Auto Water Feed Plumbing

Cyclone33

Hi,

Looking at how my water feed is plumbed and had a few questions.

• should it have a check valve?
• Is a wye trap needed? I do have a whole house filter (25 micron) and is it going through iron filter/water softener before it gets to boiler.
• Should a bypass be plumbed in?
• Is black pipe and brass fittings okay together?
  

Crown steam boiler with vaporstat

Jamie Hall

First, do not use salt softened water in a boiler. Iron filter, maybe. Water softener, no.

Now. There should ideally be a backflow preventer on the boiler feed line. Not absolutely necessary, particularly for a steam boiler, as the pressure in the boiler is very unlikely to be anything close to the domestic water pressure.

There should be a full flow bypass around the autofeeder — and the autofeeder should have isolation valves on both sides, so it can be maintained easily.

delcrossv

To complete your questions, brass to black pipe transitions are fine.

Cyclone33

ok, thanks for the information.

what is reccomeneded for backflow prevention? Just a standard spring style check valve or swing style? Or are there boiler specific ones?

EdTheHeaterMan

These are boiler specific units. The dual check is what plumbing inspectors are looking for.

And the manufacturer of that water feed has the strainer included because they get installed on systems that do not have your water treatment systems. but in your case, I might take the supply to your boiler from before the salt softener, if that is what you have. Then the strainer is a good idea.

as far as the bypass is concerned, it should already be there if the knucklehead that installed it read the instructions. (Oops I hope you didn't install it yourself)

These are the instructions I'm talking about

The unions are important even if you use copper. There may be a day when you see water line in the boiler going up when it should not. You will want to test the feeder to see it is is passing water when it should not. Here is the test from the instructions

Cyclone33

thanks! No I didn’t install but found the instructions you screenshotted and was curious if it was important I changed it. But I definetely will be fixing it.

EBEBRATT-Ed

You need a backflow preventer on any boiler where the feeder is active (not valved off). In addition I would use copper or brass from your Pex connection to the boiler water feeder inlet. You can't use black fittings on city water. I would also use copper from the feeder to the boiler tee.

Black pipe will not last with cold water.

Cyclone33

I’m on well water if that makes a difference

Long Beach Ed

Ed, glad you mentioned the unions. It's very frustrating, and expensive when we have to cut pipe to check if someone's feeder is failing to close tightly!

We also put a union on the output of the by-pass valve so we can check that it's not dripping water into the boiler.