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short cycle

joe amadio
joe amadio Member Posts: 41
in Strictly Steam
Came across a system today that was short cycling. Boiler is a Williamson 150,000 BTU steam. I suspect it was sized too large for the house to begin with plus some of the house has been recently converted to hot water and the old rads removed. I was there today to clean up some bad header work done by another "plumber". I tried a little experiment and was wondering if anyone had any input. While the boiler was running I choked down on the gas shut off valve limiting the flow of gas to the burner. Naturally the flame decreased in size and intensity.It did not appear to change color. It remained what I would call normal blue tipped flames. Has anyone ever done this before? Kind of low fire it to take a little longer to make steam.

Comments

  • mikeg2015
    mikeg2015 Member Posts: 1,194
    You are basically dropping the pressure the same way a 2 stage valve does, but less controlled than a regulator.

    The problem is that will a smaller flame, the boilers efficiency drops in most cases. Even 2 stage furnaces are often less efficient on low fire. It seems counter intuitive until you look at how heat gets transferred.
  • Lance
    Lance Member Posts: 286
    Danger on startup. Gas pressure and flow must fill burners completely to properly light off. What switch was causing the shutdown?

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