[Steam Boiler] Boiler / Sight glass rapidly filling, seemingly on it's own (NO auto water feeder)

zeth07

It was suggested that the potential problem was the "low cut off switch". We replaced that with a brand new one and this problem has technically gotten worse and we aren't sure what is the problem now.

The low cut off control thing did have A LOT of gunk in it to the point that the previous owners probably weren't draining it correctly and it was leaking at the time, so it probably needed replacing anyway.

But now we can see the sight glass filling itself very fast, faster than before. We usually use a water feeder by the back wall to fill it as needed before, but even with that closed like it should be there is the sound of water being filled into the boiler.

It does not seem like there are any leaks anywhere (now) from what we've checked but it is acting like something is asking for water at all times with the sound of running water coming from where the cold water is running into the system.

When this valve closed, the noise stops, but with the valve closed it would shut off the hot water to the house so it SHOULD be open but it's not acting like a closed system when we could NOT hear the water running like it was before unless we used the actual feeder line.

We had a guy come check everything out and he replaced the electrical thing on the oil burner itself as well. But now the filling itself up problem is worse than before and this guy in particular didn't seem to have as much experience with steam boilers from what he said and suggested we talk to some other company.

So right now we are trying to figure out what could be causing this and possible troubleshooting it if it is a simple solution. It does provide hot water, it's just that the over filling of the sight glass is what caused our previous problems so we can't figure out what's happening still after we've replaced things we thought were the problem.

Here are the pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/25Ooqt8

- We replaced the low water cutoff marked "A" entirely, and it seems to be working correctly as intended cause it DOES shut off the boiler when we are trying to lower the sight glass from the overfilling.

- The pipe/lever marked "C" is where we would normally fill the boiler as needed in the past. It's clearly been closed but thought I'd reference it anyway.

- The pipes/levers in the second to last picture seems to be where the sound of the water is coming from. If it's supposed to be a closed system we don't know why the water would keep going and sound like it's constantly running when it definitely wasn't like that before when everything was working correctly.

Picture with model no. /etc:

https://imgur.com/QWUrBch

ethicalpaul

You have a hot water coil. Is it leaking and letting water into your boiler? Try shutting the blue valve to see if it stops filling

zeth07

ethicalpaul said:

You have a hot water coil. Is it leaking and letting water into your boiler? Try shutting the blue valve to see if it stops filling

The blue valve is basically always off. It doesn't seem to be leaking at all. There would only ever be a drop or two coming out of it while were were draining or doing stuff with it which I guess was just excess at the time. But it does not have any kind of persistent leak to speak of as if it was the problem. It may still be the problem but it isn't showing any outward signs that it would be.

Based on other pictures I've seen with googling, is the "hot water coil" the same as a "tankless coil"? And the same place where that "Aquastat" is?

Cause I'm pretty sure that isn't leaking at least from the outside, but how would we be able to know / test if it's leaking into the inside?

mattmia2

If you open that ball valve at the left front of the boiler and it starts filling the boiler, and if you close the ball valve it stops filling, then the tankless coil is leaking inside the boiler.

mattmia2

There also should be a relief valve on the tankless coil which appears to have never been installed.

ethicalpaul

Yeah sorry, forget the blue spigot valve that I mentioned. I couldn’t tell it was a spigot in the one photo. @mattmia2 named the correct valve to try to rule out a leaking coil