Oil Boiler Cleaning and Steam Heat Question

yungnoah

Hello!

I moved into a house this summer (built in 1933) that has single pipe steam radiators all throughout, fueled by oil. We kicked the heat on for the first time in late October and everything has been perfectly fine until Tuesday when I noticed that the boiler was off. Not in a locked out state, but was void of power as the oil primary control was a blank screen. Called my oil company, they came out and it was determined that A. the previous owners did not do a good job of flushing the system frequently and B. the tech who did my tune up in August did not do a very good/comprehensive job.

After a few hours of opening and closing valves trying to get this thing to properly drain, supplying water, draining it, swapping out the pigtail (that was totally plugged up), it finally powered backup. I assume we didn't get all the gunk out as the tech had to move on to his next call and it was freezing in my house and it was working so we left it there for now. My concern now lies with the current state and what steps I should take.

Once we filled up the boiler again, the water level rose to a proper level according to the site glass but then over the course of a minute or two it rose to fully fill the site glass. I don't know if this maybe has to do with the fact that my boiler is also tied into my water heater and heats my water? Because after we filled it and it was showing the glass totally full, the tech removed 10 gallons of water from the burner and it didn't change the level in the glass.

If you review the photos below, you can see the layout of my boiler, oil burner, and water heater. Once it was filled and kicked back on I noticed a lot of sediment began to gather in the sight glass. It floats around like crazy when the boiler is running, and then once it moves to standby it stops and the level of the sediment in the glass begins to lower as well.

Any suggestions on next steps? Should I just continue to drain the unit and refill it a few times to clean more out? I obviously like the water level to be correct and not too high as well. Could the water heater be contributing to the problem and should I break the connection between the oil burner and water heater and pipe the cold water directly to the water heater? It's working fine now that we got it running but I feel like more work needs to be done before I can let it leave my mind.

I would consider myself fairly handy but I'm coming from an electric central heating apartment building so this is all new for me.

Thank you very much for the help!

ethicalpaul

It looks like it was never skimmed to remove the oily gunk. I think I see the skim tapping in the front with the factory plug still in it.

You should find a qualified steam technician, have you looked at this site's Find a Contractor page?

Flushing the system frequently is not the answer, it will cause your boiler to corrode.

EdTheHeaterMan

As a former Oil Burner cleaning technician, (over 45 years ago) I was taught how to vacuum clean the heat exchanger, Clean the strainer in the pump, replace the oil filter, brush all the dust off of the burner fan, Check that the coupling was in good condition, clean and adjust the electrodes, oil the burner motor and replace the nozzle. Once that was done, I adjusted the flame with a Bacharach smoke tester, CO2 bottle stack thermometer and a Draft gauge. That was all that was included in an oil burner clean-out. I did it for warm air furnaces, water boilers and steam boilers. That was an oil burner tune-up. We did not carry air 20 different air filter sizes for furnaces, that was the customers job to change the air filter. We did not check the air pressure in the expansion tank. or operate relief valves, that was a plumber's job. And we never took apart any steam controls, cleaned the LWCO probe, or adjusted pressure on the High Limit pressure-trol. We could flush float type LWCO if there was already a bucket there. If it worked then we remind the customer that they should do that once a week.

So I understand why the oil burner tech didn't do all the needed steam piping maintenance. That is someone else's job at a different price.     

Your oil company may not have a good steam man working for them. You need to find a good steam person to get you back in shape nd then maintain it every other year or so.

Oil burner once a year

Steam pigtails, LWCO probe, flushing out wet return pipes, and stuff like that should be checked every 2 to 3 years. Sounds like the steam side has been neglected for 5 or more years. Hope you can find someone that is good at steam boilers near you.

Try the Click hereFind a contractor link

STEAM DOCTOR

Given that most homeowners are clueless, it is the oil tecs job, to inform the homeowner that there is more that needs to be done.