonably close number to meet or exceed for our new steam boiler? We can compare the heat loss calc to our installed EDR calc and see if they're close to each other. Then a boiler size close to these two should work (if they happen to be about the same)? I'm guessing the installed EDR of the radiators is enough to heat the place with open windows, though.

Fred

If you want your steam boiler to work reasonably well, do not install a boiler smaller than the total EDR of your radiation plus something for Pick-up/piping. If 15% is what you want, fine, if 20 or 30%, that's fine too. The fact of the matter is if you base your steam boiler sizing on heat loss, the boiler will likely be small enough that you will never be able to balance the system and get enough steam to each radiator. Some will get steam, other, likely will get none. If you are hell bent on a smaller boiler and you want to get close to the heat loss, do the heat loss calculations and then remove radiators or down-size them along with the boiler. That's the only way you will be likely to balance the system and get sufficient steam to each room/area of the house.

SWEI

Or add orifices.

cubicacres

Thanks. It will be interesting to see what our heat loss calculation is following the WMC boiler replacement guide as a rough estimate.

Has anyone compared these quick calculations per the WMC replacement guide (construction material type #, sq ft of each floor, heat loss at 70 deg x our city's correction factor =total x ceiling correction factor for total heat loss of the building). Would you reccomend more sophisticated heat loss calcuclations done by engineering firms or using software instead or in addition?

New Hampshire DIYer

I replaced a 20 year-old WM EG-75 last year and did the demo myself. I was prepared for a fight, but after removing the jacket and draw rods I hit it once with a sledge hammer and the thing just collapsed into pieces so fast I had to jump back so it didn 't land on my toes. Carried each boiler section out one at a time on a hand truck. Demo took half the time I had imagined. Getting the new Slant/Fin boiler down the cellar stairs...now THAT was the difficult part.