pressure issue with new Utica PEG112EID

BuilderCG

@vaporvac : My skim technique is to get the water at the top clear (skim port, above normal water line), then move to the boiler drain (mid point; usually just a little murky after finishing with the skim port); then finish with the drain at the bottom of the loop (often quite dirty and take out 1-2 gallons more gallons).

Skimming off the top is very slow with the water very hot, but not yet steaming. I add water almost at a trickle and the water coming out of the skim port is flowing steadily but very slowly - the flow is about the thickness of a pencil. I turn the boiler on to keep the heat and then kill it if the water starts to bubble out/burst or the flow changes.

From the mid and low point it's fast (fully opened valves).

I never skimmed my old boiler as I didn't know it needed to be done and it was never done as part of annual maintenance by the service company (who installed the old boiler; the installer of the new boiler showed me how to skim at the end of the install and again 2 days later) so if I'm doing this wrong please let me know!

BobC

Your skimming technique is fine, it only has to be done after a boiler install or the replacement of any piping.

Bob

BuilderCG

@RI_SteamWorks : I took my first measurement, with the vent removed on my longer (~50' main). It took 5 min 24 seconds for steam to appear. It'll take me a few days to get all the measurements.

Pics of my main lines included. As you can see, all the straight lengths are insulated (1" fiberglass) but none of the junctions or corners.

I'll adjust my thermostat to keep a steady 70 (the lowest my wife will allow!) and see how things go over the next few days.

New England SteamWorks

You'll want to get all that near-boiler piping insulated (and fittings) as well, is what I meant to say.

I hate those cycle guards.

nicholas bonham-carter

It would be easier to have a 90 degree elbow after the skim valve, so you can get all the water into a bucket.
What I did several times was to set up the thermostat, to make the boiler hot, then turn off the switch on the boiler, and turn on the bypass valve for the feeder, so that only a pencil sized stream comes out the skimming port into the bucket. When the 5 gal bucket has filled, that session is finished. Do this every weekend for a month, and that should remove all the oil which is on the surface of the water.--NBC

New England SteamWorks

BuilderCG said:

I took my first measurement, with the vent removed on my longer (~50' main). It took 5 min 24 seconds for steam to appear.

Is this from when the header got too hot (slow...) or from when the boiler fired (sounds about right)?

New England SteamWorks

Another reason to insulate your near boiler piping: Once the steam starts condensing in the piping after firing, it will condense much quicker in your uninsulated near-boiler piping. This could create lower pressure at the boiler than out in the mains, and if that happens the steam will turn around and head back to the boiler, sucking air back into the system. That wouldn't be a good thing.

ChrisJ

Fred said:

@BuilderCG , one of the problems you are trying to fix is the result of your own doing. Steam boilers just don't like setbacks of more than 2 or 3 degrees and you are setting yours at 5 degrees, twice a day. That isn't saving you any money. The combined run time (fuel burn) for those two 2.5 hou recoverys is probably longer that the boiler would run if you had no setback at all. It sounds like the Pressuretrol may need to be recalibrated so that it shuts down at 1.5PSI rather than 3 PSI. I can give you instructions for doing that (or your tech person) if I haven't already done so. If the Tech has done it, he did not do it right as they ccan be calibrated to within a couple ounces, if you are willing to spend some time doing it.

Fred,
If your boiler was sized by my method, you wouldn't have this issue just as I don't. 10 degree recovery and never sees more than 1/2 an ounce. 10 degree recovery with 10 degree ambient? No problem.

All well. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think. - Lisa Douglas.

Fred

ChrisJ said:

Fred said:

Fred,
If your boiler was sized by my method, you wouldn't have this issue just as I don't. 10 degree recovery and never sees more than 1/2 an ounce. 10 degree recovery with 10 degree ambient? No problem.

All well. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think. - Lisa Douglas.

Chris,
Unfortunately many of us are working with boilers we inherited when we bought our homes. I am proud that I have a 33 year old boiler on a 114 year old system, and it all still runs like a dream. I don't mind the fact that I can't have a 10 degree setback because I don't believe a setback saves any fuel, by the time it catches up to the "normal" temp setting. I'm glad you take comfort in knowing that you can do a 10 degree setback. If only your wife would let you. Some capabilities add value, others don't.

ChrisJ

Oh, that's a low blow.
The wife part, I mean. She has been allowing a 4 degree setback though. Zero overshoot thanks to the Ecosteam and I haven't seen more than just under 0.75" WC during a recovery even in the single digits outside.

You'd know I was back to doing one if you read my stuff.
http://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/153322/converting-from-eg-45-to-eg-40#latest

Setbacks save energy, period. Thermodynamics proves this.

Fred

ChrisJ said:

Oh, that's a low blow.
The wife part, I mean. She has been allowing a 4 degree setback though. Zero overshoot thanks to the Ecosteam and I haven't seen more than just under 0.75" WC during a recovery even in the single digits outside.

You'd know I was back to doing one if you read my stuff.
http://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/153322/converting-from-eg-45-to-eg-40#latest

Setbacks save energy, period. Thermodynamics proves this.

Put her on the phone! I want to talk to her

ChrisJ

My mistake Fred.
I'm doing a 5 degree setback.

BobC

@ChrisJ

ChrisJ said:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think. - Lisa Douglas.

Lisa was one of the great thinkers of our time as was her able assistant Arnold.

Bob

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

RI_SteamWorks said:

This could create lower pressure at the boiler than out in the mains, and if that happens the steam will turn around and head back to the boiler,

Whatever you do, don't tell the steam that is heading out of the steam chest above the fire that the steam that is already out in the header has turned around and headed home.

Say what now!?!?

ChrisJ

That's an interesting trick.
I think someone's high and it's not me.

KC_Jones

The steam is a momma's boy, wants to keep getting back to the boiler.

ChrisJ

Are you sure it was the same steam?
Can you describe it?

KC_Jones

It's a tricky steam, completely invisible and impossible to track.

ChrisJ

Great.
Now my house is being referred to as a "barn".
If it's 0F out my house's temperature will drop 5 degrees incredibly fast.

1616 square feet and I believe the approximate heatloss is around 66,000 btu/h at that temperature with some wind, not a lot. As you go colder, that loss goes up rapidly due to drafts.

But, my 94,000 btu/h worth of radiation has no problem heating it with a boiler that produces 104,000 btu/h as the boiler clearly produces more energy than the home could ever use even if the radiators could dissipate it.


I believe my run times were 15 minutes on, 5 minutes off @ -8F. This seems to come to around 78,000 btu/h. Pre-heat times at 3 CPH under those conditions are incredibly short being around 60 seconds from the time the thermostat calls for heat until my radiators get steam.


This is all with a 72F +- 0.5F indoor temp.

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

Yep, you got a barn.

But, your system shows that the run times, even with significant heatloss, are usually not more than 60% on the design day.

I can concur regarding the apartment building. The Tekmar runs the designated heating curve at a 58% boiler percentage. This translates to a 58% run time on the design day.

Any steam boiler that must run close to 60 minutes each hour to keep the building at temperature most likely has "issues".

No,
-8F isn't design day in our area, I believe +5F is.
So yeah........... 13 degrees below design day.


Benefits of using a setback on a properly working system.
1: Lower heatloss. This is a fact, it isn't debatable.

2: One really long cycle the next morning which is more efficient than all of those multiple cycles you would've had during the night.

The argument that you have to heat everything back up "wastes" fuel is false. All objects store heat as internal energy, when the room cools down you get 100% of what you put into them back. There is no loss. Same thing when you heat a radiator from 72F to 212F, as it cools back down to 72F you get back 100% of that energy.

The First Law of Thermodynamics
Energy can neither be created or destroyed, it must go somewhere and since the radiator isn't galloping away or lifting weights I assume it's coming out as heat.

SWEI

The real challenge with setbacks comes in high mass buildings, in which recovery takes many hours, and the MRT lags even further behind. FHA and fin/tube are the worst for this -- radiators fare far better.

Nothing (with the possible exception of major envelope improvements) beats steam for this application IMO.

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

The real challenge with setbacks comes in high mass buildings, in which recovery takes many hours, and the MRT lags even further behind. FHA and fin/tube are the worst for this -- radiators fare far better.

Nothing (with the possible exception of major envelope improvements) beats steam for this application IMO.

Yeah,
Except we have many on here saying you need a huge pickup factor with steam, and then turn around and tell people not to do setbacks with steam because it builds pressure.

nicholas bonham-carter

It's time to move the question of suitability of setbacks to a new thread.
To help out Builder, in balancing the system, my advice is keep the temperature constant and at a lower eating while you are getting the balance right in the system. People can feel perfectly comfortable in a draft-free building with 67 degrees, whereas in going from 62 degrees to 70, they lack warmth until the setting has been achieved.
Concentrate on solving any main venting, and over pressure problems--NBC

BuilderCG

Hi all,

My boiler is continuing to misbehave. I have been flushing it every day - removing between 15 and 50 gallons of water each day. I keep flushing until the water is clear. I wouldn't drink it, but it has little to no brown ting when I'm done.

What I believe is happening is that sediment is getting pulled out of the pipes and/or radiators as I swapped my flushing method to drain the hartford loop first: about 2 gallons of very dirty water with heavy sediment that noticeable builds on the bottom of the bucket and another 2 gallons of much less dirty water. I then usually remove only 4-5 gallons of slightly dirty water via the skim port and greatly reduces the total amount of water I'm using every day. I believe the boiler's normal capacity is about 5 gallons.

Flushing takes about an hour if I follow my second method, but up to four hours when sticking with the original.

I've also noticed than in the last few days the boiler is not keeping water level at the "full" line. It's losing water now daily - between 1/2 and 1 inch as viewed through the glass.

And I still have pressure problems; plus almost all of my new radiator vents whistle like crazy once the boiler hits roughly 1 PSI.

I now keep my thermostat set statically at 71, a temperature my wife accepts, and I notice the boiler will run once per hour for 15 minutes when the outside temp is below 40 and runs for up to 30 minutes when the outside temp is under 30, which it has been lately. My house has almost no insulation.

I still need to acquire pipe insulation. I have not been able to source any locally: everything I find is for smaller pipes or too thin and I haven't found corner or pieces for T's. I've seen a thread or two on this forum that I'm going to check tonight.

The installer has not been able to help further. Their last comment was to tell me to stop flushing the boiler and to let it run, as is, until the next service appointment (in a year).

Thoughts?

BuilderCG

Also on my main venting: I believe I have adequate venting.

On my right main, the time difference for steam/heat with and without the vents is nearly the same: almost exactly 4 minutes.

On the left main, there's consistently about 20-30 second difference (about 5 min 20 sec with vents removed and 5 min 50 sec with vents installed). Is that substantial enough to warrant adding another vent?

The left main is about 10' longer than the right main.

I measured both sides twice.