Lack of proper care

adasilva

I have a New Yorker boiler that was installed in 06 in the house I just purchased in Oct. With that said the man was not one to keep on top of proper care of it. Example he only had it bi annually serviced and I have no idea if he even knew that there were things to be done to keep it working the best it can. I just got my bill for the month of December and I was a bit surprised at the total amount after I insulated the piping and many various tweaks to make it more efficient. Anyway the only things I have yet to do is to really clean the water of sludge and skimming the system. The water does tend to drop while it is in its running cycle but not so low the the LWCO kicks it off. I have a minor leak at the shut off on one rad but want to wait till the warmer season to deal with that. RTV is in order for now. The question that I have is this, will a build up of sediment on the bottom cause it to run longer than needed to heat the water. I believe that could be a major part of my cost? But I could be wrong? Not sure how to go about this process but I do have a digital copy of the manual which I believe will give me some insight as to how to go about doing this. Any input is greatly encouraged!

Fred

You can drain and flush the boiler out. I suspect the biggest waste of fuel are mains that don't have great vents on them. It takes a lot of time for the steam to push air out of mains with small vents and even longer to push air out of the mains if they have no vents and the air has to be pushed through small radiator vents. How are your main vents? A second waste of fuel is a system that is running at higher than needed pressure. Adjust the Pressuretrol down to .5 PSI Cut-in and a differential of "1" and make sure it is relatively accurate at controlling the system pressure.

Big Ed_4

It's been an cold , we are all burning fuel to keep warm this Winter ... Sure clean water is important ... Flush out the solids ,, Disaperance of water can be cause by the near boiler piping ... Oil on top with make the water in the level go wacky , notice condensate dumping though the top the glass when running ..

Steamhead

Does the boiler run on oil or gas?

adasilva

@Fred 55' 2" Mains with 3 maid O Mist #1 main vents (1 in now & the other 2 this weekend). Pressuretrol is set at 0.5 with 1 differential, added the brass pigtail to make sure that it was clear. Also have a low pressure dial and it shows it to be at .5 to .75 lbs when in full swing.

@Big Ed There isn't any condensate that I can see in the glass when it's running and I can add a picture of the near boiler piping if you want to see?

@Steamhead it was converted to natural gas from oil.....

EBEBRATT-Ed

If (and it's a big if) most of the modern equipment will be fine if it's only serviced every other year as long as the service is done properly

adasilva

@EBEBRATT-Ed OK but how often should I be flushing the sediment from the bottom of the boiler? I have heard that weekly is rule of thumb but then I hear that introducing new water to the system is not good either? Seems like a big circle......

Fred

@adasilva , where did the Maid-o-Mist vents come from? Where they laying around? They have no more venting capacity than a radiator vent (.33CFM at 1 ounce of pressure). It would take 4 of those to equal the venting capacity of a Gorton #2 or 8 of them to equal one Big Mouth. Vent the Mains right. You'll make your money back in fuel savings the first year. Pressuretrol sounds good.

adasilva

I bought them from supply house with the intention of adding them to the main to help vent the system as the vent that was on it was trash.

Jamie Hall

You don't have to flush the bottom of the boiler weekly. That was a misunderstanding. If, however, you have a float type low water cut off, it will have a drain on the bottom of the cut off (or it should!). You should drain a quart or so of water from that drain from time to time. Weekly? Maybe. Maybe not so often. But enough to make sure that sludge hasn't built up in the float chamber, which could keep the float from operating.

adasilva

@Jamie Hall Not a float type LWCO but bravo on the good tip!

adasilva

@Fred The Big Mouth Vents seem to always be out of stock. Think I'll go this route and when I can pick one up and see what difference it makes!

JUGHNE

You should clean the probe for the LWCO every year (or 2).
You would have to drain the boiler to drop the water line below that point. That would let you see what is in the bottom (mud leg). This also exercises the drain valve which eventually will not work if not used.
I replace the little drain valve with a full port ball valve with hose adaptor. The original will not pass much for solids, change it and you will see.
After adding new water you should bring the water to a boil to remove O2. Usually do not change all the water unless very dirty.

adasilva

@JUGHNE Thank you for the input I will learn about the process and go from there!

adasilva

@Jamie Hall what if and this is hypothetical but what if this unit has never been blown down? What would the end result be?

EBEBRATT-Ed

I would do a good flush and clean and skimming as soon as the cold weather allows, no need to disrupt everything now. After that if having no water issues clean the low water probe and flush the boiler once a year. After filling with cold water heat it to make steam for a little while

Steamhead

adasilva said:

@Jamie Hall what if and this is hypothetical but what if this unit has never been blown down? What would the end result be?

The boiler would fail.

adasilva

Fred said:

@adasilva , where did the Maid-o-Mist vents come from? Where they laying around? They have no more venting capacity than a radiator vent (.33CFM at 1 ounce of pressure). It would take 4 of those to equal the venting capacity of a Gorton #2 or 8 of them to equal one Big Mouth. Vent the Mains right. You'll make your money back in fuel savings the first year. Pressuretrol sounds good.

@Fred I have installed the BMV and removed the MOM vents and have noticed that the run time for the unit has been shortened by about 2 min per cycle. I know it may not be much but on a really cold day when it runs hourly that time can add up!

Fred

@adasilva , every few minutes counts, in both fuel savings and pressure reduction! Good for you.