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Brown water in boiler sight glass

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HG1
HG1 Member Posts: 1
edited March 6 in Gas Heating
The water in the sight glass was clear yesterday, and brown today. What should/can I do to address this?

Update: a new Spill Switch was installed on Monday (two days ago). And the water in the sight glass is dropping more then usual in calls for heat.

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  • Intplm.
    Intplm. Member Posts: 1,975
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    There is a process called skimming the boiler that helps.

    Was any work of any kind recently done on any part of your system?
  • ethicalpaul
    ethicalpaul Member Posts: 5,704
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    Possibly nothing. Did something happen yesterday?

    You could drain the boiler and refill it with clean water, but the problem is that fresh water contains a lot of oxygen which will cause more brown water. You could drain the boiler and fill it with clean water that you then treat with an additive such as "8-way" to raise the PH level to 10 or 11 where the corrosion will be greatly reduced, but it can actually be difficult to find a place to add the additive unless you're handy.

    How is the boiler performing? Is the water level in the gauge glass dropping noticeably during a call for heat?
    NJ Steam Homeowner. See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el

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