Steam boiler start of season maintenance questions.

jtor1134

Just wanted to give a follow up. So far things are working great. Boiler doesn't seem to be cycling nearly as much as it had been, and I just tried my hand at balancing my radiators and it was really cool to see how this all works in practice after extensive reading and learning.

First thing was to figure out the cold rooms. My house has an enclosed porch and a rear extension, both of which are usually freezing. They also seemed to be lacking heating the most. First I looked at the radiator in the enclosed porch. It was a much newer unit than what the rest of the house has. It's a convector style radiator with thin metal fins. It was getting hot, but I felt like it should be more and that I just assumed the radiator itself was too small considering how cold that room is. I checked the vent. It was a varivalve, and it appeared to be plugged solid. I swapped it out for some home depot vent that I had laying around with no markings on it (bought way before I knew any better) just to see what would happen. Wouldn't you know it, it works great now. It gets quite, quite toasty in that room now and quickly too.

Next I looked at the living room convector, which also has a varivalve. After reading how varivalves vent way too fast, I decided to close this one all the way, instead of wide open like it was before. This is also the room that has the thermostat so no reason to have that radiator heating up too quickly.

Next on the other side (the other main) there's the extension in the back of the house. This radiator always seemed to take forever to get warm. It shares the main with the dining room and the kitchen. In the dining room there is this massive (and probably original with the house) cast iron "baby elephant" radiator. The rest of the radiators in the house are in-wall cast iron convectors, and this is the only old-style radiator in the house. This thing would always get scalding hot like the sun while the kitchen and extension radiators were still cold. Hmm.. what kind of vent is on this one? Maid o mist "C". That's a big vent! I wondered if that it's "stealing" all the steam from the others like seen others mention here.

The extension itself has a varivent which seems to be working properly as in I can blow through it with no restrictions, but didn't seem to be venting anything. As an experiment I removed the vent entirely to see what would happen. A lot of banging and gurgling noises happened, so I reinstalled it. It started venting but only for about 10 seconds or so before snapping shut (and spitting a little water).

I took a little walk the the plumbing supply house and picked up a MOM #4 for the big-boy and a #6 for the extension radiator.

Now this is the part that I found most rewarding. It was very cool to see what a difference the venting makes after reading so much about it. The extension is now the first to get hot, and the behemoth in the dining room is the last, which is how I think it should be. The dining room was always way overheated as it was, but if I need to say, swap it out for a 5 or 6 I can just change the orifices instead of the whole valve, which is nice.

Also I noticed that I haven't had to add any make-up water to the boiler yet, which is something I had to do frequently last year. The water level hasn't budged at all actually.

Next to figure out is the upstairs, which for the most part seems fine but the radiator in the small bedroom seems to take a long time to start producing heat. It also has a varivent which I'm assuming is suspect.

I think I'm "getting" steam heat now. It's definitely not the mystery it was when I first moved into this house. Thanks everyone for the help and education.

Fred

Sounds like you are on your way. As for the radiator that banged and gurgled when you took the vent off, check to make sure that radiator has a little pitch, back towards the supply pipe and also check and make sure the pipe that supplies that radiator has some pitch back towards the Main and that the supply pipe doesn't have a bow in it (like if someone hung from it or hung something off of it over the years). The noises are for sure water sitting somewhere in that radiator or line, with or without a vent on it)

coby

jtor1134 said:

In addition to dealing with a leaky valve I know I need to do some sort of maintenance on my boiler before I fire it back up this weekend. Some background info, I moved into this house last December, and the boiler worked flawlessly all winter. I did flush it a couple of times to get some of the sediment out, because I don't know when it was last serviced. Once the summer came I made sure it was full, closed the valve to the automatic feeder, shut the switch off and turned off the gas supply.

Now the summer's over and I'm ready to bring it back into service. Aside from maybe changing the water in it again (I was manually filling it while draining it into a bucket) what else am I supposed to do before lighting the pilot light? Here are some pics of the boiler itself.

It seems it was serviced by the gas company according to the sticker some years back, which brings me to another question. What exactly do they do during a "tune up" or "pm check"?





Also another question. This boiler is from 1989 I think? How long can I reasonably expect it to last? I know it's going to cost a fortune to replace, and I'd like to at least prepare for the eventuality.

coby

lot of good advice, but also recommend insulating your overhead pipes. I'm sure Dan would agree.

Dominash

Have you thought about replacing the boiler?

Natalkirlin

I have not used the boiler for about three years, as I have constantly had problems. It continually needs a considerable amount of electricity, and because of this, I received huge receipts. So I began to save electricity as much as possible so that the bills came less. Unfortunately, this didn't help much. Then I decided to use the best hot water dispenser for home. To be honest, I was afraid that nothing would change from this, but to my surprise, the electricity bill came three times less than before. I've been using a dispenser for three years, and I spend the smallest part of my salary on it.

Jamie Hall

Comments for @Natalkirlin and @coby . Since your questions are related.

If a boiler isn't actually leaking, there's no point in replacing it. Boilers themselves don't "wear out". What does happen to them is that for one reason or other they may develop a leak -- and by far the most common cause for that is too much fresh water.

They do, however, require maintenance. There isn't much one can do for the water side of the boiler, other than draining and flushing it once in a while (a very long while -- yearly is probably more frequent than needed, but one a decade is probably too long) (note: many boilers, however, have float type low water cutoffs -- those do need to be blown down moderately often to keep the float free. And probe type low water cutoffs might need to be cleaned once in a while). The fire side, however, is another matter. Even if the burner is perfectly adjusted, some soot will accumulate on the metal. This needs to be brushed off and removed, and the general condition of the firebox refractory checked (that's another way to ruin a boiler -- broken refractory allowing flame impingement on the metal). Then, whether it is oil or gas, the burner itself needs to be adjusted so that it has the correct draught (both too much and too little are bad) and that any filters, orifices, or nozzles are lean and in good order, that the ignition system is working properly, and finally that the pressures for the fuel are right and the air to fuel ratio is correct. All that is the job of a qualified technician, and takes knowledge of and willingness to use the correct instruments -- and time. A half hour visit won't do it.

EBEBRATT-Ed

3 year old thd.