steam boiler vigorous boil, water level and pressure dropping

roberts

This is a continuation of my story from this thread:
https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/190482/water-level-in-boiler-what-is-normal

Sorry if making a new thread is not the right move, felt like it might be cleaner.

I replaced the pigtail and added a low-pressure gauge. The old pigtail did have a bunch of gunk inside, not sure if that was impactful or not. The low-pressure gauge now gives some new information on how things are running, and I'm wondering if this is a good clue for what is happening?

Here is a video of the whole process. Sorry for the length:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gLH6SrUhEMsrMA1fA

Here is what I observe. Boiler kicks in, water heats up, pressure starts to rise with a bouncy needle heading towards 1 PSI. After a bit, the water level begins to drop towards the bottom of the glass and the pressure shown on the gauge starts to drop as well. At this point one of two things happen. Most of the time after a bit the water level begins to rise again and then the pressure rises and we have a bit of a cycle. Sometimes the low-water cutoff kicks in (leading to the same kind of cycle). I don't think the pressuretrol is kicking in.

Another observation is that the boil sees pretty vigorous at times. At the peak boil the low pressure gauge needle bounces a fair amount and I can see vibration on the whole gauge and the pressuretrol. Not sure if this is apparent in the video.

As I'm just a homeowner, and this is all pretty new to me, I'd also appreciate any feedback on the plumbing for the low-pressure gauge. I definitely used ideas from reading over a bunch of past forum posts. But, the 30psi gauge is kinda facing the wrong way, which I could fix by getting an elbow fitting, but does it matter?

Thanks!

Rob

AdmiralYoda

What everyone else said in your previous thread.... that boiler needs cleaning. If my water looked like that it would do the same thing, get shot up the mains.

Skim it once per week for awhile and do it as slow as you can. Drain the boiler to get any mud out of the bottom and fire it up for awhile to drive out any oxygen. Your water should be pretty clear.

BTW...your plumbing for the gauges looks just fine. I'd put an elbow on the high pressure gauge just for the heck of it but I'm sure its fine.

roberts

Awesome, thanks @AdmiralYoda, seems like I'm heading in the right direction.