Adding a lot of water. Clanging pipes.

atmonifa

Hi. First winter in house with 1 pipe steam system, w/ 2 zone hot water loop running off the boiler. 1 main vent.

I made sure the radiators pitch is correct & have mostly completed insulating the pipes in basement. Overall, the system does provide reliable heat: radiators get hot fairly quickly - the hot water loop is slow (and clangs something awful) but does heat the rooms.

I am sure the system can be tweaked to run better and this is something I plan to do in spring (not me - an expert ). Right now my concern is I have to add water every 1-2days. I don't know if I am losing this from the piping (mostly iron but couple pipes were replaced by previous owners w/ copper) or from the vents or something else.... I have a mix of vents - 1 gorton, 1 no-name and the rest vari-valve. I attached a few pics of the boiler setup

If anyone has any thoughts I would really appreciate it.

Thank you
Monika

nicholas bonham-carter

Are there any main vents on the system?
Is the pressure getting too high due to deferred maintenance?
It may be time to overfill the boiler, and look for leaks, when you have a warmish period, as it should sit for several hours filled up above the header. This will establish whether the water loss is in the boiler, or elsewhere. Let the boiler cool down before doing this.--NBC

atmonifa

1 main vent. Pressure 5 psi. I used the same local heating company who has serviced this boiler for last 15 years but reading posts on this site compared to some things the boiler guy told me - I am not sure they are steam experts.

BobC

5 PSI sounds much too high, it should be 1-1.5PSI. What are the settings on the pressuretrol?

Bob

Fred

How much water are you adding every day or two? At 5 PSI, it may well be steaming out at vents/valves, etc.

JUGHNE

Your main vent is actually a collector's item. It has but a fraction of the venting capacity that would benefit a one pipe system. (assuming it on the top of the dry return pipe).

5 PSI for your house is way more than what is usually discussed here. 2 PSI is a high number for pressure and everyone tries to get it a lot lower than that. (the control has limitations).

Now someone here will hopefully explain to me what the copper leaving the front of the boiler at the water line does. Is it part of an insert DHW heater? There looks to be an electric water heater tank in the background. The 2 pumps for the condensate HW heating are obvious, but the connection at the water line??
I never see this hook up and am most curious. Thank You.

Jamie Hall

5 psi may be part of your problem. Vents sometimes misbehave badly at that pressure -- if they work at all. As @BobC said, that's way too high. See if you can crank the pressuretrol down to where it belongs (just above 0.5 cutin -- which is as low as it will go, and a differential of 1).

On the leaking -- it can be remarkably difficult to find steam leaks, as in most cases, unless it is really bad, it evaporates immediately. However, check every inch of pipe! Also, an easy enough check for peace of mind is to take a look at the chimney when the boiler is operating -- you may see some vapour coming out, particularly on a cold morning, but you shouldn't see clouds of vapour.

Are you sure that it is the hot water loop that is clanking? If it is, it may be expansion noises.

Fred

@JUGHNE said: Now someone here will hopefully explain to me what the copper leaving the front of the boiler at the water line does. Is it part of an insert DHW heater? There looks to be an electric water heater tank in the background. The 2 pumps for the condensate HW heating are obvious, but the connection at the water line??
I never see this hook up and am most curious. Thank You

I'm wondering if that is where someone piped the return water back into the boiler from the Hot Water loop and that's why they have "the hot water loop is slow (and clangs something awful)" ???

JUGHNE

Fred, so if you pull the water out of the bottom of the boiler and run it thru BB heaters or such and then the cooled return water is injected right at the water line into the steam if boiler is on that seems like it would hammer in the boiler??
Or if the pumps were not running then steam would rise up that copper return until it hit the water sitting in the pipe.

And when the pumps/T-stat calls for heat would it start the boiler? and just bring it up to HW temp?

None of this is probably connected to the water loss...my guess.

Fred

I don't know how it would act, in the boiler. I agree it wouldn't contribute to any water loss but it might explain the "awful" banging, steam getting into that loop, and it being "slow", Steam pressure on one end, pump pressure on the other.

atmonifa

Electric water heater = yes. The clanging is coming from the hot water part of house, I can hear the pipes in the walls sitting next to radiator. The steam system is actually very quiet.

I checked pressuretrol the current cut-in is set @ 2psi.

I can't believe it but the LWCO is now leaking. The ball valve is in closed position - I tried couple times to jiggle it it but not shutting off. This has never happened before (I keep bucket under valve just in case)

I don't know if this is bad luck or with the cold snap this weekend the system really got put to the test. I have been using my wood stove frequently and I guess didn't pay enough attention to the steam system.

Any recommendations for expert who services Somerset county NJ?

Fred

Maybe @EzzyT or @Dave0176 might service that area. Hopefully they will respond. In the meantime, Turn that screw on top of the Pressuretrol down to .5 PSI and then take the cover off of the Pressuretrol and set the white dial inside to "1" facing the front of the Pressuretrol. 5 PSI of pressure can do a lot of strange things.

Abracadabra

If that copper on the front of the boiler is the return on the hot water loop (and I'm guessing it is) then it needs to be piped back into the boiler below the water line.

atmonifa

I will do that now. Thank you for all the input from everyone so far, really appreciate it. I recall in Dan's book the comment on knowing when you are past your abilities - I am clearly at this point so I am hoping that Peapack is not too far out for service.

EzzyT

@atmonifa you can send a private message

Fred

@atmonifa , send EzzyT that private message! If you can get him in there , he's one of the Best!

atmonifa

Unfortunately, I learned my system needs more work than I was planning for but very happy that @EzzyT came out today - identified my LWCO wasn't shutting down the boiler when water level dropped (scary). Problem fixed same day.

Fred

Not unfortunate. Now you know what needs to be done to get it right so you can maintain it and enjoy some peace of mind! Hopefully you will let EzzyT do what needs to be done.