Water squirting out of vent on main pipe

MattD922

My knowledge on steam heat is very limited so please forgive me.  My steam boiler is around 20 years old. I've been in this house for 4 years and every year there's been a new issue with the heater. Had to replace the low water cut off, then the automatic fill. Then I had a leak in a pipe.  The pipe in question was a dead end, it used to connect to a radiator but that radiator was removed prior to me buying the house.  That pipe was removed and some piping was adjusted near the boiler.  That work was done in the summer when I wasn't using the heater.  

Ever since that work was done I've been having issues that never happened before.  I'm having water squirt out of the vent on the main piping.  I thought maybe the vent was clogged so I took it off and the pipe was filled with water. I drained about 4 buckets of water out of the system to lower the water level in the sight glass.  Since then I've had to drain about a bucket or two per day to keep the main vent from squirting.  

So it seems like the water level in my heater keeps rising but I don't hear the low water cut off turning on and adding any water. Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Jamie Hall

Well, it has to be coming from somewhere. You have an automatic water feeder, so step one would be to ensure that is not it. Close the shutoff valve going to it and observe. If the water stops rising, there's your problem. Do you have a coil in the boiler to heat your domestic hot water? If so, the other possibility is that there is a leak in that inside the boiler.

neilc

ya might want to post some pictures of what pipes were adjusted at the boiler to remove that dead end, and of the boiler and its piping to the ceiling.