Boller flooding, is it the near boiler piping?

BrianF

This boiler is in a small house I work on. The piping around the boiler is wrong but it's always worked fine so correcting it was a hard sell. Suddenly now it's flooding. I went through the "what changed" and the owner moved out. They went from set it and forget it at 70 to keeping the heat low and cranking it up when someone is home.

Am I wrong about the near boiler piping not letting water return and triggering the auto feed? I'm doubting that's its a clogged return. Auto feed is a VXT set to a ten minute delay. I can't recall the vaporstat setting but it's pretty low. The equalizer reduces to 1" and tees into the 1" kinda sorta hartford loop they made. Thats all 1" up to the 1-1/4" x 1" 90 right above the union.

mattmia2

Is the return clear? Did someone put an additive in the boiler that is making it prome? Did someone do work that got oil in the boiler that is making it surge? Do the returns get hot before the emitters from liquid water circulating in the system?

are all the radiator valves wide open?

ethicalpaul

I don't think you've told us enough about the symptoms to be able to help much. What happens to the water level, and at what part of the heating cycle? When is the autofeeder feeding (if it is indeed feeding)? Have you run it with the autofeeder disabled to see what it does then?

EBEBRATT-Ed

The piping is wrong but we all have seen much worse. But if it worked before it should work now.

As a test have them go back to set it and forget it and see if the problem resolves. That might point to an answer.

SuperTech

Watch it for a few cycles or turn the auto feeder off. It could have a plugged or restricted return piping and the auto feeder adding additional water when it gets low causes it to flood by the time the condensate finally returns. I would definitely check first that the low water cutoff works.