Dry Steam #3

New England SteamWorks

Does anyone have any experience with Dry Steam #3? I have a customer with a single Slant Fin Galaxy/Caravan that is surging. The piping was all wrong, so we re-piped, but it still surges. We have skimmed it more times I think than all the other boilers I've skimmed combined, -all to no avail. So I called Slant Fin and they immediately said to clean with Dry Steam.

They even have an instruction sheet in it's usage.

It used to be two boilers piped together, but it turned out that one boiler alone had sufficient BTUs for the building EDR so we mothballed the 2nd boiler.




So we are going to give it a try. Any thoughts or experiences welcome. Thanks.

hvacfreak2

I have not used the Dry Steam product but I have used Surgemaster from Rectorseal with fantastic results. This was a powder and if I ever have to use it again I will pre - mix it before I add. But yeah , it stopped the water level dead still , no more bouncing in the glass.

Danny Scully

For whatever reason @RI_SteamWorks , I've found this to be very prevalent in slant/fin steamers. I usually wand clean their boilers, but the last one I installed required their tankless skimming method (which seems bizarre) but actually worked well.

GregWeiss

@Danny Scully tried skimming via the safety valve too. No luck.

Danny Scully

@GregWeiss, with the boiler running (steaming)?

EBEBRATT-Ed

Double check the firing rate, but you have probably already thought of that.

GregWeiss

@Danny Scully yes I kept firing the boiler every so often just until it made steam while it skimmed from the tapping for the pop safety

Danny Scully

See I ran I while it steamed. I had it piped into a bucket (that already had water in it) that just overflowed into a floor drain. Never shut the boiler off once, just kept letting it steam away. Maybe worth a shot?

GregWeiss

No luck with the dry steam or skimming while it steamed away. Has anyone had any surging issues with the slant fin galaxy? The water looks clean.

BobC

If the boiler is steaming when you skim the water surface is going to be anything but calm. The water surface has to be calm so you can float any oils off the surface of the boiler water.

Bob

Danny Scully

I have had issues with the galaxy's surging @GregWeiss. Only remedies were as previously described. Did you try wand cleaning?

gerry gill

yeah, slant fins seem to have a very unsteady water line until enough steams out into the system where it stops going over the upper gauge glass port. I think its cause its only piped off one side myself.

Danny Scully

That's right @gerry gill, you were putting in a lot at one time I remember. How'd you overcome the issue. The usual? Clean, clean, and clean again?

GregWeiss

@gerry gill yes it does go over the sight glass and then settle. But then it goes so low it trips the lwco. It usually recovers without feeding any water during the dwell and then repeats. So we're cycling on and off with the lwco.

genericnj

@RI_SteamWorks below are a couple of photos of my slant-fin setup. Sorry, could not get it in one photo. I know copper is bad with steam boilers, but it is what it is and how it came with the house... I found that mine surges if I fill it to 3/4 full -- at that point, the water jumps to top of the glass and the whole glass turns very dark. When filled to about half, it does move a bit, but nothing that bad.

I also recorded a video of the boiler running to show the amount of movement, but the forum does not allow me to attach a .mov file..

BobC

The boiler header is not right but if it works reasonably leave it be for now. i don't see a Hartford loop is this a counterflow system?

Bob

genericnj

@BobC there is in fact a Hartford loop, but not visible in the picture since the return is not very visible in my bad picture.

GregWeiss

@genericnj I know what you mean about the water jumping over the top of the sight glass and turning very dark. my galaxy is always tripping the lwco. Do you have that problem? It rarely ever fills because it recovers during the dwell period.

genericnj

@GregWeiss Yes! it does trip the lwco on occassion, but only during a recovery period when it is cycling on and off for a good hour or more. I do not have an auto-feeder so it usually restarts its cycle once the water makes its way back to the boiler.

I am not a big fan of steam heat as I have had so many issues with it in previous homes and this one, but I must say this boiler has been very resilient... it has gone through years of previous owner adding water to it every 2 days because the main valve was constantly spewing steam and I ran into a time where the lwco actually failed on me and it ran to below bottom of sight glass and kept cycling on and off with very little water. I luckily caught it and let it cool before refilling and all was ok. Now I have a camera watching the water level so I can remotely check it regularly.

Before this one, in previous home, I had a brand new Weil-Mclain, which I actually feel was even more finicky and caused me other issues so I like the Slant Fin overall, it has kept things warm through some of the coldest winters with non-boiler issues along the system..

jumper

Can a large receiver piped high and low to boiler dampen surging?

gerry gill

it seems to be more of a problem with their bigger units. We usually downfire some to help it out.

The Steam Whisperer

I've run 2 unit caravans of 180,000 input and 250,000 input galaxy's without much issue. They act absolutely crazy at first, but that really neat skimmer tapping with the built in dam seems to clean them up pretty quick. I don't know why you would want to skim out the relief valve... the boilers have a special cast in skim feature that works great. The dual 180,000 btu caravan was giving me fits when I was using and electronic low water Cut off on the equalizer.... I was getting zero carryover into the header so the water was distilled. Distilled water doesn't conduct and the probe then shuts down the boilers. Once the boiler water got a bit dirty after a couple weeks of running, the problem went away.

Motorapido

gerry gill said:

it seems to be more of a problem with their bigger units. We usually downfire some to help it out.

When you write "We usually downfire some," I'm curious about the method. Do you reduce the gas pressure at the valve? Or change burners? This curious question comes from the owner of an oversized boiler, which I guess puts me among the majority of people who buy a house with a boiler already installed by somebody who did not accurately calculate the EDR.