Gas valve pressure drift.

SteamingatMohawk

I have periodically had a situation with the flame inside one of the burners of my gas-fired steam boiler. I wire brushed the burners to make sure they are not "clogged", disassembled the gas supply line and checked to make sure there was no foreign material. The gas outlet pressure had been adjusted by my heating guy. It made no difference.

I finally did two more things.

First, I bought a drill bit the same size as the orifices in the gas line to the burners. There are 5 burners and in 4 of them the drill bit fit easily. In the fifth one, which is the one that has had the flames, the bit would not go all the way through. I removed the orifice and used the drill bit to "clean" the hole. I did not find any foreign material.

Second, I checked the gas valve outlet pressure using a water manometer. Initial reading was 4.2 inches of water. I adjusted it down to 3.5, then shut off the boiler and restarted it. On restart, the pressure was back at 4.2. I do not think I did anything to reverse the adjustment, so I adjusted it again and restarted. This time it was 3.5. Hopefully, it will remain at that setting.

The key question on the second item is whether anyone has any experience with drift in the gas outlet pressure in Honeywell VR8200 gas valves.