Another Burnham IN bites the dust

Dave0176

I know some people love Burnhams but here in North Jersey our water just eats them alive. 2004 installed Burnham IN5 with a condensate hot water baseboard loop. The old boiler was oversized a bit, however I went in with a Weil-McLain EG 40 with tankless provision for the hot water loop so it’ll be separate from the condensate. Here we are in progress.

STEVEusaPA

Beautiful as always. 15 years, quite a hole.
How long do you think this one could last?

ChrisJ

@Dave0176 Won't those scraps of bricks under the block cause issues with combustion?

My EG40 has now lived longer than Two Burnham V8's did in my house just before I bought it. Of course I fixed all of the leaks and I'm running Steamaster, but still.

Dave0176

ChrisJ said:

@Dave0176 Won't those scraps of bricks under the block cause issues with combustion?

My EG40 has now lived longer than Two Burnham V8's did in my house just before I bought it. Of course I fixed all of the leaks and I'm running Steamaster, but still.

Never had an issue and I do a combustion analysis on every boiler. Anyway the center is filled on this one

WindyT

Sounds familiar. We moved into our northern NJ house last year and discovered this fall that our 9 year old Burnham needs to be replaced. That was a surprise!

In your opinion, would a whole house water filter/conditioner like an aquasana do anything to help lengthen the life our next boiler (which will be a Peerless), or not really?

STEVEusaPA

IIRC in one of Dan's books, he mentioned using a small sacrificial electric water heater to cook the water before adding it to the system.
I wonder if this helps the situation.

Keep in mind this is for a properly working system, no leaks.

ChrisJ

WindyT said:

Sounds familiar. We moved into our northern NJ house last year and discovered this fall that our 9 year old Burnham needs to be replaced. That was a surprise!



In your opinion, would a whole house water filter/conditioner like an aquasana do anything to help lengthen the life our next boiler (which will be a Peerless), or not really?

STEVEusaPA said:

IIRC in one of Dan's books, he mentioned using a small sacrificial electric water heater to cook the water before adding it to the system.
I wonder if this helps the situation.

Keep in mind this is for a properly working system, no leaks.

My recommendation is still 1 to 2 Steamaster pills after ensuring the water is very clean and oil free. When using Steamaster if the water is purple the PH is satisfactory, if the water is blue the PH is too low.

Unfortunately finding it is still an issue.
https://www.amazon.com/Rectorseal-68732-36-Steamaster-Tablets/dp/B008A3UEO6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Dave0176

ChrisJ said:

WindyT said:

Sounds familiar. We moved into our northern NJ house last year and discovered this fall that our 9 year old Burnham needs to be replaced. That was a surprise!



In your opinion, would a whole house water filter/conditioner like an aquasana do anything to help lengthen the life our next boiler (which will be a Peerless), or not really?

STEVEusaPA said:

IIRC in one of Dan's books, he mentioned using a small sacrificial electric water heater to cook the water before adding it to the system.
I wonder if this helps the situation.

Keep in mind this is for a properly working system, no leaks.

My recommendation is still 1 to 2 Steamaster pills after ensuring the water is very clean and oil free. When using Steamaster if the water is purple the PH is satisfactory, if the water is blue the PH is too low.

Unfortunately finding it is still an issue.
https://www.amazon.com/Rectorseal-68732-36-Steamaster-Tablets/dp/B008A3UEO6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I see a lot places carry 8 Way which is steam master in liquid form.

Dave0176

STEVEusaPA said:

Beautiful as always. 15 years, quite a hole.
How long do you think this one could last?

Hi Steve I’m adding a water meter to monitor the amount of feed water added. This will determine if we have leaks elsewhere in the system.

Steamhead

@Dave0176 , we see the same with IN boilers here. If we get a new customer with one, we figure on replacing it in a few years.

JohnNY

We've been getting a few failed heat exchangers from boilers we installed 8-12 years ago the last couple of years and they're all Burnham. I believe they're being sold with an active anode rod now.
Great job as always, Dave.

The Steam Whisperer

When I've combustion tested the Independence and the stack temps tend to be quite high, IIRC. Since the sections are rather narrow, the water level drops quite a bit during operation. This, combined with the large steam chest not causing the tops of the sections to get splashed as much with water as boilers like the Dunkirk or Utica with no steam chest, and full pinning running up to the top of the section, probably drive ups the temperature at the tops of the sections. I strongly suspect this is why they rot out so quickly. The old American Standard G- series atmospheric, which I suspect the Independence descended from, has less pinning at the top of the sections. Those boilers often would go 40 to 50 years.

ChrisJ

The Steam Whisperer said:

When I've combustion tested the Independence and the stack temps tend to be quite high, IIRC. Since the sections are rather narrow, the water level drops quite a bit during operation. This, combined with the large steam chest not causing the tops of the sections to get splashed as much with water as boilers like the Dunkirk or Utica with no steam chest, and full pinning running up to the top of the section, probably drive ups the temperature at the tops of the sections. I strongly suspect this is why they rot out so quickly. The old American Standard G- series atmospheric, which I suspect the Independence descended from, has less pinning at the top of the sections. Those boilers often would go 40 to 50 years.

I would love to know if there's different iron used in the blocks as well. Comparing a modern boiler to a 1920s Red Flash for example.

PMJ

Dave0176 said:

ChrisJ said:

WindyT said:

Sounds familiar. We moved into our northern NJ house last year and discovered this fall that our 9 year old Burnham needs to be replaced. That was a surprise!



In your opinion, would a whole house water filter/conditioner like an aquasana do anything to help lengthen the life our next boiler (which will be a Peerless), or not really?

STEVEusaPA said:

IIRC in one of Dan's books, he mentioned using a small sacrificial electric water heater to cook the water before adding it to the system.
I wonder if this helps the situation.

Keep in mind this is for a properly working system, no leaks.

My recommendation is still 1 to 2 Steamaster pills after ensuring the water is very clean and oil free. When using Steamaster if the water is purple the PH is satisfactory, if the water is blue the PH is too low.

Unfortunately finding it is still an issue.
https://www.amazon.com/Rectorseal-68732-36-Steamaster-Tablets/dp/B008A3UEO6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I see a lot places carry 8 Way which is steam master in liquid form.

No one worries about this stuff in residential living space? Looking at the SDS makes me pause. I know, nothing but pure air can come out of these systems. Ok, I admit it, I worry too much.

I recommend "old" water, the more cycles on it the better. New water is the enemy. I focus on keeping that to a bare minimum.

ChrisJ

> @PMJ said:
> (Quote)
> No one worries about this stuff in residential living space? Looking at the SDS makes me pause. I know, nothing but pure air can come out of these systems. Ok, I admit it, I worry too much.
>
> I recommend "old" water, the more cycles on it the better. New water is the enemy. I focus on keeping that to a bare minimum.

Again, you haven't used a modern boiler and water is different all over.

The water in my area in a modern boiler destroys it no matter how many cycles is on it. The water in my boiler looked like chocolate milk. Air mixes with the water every cycle so I don't completely buy driving off dissolved o2.

I realize you're also setting up for yet another "keep the air out" argument but you'll have this one alone.

PMJ

> @ChrisJ said:
> > @PMJ said:
> > (Quote)
> > No one worries about this stuff in residential living space? Looking at the SDS makes me pause. I know, nothing but pure air can come out of these systems. Ok, I admit it, I worry too much.
> >
> > I recommend "old" water, the more cycles on it the better. New water is the enemy. I focus on keeping that to a bare minimum.
>
> Again, you haven't used a modern boiler and water is different all over.
>
> The water in my area in a modern boiler destroys it no matter how many cycles is on it. The water in my boiler looked like chocolate milk. Air mixes with the water every cycle so I don't completely buy driving off dissolved o2.
>
> I realize you're also setting up for yet another "keep the air out" argument but you'll have this one alone.

It takes an enormous amount of agitation to get air into water - way more than the gentle flow of condensate back to the boiler. It also requires cool water which is in scarce supply when all this action is happening. I do buy the driving off O2 argument so we differ there a lot.

But I am confused now. Something in your water destroys modern boilers but would not destroy an old one? Then I must ask what it is and why would an older boiler be immune to it? Do you mean that they went and changed the cast iron such that it is incompatible with a lot of the water around the country now? If true that is pretty sad. How could steam heat possibly survive with help like that?

Anyway, what a shame that on top of significantly reduced boiler life expectancy apparently an additional health risk is now required to own a steam system however small that risk is.

Dave0176

PMJ said:

> @ChrisJ said:

> > @PMJ said:

> > (Quote)

> > No one worries about this stuff in residential living space? Looking at the SDS makes me pause. I know, nothing but pure air can come out of these systems. Ok, I admit it, I worry too much.

> >

> > I recommend "old" water, the more cycles on it the better. New water is the enemy. I focus on keeping that to a bare minimum.

>

> Again, you haven't used a modern boiler and water is different all over.

>

> The water in my area in a modern boiler destroys it no matter how many cycles is on it. The water in my boiler looked like chocolate milk. Air mixes with the water every cycle so I don't completely buy driving off dissolved o2.

>

> I realize you're also setting up for yet another "keep the air out" argument but you'll have this one alone.



It takes an enormous amount of agitation to get air into water - way more than the gentle flow of condensate back to the boiler. It also requires cool water which is in scarce supply when all this action is happening. I do buy the driving off O2 argument so we differ there a lot.



But I am confused now. Something in your water destroys modern boilers but would not destroy an old one? Then I must ask what it is and why would an older boiler be immune to it? Do you mean that they went and changed the cast iron such that it is incompatible with a lot of the water around the country now? If true that is pretty sad. How could steam heat possibly survive with help like that?



Anyway, what a shame that on top of significantly reduced boiler life expectancy apparently an additional health risk is now required to own a steam system however small that risk is.

Don’t know, I’m assuming it’s the pins as Dan has done articles on in the past. The pins get damn near super heated, all the old school large water content boilers had no pins at all.

However I’ve pulled a lot older but modern Weil-McLain EG’s out, a lot installed in 1977-1978 40 years on a modern steam boiler can’t complain.

Mid 90s Weil-McLain’s however seem to suffer short lives as I believe they had some iron casting issues going on.

Dave0176

Couple finale pics.

gerry gill

If the water is so bad, why not rig up a small feed tank and control the water quality. It would be an add on sale to come by every so often and top the tank off with Rhomar factory blended water.

ChrisJ

> @gerry gill said:
> If the water is so bad, why not rig up a small feed tank and control the water quality. It would be an add on sale to come by every so often and top the tank off with Rhomar factory blended water.

Because I had this really smart guy tell me to use Steamaster tablets and ever since I haven't had any issues.