Blowing down Boiler

bobbob

When I bought my house I was told by the departing owner that I should blow the boiler down every month. I may or perhaps may not know precisely what that means. It seems that the opinions on HH tend to be that you should avoid adding new water to the system
if at all possible. What am I not understanding?

ChrisJ

People say a lot of things.
Please share some pictures of the boiler so we can be sure we're both talking about the same thing.

bobbob

Crane 20. Coal-fired converted to NG. One pipe

ChrisJ

I would prefer someone like @Steamhead comment.
The reason being, when I had a mechanical LWCO I most certainly did a blow down once a week, but on top of that I made sure I did it when the boiler was firing so I could watch the burner shut off and turn back on. This was to make sure the LWCO was actually working.

I'm not sure if that's possible with the setup you have. I'm also not really liking the long extensions that have been added and look reduced.

bobbob

I open the valve on the LWCO about bi-weekly and get a little bit of gunk is all. And, like you say it gives a test to make sure all is working. But I am wondering about the valve at the bottom of the drip return, or wet return or whatever it is called.

bobbob

ChrisJ -- the "long extensions" --do you meant the extension on the bottom of the LWCO? The valve operated by the yellow handle began to leak very slowly, and rather than mess with it I just added another ball valve at the bottom. No leak now.

ChrisJ

I wouldn't drain any more than you have to.
I have a probe type lwco and only clean the boiler once a year, or 3 if I'm lazy.

With a float lwco you want to keep it clean and functional but leave the rest of the boiler alone except for a seasonal cleaning

SlamDunk

It is ok to add water after a blowdown. Youre only talking upto a gallon. During the heating seaon, the boiling will release oxygen which will escape your vents. The problem is when you have an automatic water feeder and a leaky pipe somewhere.

JUGHNE

A full size ball valve added under the old dripping valve and then full size pipe down to your bucket would give you the best flush.

You want a quick flush of the float bowl.

IMO, once a week to flush AND assure burner shut down is adequate.