New Boiler - Water coming out of radiator vents

Spunky424

So just had a new gas boiler installed in replace of the existing oil boiler for my one pipe steam system. same size/output. i spent a good few months during the previous winter replacing the vent valves to evenly heat my home(two story cape). now with the new boiler and probably on its 10th heating cycle, i am noticing water literally spewing out of one of the radiator vents with an extremely large puddle of water (ruining my new floors). why is this happening all of a sudden? could this be due to improper boiler installation? any help would be great. TIA.

Spunky424

well took a look at the boiler and noticed the water level site glass was all the way full. drained roughly 2 gallons out or so. looks like my automatic water feeder went a little crazy and overfilled. i did notice the water level in the site glass bouncing alot. i know the boiler needs skimming, but could this be the cause of the automatic water feeder overfilling? hypothetically, during a heating cycle the water could dip below the automatic feed line, which would trigger it to feed and maintain a certain level, then after the heating cycle, the steam in the radiators would condense back causing the boiler to overfill. could this happen? thanks in advance.

Ironman

Turn the Pressuretrol down to 2 psi or less.

STEAM DOCTOR

@Spunky424. You could be spot on. No skimming=rapid water loss=refilling=too much water=spitting

Spunky424

Ironman said:

Turn the Pressuretrol down to 2 psi or less.

pressuretrol is set to a little under 2psi and differential is set to 1psi. the pressure gauge is a 0-30psi. definitely want to change it to a 0-3psi. any recommendations on which ones are reliable?

Danny Scully

Post some pics of the install. Winters makes good gauges.

HVACNUT

I would set the pressurtrol at .5 psi max w/ 1 psi diff.
But I bet there's more than that going on.
Definitely post pics. Different angles. Not too close.
The return(s) could be slow or blocked and the feeder is just making up what the vents are spitting out.
Steam guys, batter up.

Jamie Hall

Pressuretrol: there are two flavours. One -- usually with a transparent cover -- is subtractive (and will say so). The main scale on that should be set to the cutout -- 1.5 psi -- and the subscale (differential) should be set to 1. The other variety -- usually a blue or grey blue box -- has only one visible scale. It's additive, and the visible scale is the cuntin -- which should be set to about .6 or .7. Inside there is a wheel, which sets the differential, and that should be set to 1.

Autofeeder? A wildly bouncing water level can fool them and overfill the boiler. Until you get the new boiler skimmed, you might consider shutting the autofeeder off. If you do, check the level rather frequently when the boiler is off and has calmed down.

Was this a slide out slide out replacement? If not, the near boiler piping is suspect. As has been said, photos photos photos...

Spunky424

Jamie Hall said:

Pressuretrol: there are two flavours. One -- usually with a transparent cover -- is subtractive (and will say so). The main scale on that should be set to the cutout -- 1.5 psi -- and the subscale (differential) should be set to 1. The other variety -- usually a blue or grey blue box -- has only one visible scale. It's additive, and the visible scale is the cuntin -- which should be set to about .6 or .7. Inside there is a wheel, which sets the differential, and that should be set to 1.

Autofeeder? A wildly bouncing water level can fool them and overfill the boiler. Until you get the new boiler skimmed, you might consider shutting the autofeeder off. If you do, check the level rather frequently when the boiler is off and has calmed down.

Was this a slide out slide out replacement? If not, the near boiler piping is suspect. As has been said, photos photos photos...

thanks so much. i will update this thread tonight with photos of the installation.

i have a subtractive pressuretrol with the main scale set to slightly below 2psi and the differential set to 1psi. can anyone link me to a better 0-3psi gauge which would help me get a better feel for what the actual steam pressure is. the one currently on there is a 0-30psi.

the old oil boiler was removed and this was put in its placed. it had to be repiped since the orientation was different. old boiler was a WM and the new one being a burnham IN6.

ethicalpaul

Here's a nice Winters 0-5psi from the great people at Supplyhouse.com: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Winters-Instruments-PLP305-2-1-2-PLP-Steel-Low-Pressure-Gauge-1-4-Bottom-NPT-w-Brass-Internals-0-5-PSI

Amazon has a cheaper 0-3 psi one also

Spunky424

ethicalpaul said:

Here's a nice Winters 0-5psi from the great people at Supplyhouse.com: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Winters-Instruments-PLP305-2-1-2-PLP-Steel-Low-Pressure-Gauge-1-4-Bottom-NPT-w-Brass-Internals-0-5-PSI

Amazon has a cheaper 0-3 psi one also

thanks just placed an order for that and a few other things! much appreciated.

Spunky424

Here are the installation pics. Space is tight but if there are any other specific pictures you need I can take them. Thanks in advance

STEAM DOCTOR

Not a Burnham man. If I remember correctly, 2" header is up to Burnham's specs but will produce steam @close to 50 FPS with that 2" riser and header. In addition, I find Burnhams to be dirtier than most and super sensitive to lack of skimming.

Ironman

His workmanship is neat, but he doesn't know how to pipe a Hartford loop.

What size boiler is this? It looks like a 4 section. Two risers should have been employed and maybe a 3" header.

Fred

With that return tied into the bottom of the Equalizer, instead of a proper Hartford loop, it may be causing condensate to stack in the return pipe and back into the main. Steam may then be pushing some of the water back into nearby radiators. Is there any water hammer anywhere?

HVACNUT

Safety tip.
Pipe the relief valve in 3/4 vertical down within 12" of the floor. A face full of steam will wake you right up.

Spunky424

> @Ironman said:
> His workmanship is neat, but he doesn't know how to pipe a Hartford loop.
>
> What size boiler is this? It looks like a 4 section. Two risers should have been employed and maybe a 3" header.

The boiler size is an IN6. 108MBH

Spunky424

Well problem solved. My initial suggestion of the boiler needing skimming was the issue. After skimming the water In the sight glass no longer has large swings that would cause the automatic water feeder to open and overfill the boiler. Thanks for everyone’s help!

HVACNUT

Glad it worked out. It still might need another round of skimming. Keep an eye out.

I knew of someone who said Arm & Hammer powder laundry detergent was excellent to help prevent surging. Anybody hear of that?

Spunky424

HVACNUT said:

Glad it worked out. It still might need another round of skimming. Keep an eye out.



I knew of someone who said Arm & Hammer powder laundry detergent was excellent to help prevent surging. Anybody hear of that?

Thanks so much for the help. i was going to start another thread but figured i'd ask here first. one thing i'm noticing about my boiler after i've raised the setpoint is that after being on for about 3-4 minutes, it will randomly shut off, damper will close. it hasnt created any steam yet as the pressure gauge is still at 0. few minutes later it will start back up. the setpoint has not been met and tstat temp hasnt changed. any idea why this would happen? after this the boiler runs until pressure is made and temperature is made.

ethicalpaul

What kind of low water cutoff does it have? Cyclegard?

Edit: ahh there it is, I see it in the photo. That LWCO will interrupt the heating cycle in order to measure the water level.

Also, congrats, your near boiler piping is not a nightmare. Such a rarity

Jamie Hall

Find out which control is turning the boiler off -- it may or may not be the LWCO -- and then figure out why it's doing it...

ethicalpaul

Fair enough @Jamie Hall, definitely find out which one it is.

But start with the psychogard

Spunky424

Jamie Hall said:

Find out which control is turning the boiler off -- it may or may not be the LWCO -- and then figure out why it's doing it...

So did a bit of testing last night and it is definitely the LWCO cutting the boiler out but the water levels are fine which leads me to believe it is the "ILT" feature. This seems to create a short cycling effect, do you guys use this LWCO or replace with another one? if you do replace which one do you recommend?

Ironman

Replace it with a SafeGaurd. It's basically the same control without that annoying feature.

You can leave the old probe in the boiler; it uses the same one.

ethicalpaul

The general opinion is that they suck, apparently a lot of installers have a corner of their shop where they throw them after pulling them brand-new off of new boilers.

But I have seen at least one well-respected person suggest it's really not that big a deal. And if your boiler is oversized, it can effectively slow down the effect of that oversizing. Perhaps it's the very most accurate way to test the water level, I am too ignorant to say. If like the paper says, they want to check the "settled water level" I'm not sure why they just don't check it at time of call for heat, before the water starts to boil???

I have one now on the new Peerless 63 that's sitting in my garage so I'll be finding out personally just how bad it is (that's why I have that piece of paper above). Mine is even 120v, I have no idea why they would do that, but whatever.

McDonnell and Miller is a popular alternative. I have that in my current Utica boiler and I'll be saving it just in case the CycleGard annoys me. Here are some: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Mcdonnell-Miller-Low-Water-Cutoffs-192000

Jamie Hall

The Cyclegard test shutdown feature is very very specific, so that if it is that feature -- and not some other problem -- which is shutting off the boiler, it is easy to check. The Cyclegard will remove power from the burner circuits every 10 minutes -- not more, not less, and definitely not random -- and the power will be off for 90 seconds -- again, not more, not less. If the timings are different (3 to 4 minutes after start was mentioned) it is not the Cyclegard level check feature which is causing the problem -- although it may be a sensed low water problem, in which case substituting a Safeguard control won't make any difference.

Both the Safeguard and Cycleguard are quite sensitive, and it is possible that there is, in fact, a momentary low water condition at the probe which is tripping them. The sequence for both is a 15 second time delay after sensing low water; if the probe is fully reimmersed in that time, nothing happens, but if not power to the burner is shut off and stays off until water does immerse the probe and for an additional 30 seconds afterwards.

ethicalpaul

They do have different timings depending on model (I only know this because I just acquired one by accident )

Spunky424

understood. maybe my sense of time was off on my initial post about this issue, however i did fully test this out last night timing when it trips, and the duration of the ILT, i made sure the water level was sufficient and that i had the automatic feed valved off. at no time did the automatic feed valve open to supplement for a low flow condition. the duration of the ILT were inline with the model i had "1090 - 10 minutes of ILT - 90 seconds duration".

Spunky424

ethicalpaul said:

Here's a nice Winters 0-5psi from the great people at Supplyhouse.com: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Winters-Instruments-PLP305-2-1-2-PLP-Steel-Low-Pressure-Gauge-1-4-Bottom-NPT-w-Brass-Internals-0-5-PSI

Amazon has a cheaper 0-3 psi one also

is a valve required before the gauge at all? i read in a few places its good to have one to protect the gauge.

ethicalpaul

Mine is after the pigtail, on a tee with the pressuretrol. You could put a valve on it if you like