Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.
Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
STEAM BOILER OVERFILLING

I have a single pipe steam boiler. When my boiler runs constantly I have no problems. My problems occur when the boiler goes off and on in the warmer weather. The Warm Weather Sensor shuts the boiler down. And of course when it cools off the boiler comes on. I check the water level twice a day. The water level constantly is too high. The boiler has shut down on occasion from the High Level. If I did not lower the water level every day the boiler would shut down every day. Any help would be appreciated.
0
Leave a Comment
Categories
- 80.9K THE MAIN WALL
- 2.5K A-C, Heat Pumps & Refrigeration
- 36 Biomass
- 394 Carbon Monoxide Awareness
- 2.6K Controls
- 1.4K Domestic Hot Water
- 3.7K Gas Heating
- 101 Geothermal
- 130 Indoor-Air Quality
- 2.3K Oil Heating
- 30 Pipe Deterioration
- 564 Plumbing
- 4.2K Radiant Heating
- 333 Solar
- 12.1K Strictly Steam
- 36 Water Quality
- 7 Industry Classes
- 51 Job Opportunities
- 7 Recall Announcements
Comments
For reference, a steam boiler should not use more than a few quarts a week, if that (systems in really good shape may use no water at all in a whole season).
A high level shutoff is a little unusual on a residential steam boiler. Can you describe it further?
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
How do you heat your hot water for the sinks etc?
As Jamie asked a coil inserted into the boiler could be leaking.
Or your water feeder is over filling. You can shut off the auto water feeder as long as your low water cut off safety device is working.
Pictures would show a lot....floor to ceiling showing all the piping.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
you need to figure out where the extra water is coming from before you can fix it. Possible problems include domestic hot water coils which can leak, leaking makeup water bypass valves, poorly adjusted or malfunctioning automatic water feeders...
You may have slow condensate water return.
Do you have a condensate pump.....or a feeder pump?
Or you might have gravity return with no pump.
Pictures would still be good.
Or does the boiler level control start the (feeder) pump?
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
Dan asked a question that's not answered.
My question is, is this a new problem or has this been going on for a long time?
I ask this question because there is a thing called condensate time lag. this means something is causing the condensate to return to the boiler or pump set to slow.
So you need to provide some pictures of the pump installation and wet return piping to the pump set and boiler.
Jake
by Jacob (Jake) Myron
Jake
by Jacob (Jake) Myron