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Typical Boiler Maintainence

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thepiperofseville
thepiperofseville Member Posts: 12
in Strictly Steam
Hi all. Everyone was SO helpful with my last post I figured I'd follow up.

I successfully fixed my Pressuretrol (Not calibrated properly from factory), Skimmed the boiler (Easier than expected), and cleaned the Sightglass.

So now, is there ANYTHING else I should be doing to maintain the integrity of our boiler? Its a year old, Peerless 63, Natural gas, Single pipe system. It's running like a champ right now as are all the properly vented radiators. I want to keep it that way for a long time. We're coming to the end of the cold as well, so any winterization tips would be awesome too.

Any advice would be appreciated

P

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  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,286
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    Once you get it percing happily, no, there really isn't much mor you need to do. If you have probe type low water cutoffs, there's no harm to dropping the water level, come summer (good chance to blow out some of the goop in the bottom of the boiler!) and cleaning them and putting them back. Then refilling the boiler and running it for a good 10 minutes of steaming. But other than that... not really.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    ethicalpaul
  • AdmiralYoda
    AdmiralYoda Member Posts: 627
    edited February 2022
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    Make sure your mains have good vents at the end of each main. Barnes and Jones Bigmouth main vents are highly praised.

    But for the boiler? Maybe get some pH and water hardness test strips or a meter and find out your water quality.

    A boiler will survive longer with a high pH, I think between 10-11 is recommended is ideal as it will stop corrosion and prevent gunk from building up. Hard or soft water can be a problem too. If you have low pH or some mineral problem there are a variety of products to treat it.
  • SteamingatMohawk
    SteamingatMohawk Member Posts: 1,006
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    What did you do to fix the pressuretrol?
    Don_175
  • thepiperofseville
    thepiperofseville Member Posts: 12
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    AdmiralYoda: Thank you for bring this up; you're talking about the big brass **** inline with the pipes, yes? Could you explain what exactly they do and how I would go about testing them. As I said, everything is dandy right now so I'm a little gun shy to start screwing around with the system now, but I need to learn as much as possible.


    SteamingatMohawk: I had a hell of a time with my system being overpressured (and had been for a while) Was cutting out @ 5psi...no bueno. I found a pretty popular post on this site that talked about a membrane screw at the bottom of the pressuretrol. Basically, I took it off, and blew in the bottom of it, and almost blew a blood vessel trying to get it to click, which told me it was waaaay to high. The screw you need to adjust is teen tiny, like .05in. hex, but you should have some sort of eyeglass tool kit laying around that should do the job. I adjusted it down until i could blow with a normal amount of pressure to get it to click, and now she cuts out at 1.5-2.

    Also, how exactly would I "blow down" the system? I keep hearing that term and I figure it means to blow all the garbage out. I would like to really get all the gunk and **** out of the boiler before the spring.

    P

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