Adding water to steam boiler ?

grye

Hi all. To start, I know to never add water to a hot boiler.

With that being said, I don’t have an automatic water feeder. How often should I have to be adding water to the system?

I’m in New York. It hasn’t been a terribly cold season, but at least once every two weeks I add water or else the lwco kicks in. Is this too often to infer a problem? Thanks.

Jamie Hall

It is a bit often. Not outrageous -- if it's only a gallon or two -- but not perfect, either.

Thing is, a loss at that rate can be very hard to find. Some possible places to look are vents which don't quite seal, valves where the packing is a little tired... that sort of thing. Sometimes it may be just a small drip on a return -- small enough so that you would hardly notice it. Worth looking for, if only to get more familiar with your system, but not worth losing sleep over.

neilc

check your wet returns, all the piping in the basement.
and while the boiler is cool, flood it to the header, wait an hour or 2, and check under for leakage,

Jamie Hall

^^ good idea -- never hurts -- but based on my experience with these things, that rate of loss is going to be at most a stupid little drip somewhere out in the wilderness, if it isn't a few valve stems or vents.

gfrbrookline

I had a Gorton 4 that wouldn't close on a small sunrad radiator two days ago that made my water level drop substantially. It is amazing how much water can be lost by one small vent failing. I flushed it out and it is back in service working fine.