Radiator Air Vents Shooting Streams of Water

bplank

Dear All,
I inspected a three story historical home that was built in 1887. I’m guessing it is about 3,000 sq. ft. It first had a coal boiler that was later converted to gas. The current boiler was installed in November 2013. The first incident of basement flooding and radiator vents on the first and second floors shooting streams of water upward to the ceilings occurred in February 2014. The second similar event occurred in October 2015. Both times the homeowner ran to the basement to shut off the boiler and found its sight glass totally full of water. The installer of the boiler tried to replicate the conditions leading to the vent “geysers”, but was unsuccessful.

The distributor for the boiler company suggested a second water cutoff for the boiler, which the boiler installer put into the system to prevent water from ever entering the main steam manifold above the boiler. As you can see in the photos it is located above the regular low water cutoff, and about even with the top of the boiler.

The boiler is made by Crown. It is series JJ, model BSI346ENPZZKSU with 345,000 Btu input.

Any help you can supply will be greatly appreciated. If you need any actual photo instead of the pdf, just let me know. I was trying to save space here.

Dave in QCA

This just does not look right at all!! Checking the manuals will help a lot, but the bottom connection of the LWCO Feed water controller should not be connected to the boiler return connection. They should be connected to the boiler via connections that have NO other purpose, so the floats can detect that actual boiler water level without interference. I've never seen anything that looks so bazaar..... Gotta go do some research.

After research, I think I'll leave this one to the pros. Crown boiler manual is very lacking. I question why there is a feed water tank in the first place. And.... all of those McDonnell-Miller controls!!! Do I count four of them??? WOW

DickC

I don't know where the idea of putting a LWCO on top of a LWCO boiler feed control came from but it is definitely wrong, is there also another lwco near that pair? You need to get a hold of a piping diagram and get that corrected first of all, not sure if it is wired, water level falling below top (64) lwco should turn off power and no way the pump control should pull in. That is one for the books.

nicholas bonham-carter

Repiping following the instructions from the manufacturer is needed here. The size of the boiler is probably too big as well.
Has the boiler ever been skimmed/cleaned? If not, then the violent boiling will throw lots of water up into the pipes.
The condensate tank is a bandaid for this water level problem.
Also possible is runaway pressure pushing water out of the boiler, causing overfilling.
I feel sorry for the homeowner at the mercy of the incompetent distributor, putting one bandaid on after another.--NBC

Jamie Hall

Even with a completely missing manual, a reasonably competent steam person should be able to pipe that boiler correctly. Things do have to be done right, and things can become bad really fast when they aren't -- and that boiler has so many piping problems I don't even know where to start.

I'd rip all the piping out right up to the steam mains at the ceiling, lose the condensate pump and tank, and start all over again.

Where are you located? It's possible that we may know someone who works in your area.