Municipal Water Treatment for Steam Boiler?

vhauk

please please don’t think I’m being disagreeable, but the question is how much air is in a boiler when it’s shut down?  There are no air vents near the boiler. While not sealed it is closed.  Oxygen is 14% of atmosphere. So the limited amount of atmosphere in the open space of the boiler has a limited amount of oxygen. Not at all like a one pipe steam system which is constantly changing the atmosphere in its air space. 

ethicalpaul

> please please don’t think I’m being disagreeable, but the question is how much air is in a boiler when it’s shut down? There are no air vents near the boiler.

What kind of boiler do you mean? Later in your post you mentioned a one pipe steam system, and that's what I assumed you meant above but you didn't specify so I don't know. Thanks!

vhauk

An industrial boiler. I ran a pair of steam pack York Shipley boilers for many years for a water heating system. Almost no fresh air is allowed in the system. But my understanding of one pipe steam is that it expels air at the start of every cycle, and takes in air at the end of every cycle. But might I add, oxygen is not the largest source of corrosion. Not the most damaging. Cathodic corrosion is much more damaging to metal. It turns your pipes and boiler sections into a battery. Any area that becomes electrically an anode will go away rather quickly. It’s Ben an enlightening conversation and I’ve thought hard about things that had been lost in the fog of memories 

ChrisJ

ron said:

vhauk said:

Oxygen is 14% of atmosphere.

I thought O2 percentage in atmosphere was 20.8% ?

Or has my kitchen oven been using up all the O2?

21% seems right.
But, that sure is a nice gif you got there of Maxwell.............

ethicalpaul

vhauk said:

An industrial boiler. I ran a pair of steam pack York Shipley boilers for many years for a water heating system. Almost no fresh air is allowed in the system. But my understanding of one pipe steam is that it expels air at the start of every cycle, and takes in air at the end of every cycle. But might I add, oxygen is not the largest source of corrosion. Not the most damaging. Cathodic corrosion is much more damaging to metal. It turns your pipes and boiler sections into a battery. Any area that becomes electrically an anode will go away rather quickly. It’s Ben an enlightening conversation and I’ve thought hard about things that had been lost in the fog of memories 

Yep that's what our boilers do indeed and yep we're not worried about it much (although keeping the vacuum around longer would be better I think)

vhauk

ChrisJ said:

Oxygen is 14% of atmosphere.

I thought O2 percentage in atmosphere was 20.8% ? Or has my kitchen oven been using up all the O2?

21% seems right. But, that sure is a nice gif you got there of Maxwell.............

Yep…21% o in atmosphere. I’m not sure which of my  brain farts said 14. 

ChrisJ

vhauk said:

ChrisJ said:

ron said:

vhauk said:

Oxygen is 14% of atmosphere.

I thought O2 percentage in atmosphere was 20.8% ?

Or has my kitchen oven been using up all the O2?

21% seems right.
But, that sure is a nice gif you got there of Maxwell.............

Yep…21% o in atmosphere. I’m not sure which of my  brain farts said 14. 

Atmosphere is roughly 14 or 14.7 PSIA
That's my guess.

vhauk

I would blame it on advanced age but I’ve been doing the same thing since I was a kid. No malicious intent and my apologies. I would like to point out that CO2 is .04% of our atmosphere. There’s no number very similar so I can’t confuse it. 

hot_rod

15 GPG on the hardness will result in some of the minerals precipitating out as you heat the water. Hydronic boilers usually want no more then 7 GPG

the type if treatment or filtration  depends on what you want to remove or fix with the water

DI, or RO will strip most everything out, leave it low on Ph

It will buffer up quickly or add some conditioner to boost the ph

Boilers usually have a water spec in the manual 
If it ever fails, warranty could be denied if the water is out of spec. No harm in correcting the fill water 

chlorides, hardness, TDS/ conductivity

stick your ohm meter in the fluid to for an easy read on conductivity