New Video: What does SurgeX do to your steam boiler?

ethicalpaul

In the next video in my "what does different stuff do to your boiler?" series, find out what SurgeX does to your (or at least my) boiler! Hint: it's not good!

Open the video on YouTube itself to be able to see the different sections listed in the description.

https://youtu.be/GXy67aziqZI

JUGHNE

Paul, have you taken into account the water left in the wet return after each of your experiments?
That may contain a fair amount of the last additive you used and will end up back in the boiler.

How do you control the temp on your radiant tubing using the lower boiler water?

ethicalpaul

Hi Jugne--

How would additive get into the wet return?

I'll do a video on my hot water loop some day soon but basically I just allow a tiny amount of boiler water to enter the loop at any given time to keep the loop warm. Most of the water that circulates is from the previous "time around" and only gets a little bit of hot boiler water added to it (it's limited by the very small amount I have the valve open to the boiler).

This is the "cheap and dirty" method outlined in Dan's article about adding a hot water loop where you just crack the valve until the temp gets to roughly where you want it.

JUGHNE

So you believe that the steam will not carry any of the additive out into the system? IDK?

Or would steam pressure (I know yours is quite low) back up any water thru the HL into the wet return?

Just food for thought, I know you will think about this and spend more time in the basement.
This might upset your wife, now in my case, my wife is glad to have me elsewhere most of the time.
But then we are old people.

ethicalpaul

Yes, I think that the compounds in these additives do not make it to the steam. And yes, I don't think my boiler contents are getting backed up into the return to any significant amount, if any.

I might have to install a glass Hartford Loop now to make sure

Chris_L

How would additive get into the wet return?

Why wouldn't it get into the wet return. The wet return is connected to the boiler water through the Hartford loop.

What is to prevent the additive from diffusing from the boiler through the loop to the wet return? Especially when the boiler is off and there is no condensate flowing.

ethicalpaul

It doesn't seem to mix very much. I've never seen it in the water when I drain my wet return periodically.

Also, if you noticed in the video, I had drained the previous Squick treatment and replaced it with plain water, so any tiny amount that might have drifted into the wet return was quite diffused.

ChrisJ

My boiler water is purple and I've never seen any purple in my wet return in 10 years.

And the few times I checked it the TDS of the wet return water was 2ppm while the boiler water was over 500.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Wouldn't this be like distilled water? Don't know just asking. If the boiler isn't surging or making wets steam (and Paul's is surely not) wouldn't the treatment mostly remain in the boiler?

ChrisJ

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

Wouldn't this be like distilled water? Don't know just asking. If the boiler isn't surging or making wets steam (and Paul's is surely not) wouldn't the treatment mostly remain in the boiler?

According to the 2 ppm in my wet return, it's basically pure distilled water, so 100% of the treatment remains in the boiler. I have a feeling that 2 ppm was the tolerance of the meter, or rust from the radiators.

nde

Interesting never used any of that stuff before as old school skimming is what I like. To be fair seems like this stuff is designed to remove piping and block oils, makes sense it might foam up into headers, etc to help bind to oil then sink back down to drain out bottom. I mean it is kinda cool they found a use for all that surplus 1970s Tang.

ChrisJ

Those wonderful Dwyer pressure switches are something else we can thank Mark S for.
They're very affordable, reliable and repeatable.

ethicalpaul

nde said:

Interesting never used any of that stuff before as old school skimming is what I like. To be fair seems like this stuff is designed to remove piping and block oils, makes sense it might foam up into headers, etc to help bind to oil then sink back down to drain out bottom. I mean it is kinda cool they found a use for all that surplus 1970s Tang.

That's an interesting thought, but I don't think it's purposeful to create surging to...prevent surging?

If you look at my previous video about Squick, you can see the product that is meant to capture the oils, and it does OK, but like you I prefer skimming.

But to risk being a broken record, I do use 8-way, not to capture any oils or remove scale, but simply to boost my boiler water's PH to greatly limit corrosion. You wouldn't believe how clean my water still is after a season with a few ounces of 8-way in it.