How long do boiler section seals last?

delcrossv

Seems everyone except Burnham has (mostly) jumped on the elastomer seal bandwagon. So, just how long do these seals last in the field?

Big Peerless- carbon (graphite?)
Smaller Peerless- Viton
Smith 19HE- Viton?
Weil McLain- some kind of plastic?

Particularly interested in Viton as those are in the size range I'm looking at.

Jamie Hall

Depends as much on how carefully they are installed as anything else. If they are pinched, twisted, or cut during installation they may fail right away, or within a year or two. If they are carefully seated following the installation instructions, any of them can last years, if not decades.

mattmia2

Viton is probably one of the most durable materials suitable for that application. Teflon won't degrade for something on the order of a century or more but is very hard and more plastic than elastic so it would be difficult to use in that application.

Mcmaster-carr has a good chart comparing o-ring materials and their compatibility with different chemicals.

ScottSecor

We have been installing cast iron boilers with 'seals' for mamy years. I have personally installed hundreds of Weil McLain boilers with elastomer rings (gaskets). About two thirds of these boilers (blocks) were assembled at the factory. I would say that we had about six gasket leaks on all of those boilers. Two of them were due to installer error (me), saw it immediately and replaced them. Three of them were from a poor workmanship at the factory. The other one was from dry-firing an older steam boiler after years of neglect. What I'm saying is they are really pretty good and very reliable if you are careful when you install them.

delcrossv

mattmia2 said:

Viton is probably one of the most durable materials suitable for that application. Teflon won't degrade for something on the order of a century or more but is very hard and more plastic than elastic so it would be difficult to use in that application.

Mcmaster-carr has a good chart comparing o-ring materials and their compatibility with different chemicals.

This one?

mattmia2

Yes.

KC_Jones

My first Weil Mclain was 32 years old when it died, and the gaskets didn't fail. It was an EG from 1982