Number of Steamaster Tablets to Use

Billy_13

Hi Pros.
I have a WMC (EG-75) steam boiler. 300MBH input. Rectorseal Steamaster directions say "for cleaning, 6 tablets per 25MBH... For maintenance, 4 tablets per 25 MBH."

ows.rectorseal.com/product-data/steamaster-tablets/dssteamaster.pdf

Quick calculations are 72 tablets to clean and 48 tablets for maintenance.

I know others have had success with this product before. I learned about it through HH. Would any pro mind piping in and offer some advice? 72 tablets (cleaning) and 48 tablets (maintenance) seemed a bit excessive; but I have no prior experience with the product.

I'm perfectly willing to take the advice of a pro. I trust a pro more than any bottle.

SWEI

It's more about gallons of water capacity in the boiler -- and those numbers are insanely high.

KC_Jones

That would definitely be WAY too many. I used 2 to "clean" and run 1 normally in my EG-40 boiler. I would guesstimate max of 2 for you, but the real trick is monitoring the PH. You want to be in the range of 9 or so. I only check mine a couple times a year when I think it might have been slightly diluted from some amount of makeup water. I only have one season under my belt with them, but @ChrisJ has been using them for several years. I think he is able to run 2 tablets in his on the same boiler that I have. Like I said need to monitor the PH and performance of boiler, it might take a touch of experimenting. Oh as far as boiler performance goes if you start seeing surging, you used too much. That's how I know I can't run 2 I was surging like mad hitting low water etc.

ChrisJ

I run 2 tablets without any problem but more than that and I start to have issues.

For an EG-75 I'd start with two and see how it behaves. Your water must be 100% oil free before you use this product so make sure the boiler is good and clean.

From what I've seen Steamaster doesn't increase PH beyond a certain point, around 9 or 10. You could dump the entire bottle in and it won't go above that so as long as the water is violet you're likely good when it comes to PH.

SteamedInWharton

I heard a few positive reviews on here so included a bottle with my last supplyhouse.com order. What I didn't look for was the other users' directions and experiences (2 tablets to start, one to maintain). Learned that after the fact.

I said to myself "let's see 318sq ft connected EDR, 472 sq ft rated EDR. Let's try 24 tablets (400/100 x 6)." I think I ended up with only 21 tablets in the boiler. Yeah bad idea. the water hammer and surging was shall we say spectacular. Now my boiler does surge a lot normally but it doesn't hammer.

The amount of water needed to flush/fill the boiler down to something manageable was also ridiculous.

vaporvac

Why does your boiler surge so much normally? That isn't normal.

ChrisJ

No, there should be very little movement.

54 seconds into this video you can see what my gauge glass looks like running. I tried to make the video start there, but the forum ignores it.

https://youtu.be/hH36luC9GKU?t=54s

SteamedInWharton

vaporvac said:

Why does your boiler surge so much normally? That isn't normal.

Because a hot water guy did my near boiler piping before I was "in the know" and I haven't had it fixed. Also despite my recent skimming efforts, there may still be some oil on the surface.

ChrisJ

SteamedInWharton said:

vaporvac said:

Why does your boiler surge so much normally? That isn't normal.

Because a hot water guy did my near boiler piping before I was "in the know" and I haven't had it fixed. Also despite my recent skimming efforts, there may still be some oil on the surface.

Uhoh....
Vertical header?

SteamedInWharton

Short (nowhere near 24") copper colliding header tee'd into another tee feeding two 3" risers. It gets worse from there and the equalizer is taken off of the right riser. And the Hartford Loop is slightly above water line (depends on exact water level) but not high enough to be a Gifford loop. Lastly, my water line should be higher as my 4 dry returns meet in pairs and the pairs meet 4" above water line. I may post a picture this weekend.

In short: the dead men may have missed a thing or two. The guys who converted from oil to gas in the 80s messed a few things up. And the guys who came in to replace the boiler in 2011 messed up more things.

vaporvac

Older coal-fed boilers often had very high water lines so that could explain the dry return issue, as I'm sure you know. I feel so protective of the dead men, although I know even they weren't perfect.

SteamedInWharton

I actually think the last boiler may have been on blocks (memory fuzzy) so it wasn't the dead men's fault.

An old coal boiler or old oil boiler would also explain the two big 3" risers as I can't figure out for the life of me how they would have originally piped in an equalizer (maybe they didn't have one).

What the dead men (I think, it looks original) got wrong is the left riser goes straight up in to a bull-headed reducing tee (2"x2"x3") to feed the two loops going around the basement to the front of the house. The second thing they got wrong (I think it's wrong) is the right side 3" riser goes up into a 2" reducing elbow (90 degrees) and continues into my crawlspace where it's immediately bullheaded into a tee to go to the back of the house (left and right side loops).

Fred

They had knuckleheads back then too! Just not as many

vaporvac

Plus, those big boilers with their big steam chests were more forgiving than smaller boilers where the NBPiping should be considered part of the boiler.

ChrisJ

Yeah,
There may have been some knuckleheads back then but something tells me they didn't have the nice pretty pictures modern guys do and yet still completely mess it up.

ChrisJ

vaporvac said:

Plus, those big boilers with their big steam chests were more forgiving than smaller boilers where the NBPiping should be considered part of the boiler.

I don't consider the NB piping part of the boiler, but I do consider the entire thing a system. Every part from the radiator vents/traps to the boiler work as one and are all equally important.

Billy_13

Thank you all for your advice about the Steamaster Tablets. I will start off with a "drastically lower" initial amount and go from there. Hopefully it will not surge too badly, like others reported finding out the hard way.

Greatly appreciate all of you taking time to help me out.
Have a great weekend!!