First Time Steammaster user

zackwatt

ChrisJ said:

Did the Steamaster seem to wash oil out without a need for skimming off the top of the water?

Oh no. It was nice, clean, and purple, but the water line was fluctuating in excess of 2 inches in the sight glass once all the crud was out. A few skims later and it's much more steady.

RomanGK_26986764589

Just finished flushing and refilling the boiler. I dropped 1 steam master again. Now the water in a sight glass is clear and slightly purple. Before that it would get all brown when steaming. The 0-3 psi gauge calmed down too. It just shakes a little bit. Interesting that when I flushed the boiler the boiler water was reddish in color.

neilc

wonder if your dirty water and clean master tablets may have obstructed your pigtail,
erratic gage and pressure and noisy venting and all

RomanGK_26986764589

@neilc I have a trap instead of a pigtail. You can see the photo on my profile picture. Sorry I don't have the pictures of the boiler to upload on my PC currently. Not sure if it's dirty or not. But after I flushed the boiler the gauge behavior is back to normal. Just a bit of shaking.

Sailah

I just sent off 2 cases of Steamaster tablets to Amazon so they should be available in a few days for those who don't have an account at their local supply house.

Koan

Thank you Peter!!

Hap_Hazzard

The MSDS doesn't show all of the ingredients. There has to be some permanganate in both of those products to make them turn the water purple. Permanganates are purple in color across a wide range of pH, but turn greenish if the pH is high enough, and colorless at very low pH.

ChrisJ

Hap_Hazzard said:

The MSDS doesn't show all of the ingredients. There has to be some permanganate in both of those products to make them turn the water purple. Permanganates are purple in color across a wide range of pH, but turn greenish if the pH is high enough, and colorless at very low pH.

Correct, never found out what changes color as it's not listed.

Maine Vent

My take on these tablets. Aaron Hamilton here in Brunswick Me found me 2 containers of them. I have flushed 2 times this fall, I had crystal clear water on the first fire. Added 2 tablets, it's run about a week. Almost black water, now I feel these tablets are condensing in the radiators and cleaning these 150+ year old rads. This crap in them is migrating back to the boiler. My radiators are some 1 pipe & some 2 pipe, the 2 pipe have no traps. I had one off last year for floor replacement the chunks of rust that were in the bottom of them were very disturbing. These tablets are scrubbing the whole system, not just the boiler. So routine boiler flushing is very good, the system that delivers the heat will take forever to clean up. Since air and water = rust, their is no way to stop this process. We have play catch up to clean the "system " up. I will flush again this weekend with my wand and high pressure water system flush and see how it goes.

Canucker

zackwatt said:

ChrisJ said:

Does it also turn the water purple?

It does! The ingredients are different though, but I'm not sure if it's better, worse, or pretty much the same.

Steamaster:
- Sodium Nitrite - % BY WEIGHT: 44.04
- Sodium Triphosphate - % BY WEIGHT: 23.52
- Sodium Metasilicate - % BY WEIGHT: 1.34
- Citric Acid - % BY WEIGHT: 3.36

8-WAY:
- Sodium Phosphate - % BY WEIGHT: 4.87
- Sodium Hydroxide - % BY WEIGHT: 15
- Sodium Nitrite - % BY WEIGHT: 6.78

Unless they have something else in the 8-way to counteract it, I'd be troubled by the amount of sodium hydroxide listed. If you're heavy handed with the additions, you could end up with a really high pH level where as the tablets would be more forgiving.

ChrisJ

Maine Vent said:

My take on these tablets. Aaron Hamilton here in Brunswick Me found me 2 containers of them. I have flushed 2 times this fall, I had crystal clear water on the first fire. Added 2 tablets, it's run about a week. Almost black water, now I feel these tablets are condensing in the radiators and cleaning these 150+ year old rads. This crap in them is migrating back to the boiler. My radiators are some 1 pipe & some 2 pipe, the 2 pipe have no traps. I had one off last year for floor replacement the chunks of rust that were in the bottom of them were very disturbing. These tablets are scrubbing the whole system, not just the boiler. So routine boiler flushing is very good, the system that delivers the heat will take forever to clean up. Since air and water = rust, their is no way to stop this process. We have play catch up to clean the "system " up. I will flush again this weekend with my wand and high pressure water system flush and see how it goes.

If you have dry steam there is no way Steamaster can end up in the mains, let alone a radiator. Dry steam should be 100% pure distilled water.

My wet return's TDS is typically 1-2 PPM which is almost pure distilled water, while my boiler's water is 500-600. It's how I keep an eye on how my system is running. I assume the 1-2 PPM I measure is rust in the water from the radiators.

SWEI

http://www.rhomarwater.com/products/catalog/product-type/steam-treatment/

Hap_Hazzard

ChrisJ said:

Correct, never found out what changes color as it's not listed.

Yeah, that would be the permanganate. They might have something else to give it the red color at low pH, but the purple-to-green change at high pH is the permanganate ion being reduced to manganate.

ChrisJ

Hap_Hazzard said:

ChrisJ said:

Correct, never found out what changes color as it's not listed.

Yeah, that would be the permanganate. They might have something else to give it the red color at low pH, but the purple-to-green change at high pH is the permanganate ion being reduced to manganate.

Never saw purple to green

Only blue to purple. Blue being low ph, purple being 7+ and from what I remember Steamaster it self I think has a PH of 9 or so from what I recall. I think no matter how much ammonia I added, it stayed purple.

Hap_Hazzard

You couldn't add enough ammonia to get it to turn green. Household ammonia is only about 10% ammonium hydroxide. The pH is something like 11.6, but the ammonia evaporates out of solution if you leave the lid off. You would want to mix permanganate with ammonium hydroxide anyway because it forms ammonium permanganate, which is brownish magenta and explosive.

I'm racking my brain to think of a pH indicator that turns blue in low pH and purple in high pH, but I can't think of one. The closest thing I can think of is congo red, which goes from violet to red between about 3 and 5 pH, but it's a very large molecule and looks a little cloudy in solution, unlike steammaster, which is crystal clear, so I think there's probably something in those tablets that's blue and pH-stabile, and it just shows up more when the permanganate turns clear.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Koan

Being colorblind I can't tell blue from purple. Wish it could indicate ph by number --- that would be cool!

RomanGK_26986764589

It seems like I need to flush the boiler again. The gauge is starting to behave more erratically. The needle is shaking more again.

RomanGK_26986764589

It seems like my boiler does not really like steam master tablets.. I drained and flushed my boiler for the third time and even added 4 tablets and boiled for 30 min to clean the boiler. After I drained again and dropped 1 tablet and the water is nice and purple. But that still doesn't help. A week later I start hearing my radiator vents as well as my main vents hissing loudly and 0-3 psi gauge jumping erratically. The water in the sight glass is still clear and pinkish. I may go back to regular plain water again as it is kind of tiring draining and flushing the boiler every week.

ChrisJ

RomanGK_26986764589 said:

It seems like my boiler does not really like steam master tablets.. I drained and flushed my boiler for the third time and even added 4 tablets and boiled for 30 min to clean the boiler. After I drained again and dropped 1 tablet and the water is nice and purple. But that still doesn't help. A week later I start hearing my radiator vents as well as my main vents hissing loudly and 0-3 psi gauge jumping erratically. The water in the sight glass is still clear and pinkish. I may go back to regular plain water again as it is kind of tiring draining and flushing the boiler every week.

Curious, do you know anything about your water?
What boiler is it? How is it piped? Sorry if you've posted pictures, I can't remember anything anymore, too much going on.

RomanGK_26986764589

@ChrisJ I have Weil McLain EG 40. My city water is 9 GPG hardness and the ph is 5.8-6.0 I wanted to use the tablets to raise my PH and have clean purple water just like you do! I drained and flushed the boiler for three times. The last time I even dosed with 4 tablets to really clean it but alas, just like all the previous times, exactly 1 week later my boiler water starts misbehaving... I only use 1 tablet.
Also, here are the pictures of my piping:

ChrisJ

Is the boiler and piping new this season?
It took months to get mine clean. By months, I mean I was still skimming the second year I was using it.

The fact yours runs fine for about a week and then starts acting up sounds like oil still washing down from the piping or even from the block it self.


For now, maybe you should run with plain water, but I'd want to raise the PH some how. I'd never want lower than 7 even temporarily.

If you want to keep trying the Steamaster for now, perhaps you could try skimming next time and not draining? Skim 4 gallons out and see how she behaves.

It's up to you though. This is all assuming your piping and boiler are new.

The main thing is don't get frustrated, just take your time.

RomanGK_26986764589

@ChrisJ The boiler is 10 years old but it was re piped this September. It was cleaned with the wand after repiping. I've also skimmed several times. Interesting part is it was running fine for longer periods without steam master. Idk. I could use plain water but it just bugs me that the ph is low enough to cause excessive rusting. I could skim, drain, and then refill the boiler with water from the softener as it gives me PH of 8. I just heard that softeners are not good for boilers.

BobC

It sounds like the steaming is pulling oil down from the piping and that can take a good while to work itself out.

Try draining a quart of water from the boiler and boiling it on the stove, if it looks different from what boiling water usually does you probably still have oil in the water. maybe they went a little crazy with the pipe dope when they repiped.

Water softener, what kind of water softener?

Bob

ChrisJ

BobC said:

It sounds like the steaming is pulling oil down from the piping and that can take a good while to work itself out.

Try draining a quart of water from the boiler and boiling it on the stove, if it looks different from what boiling water usually does you probably still have oil in the water. maybe they went a little crazy with the pipe dope when they repiped.

Water softener, what kind of water softener?

Bob

Draining water won't work as the oil is on top of the water.

Personally due to the PH issue if it was mine I'd skim 4 gallons off once a week and when the water is too faint in color I'd add more Steamaster. Don't drain the boiler, just slowly skim off a bucket full and refill and see how it behaves. If it's good, leave it be and rinse and repeat.

Like I said, it took a long long time to get all of the oil out of my boiler and it kept coming back just as you're seeing. Even with steam it takes a long time to wash oil off of that piping.

BobC

Your right it would be better to take the first quart of water you skim off and boil that to see if oils are the culprit.

Bob

Fred

Drain the boiler and refill it with plain water. Run it for a week or two and see if you have the same issue. That will tell you the tablets aren't the issue, the oil is. You are not going to hurt the boiler running it for a couple weeks with plain water, I mean, like you said it's 10 years old and you just recently started using the tablets.

RomanGK_26986764589

@BobC The water softener is Kinetico. The installer swore that no NaCl will not be introduced into the boiler as it backwashes all of the salt into the drain but I still have concerns after reading some of the posts here.

BobC

It might be wise to get your water tested so you know what it's composition is, you want that boiler to last a long time.

Bob

RomanGK_26986764589

So I skimmed a 5 gallon bucket off the boiler and gauge calmed down. The skimmed water was very deep purple. I didn't know 1 tablet can make it that purple.

BobC

You should not be seeing deep purple, my boiler has about 1-1/2 tablets in it and the color is a very light violet. Take a picture of the valve you are using to drain the boiler, show the whole side of the boiler so we can judge where it is on the boiler vessel.

Bob

RomanGK_26986764589

@BobC
The green valve at the very bottom is the drain. After skimming the water in a sight glass is barely purple.

BobC

It may just be the angle of your photo but that drain does not look low enough and it sounds like you may not have been draining that boiler completely.

That's a WM EG or one of it's variants, check page 10 of the IOM to make sure the drain is in the right tapping.

Bob

ChrisJ

BobC said:

It may just be the angle of your photo but that drain does not look low enough and it sounds like you may not have been draining that boiler completely.

That's a WM EG or one of it's variants, check page 10 of the IOM to make sure the drain is in the right tapping.

Bob

That's the only tapping there is and it's at the bottom of the block.
Remember, atmospheric boiler sits over the burners not on the floor.

This is the best picture I have handy of my block.
The red cap is the return on the opposite side but it's at the exact same height. Notice it's at the bottom of the block essentially.

Koan

maybe use the top gauge glass port for skimming?

srmaietta

RomanGK, I used 8-Way wich is similar to SteamMaster and ever since, I've had the same exact symptoms as you (very erratic gauge, water level fluctuating, vents hissing like crazy etc.) Did not have nay of these problems before! Thinking it cleaned really well the boiler and I need to skim.. but I have no skim port...

Not to hijack the thread, but is the top gauge glass port okay for skimming? Its my highest port besides the riser. I'm hesitant to move anything for fear it wont go back together, but will if it can cure these crazy problems. (boiler's 30+ yrs old)

thanks all
~Steve in NNJ

Fred

Top gauge glass is just too small of a port to skim oils off of the surface of the water. I have to use my Pressure relief valve port, which is a 3/4" tapping and that's about as small as you can go and even then, the skim has to be very, very slow, just a trickle of water for several hours. When I have to skim, it's usually over night. I run a garden hose from that 3/4" tapping to a floor drain and let it run until the next morning. Of course you need to do that when the boiler can be shut down the entire time.

srmaietta

A quick update from this first time user (of 8-way)

I just skimmed a few gallons over about an hour from the upper sight glass port. Drained a gallon or so from the bottom as well. Added 4 capfuls of 8-way. Figured I might as well give it another clean out while I'm mucking around, but this time much less dosage.

MUCH improvement! The short skim did it! (for now at least) Back to normal -even heat everywhere, no more "boiling in the pipes" sounds and water hammer is gone. Not one LWCO, not one time over 1/2lb pressure. The past month has been ongoing banging of the water feeder on/off, burner on/off 10 times or more per cycle, water hammer etc etc. very frustrating since everything worked so well last season.

8-way may be different in formulation but it is the same as Steamaster tablets in that they recommend waaay too strong of a dose! Just a little dab will do ya! -I had a whole bottle in there at the beginning of the season!

~Steve

RomanGK_26986764589

@srmaietta Nope, I did not have that issue before. But with steam master it runs beautifully for the first week but then gauge starts behaving erratically and all the vents hissing. Also, yesterday I skimmed and the water was really dark purple as if I had much more than just 1 tablet. Before that I flushed the boiler several times until tap clean water was running from the drain and then dropped just 1 steam master.

SWEI

RomanGK_26986764589 said:

The installer swore that no NaCl will not be introduced into the boiler as it backwashes all of the salt into the drain

Softener beads are charged with sodium ions, which trade places with magnesium and calcium ions in the water, making it 'soft.' During the backwashing process, the beads are recharged with sodium. Sodium eats iron and steel.

RomanGK_26986764589

@SWEI You're right. That's why I've only used softened water for one season. Last winter, while using softened water, my boiler water got so rusty that it started priming and I had to drain and flush the boiler in mid winter.