Help with boiler
Comments
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Yeah, old systems can turn into a money pit quickly if you want to replace and upgrade the critical fill and safety devices.
If a repipe is in need you get in deeper and deeper. Not unlike an old truck or and large mechanical device.
I wasn't questioning your trade, or understanding, just asking if you are wanting to tackle theses yourself. I think the group has suggested the least invasive and least expensive, DIY options.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream1 -
I hope I didn't come off like a ****, I know it's hard to gauge a tone through messaging, and my response was not meant like that at all. I appreciate every message back from all of you trying to help and I have learned a lot I am just have the damnest time now with the step of trying to balance the pressure between the boiler and and expansion tank, which I think Ed is 100% correct and that temp/pressure gauge is faulty and need replacing.
I did not take what you said that way, as far as do I want to tackle these issues myself, that was my fault and why I responded with what I have done plumbing-wise, my apologies on misinterpreting that.
I have seen through this process of learning the system and looking up these parts you all have mentioned how fast this can turn into a money pit, no doubt about that, haha. While I would not mind doing the work myself I am just trying to get it up and running the least costly way, later on I can invest money into it, but funds are tight, as I am sure they are for a lot of folks.
Replacing that expansion tank seems like it would be more complicated because I do not see any tanks similar to the one that is installed on my unit and the bigger ones would be an issue because of the clearance due to the pipes under the current tank. The temp/pressure gauge seems like more of a hassle than anything. From what I've researched looks like I'd have to drain the system before unscrewing it and installing the new one and then refilling the system.
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Use a short washing machine hose for purging into a bucket (min. 6-7 gal. plastic).
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I'm still confused by the expansion tank pressure info I was given. I definitely feel like something I did was wrong when trying to follow those directions. The way I interpreted The info that I was given is I was supposed to turn off the main water supply line that feeds into the automatic fill valve. After doing that I use the pressure release valve to drain enough water from the boiler to get the pressure down to about 6 PSI. From there I check the pressure of the expansion tank and either increase by adding air or decreased by taking air out of the expansion tank to get it to around 12 PSI. Now when I repressurize the system by opening up the main water line and manually open up the fill valve lever get the boiler back up to 12 PSI both the boiler and the expansion tank should read 12 PSI. I'm not understanding how that's possible if I'm adding pressure back to the boiler wouldn't the entire system have that pressure built up as well? So therefore if I'm going from 6 to 12 obviously I'm adding 6 PSI to the system, so wouldn't that add 6 PSI more to the expansion tank as well? I feel like maybe I'm not closing something off correctly when I'm doing this. As I previously mentioned, I realized my thermometer pressure gauge is not functioning correctly, I have to go over and tap on it to get the pressure to move.
Something else that I'm not fully comprehending either is when I go to look up how to adjust the expansion tank pressure everybody is saying that you have to match the pressure of the expansion tank to the pressure of your water in the house. In order to do that you got to get one of those pressure gauges that you screw on to an outdoor faucet turn it on and see where your pressure's at. But let's say my pressure is at 50 or 60, my expansion tank information says that it's supposed to be 12 PSI and it can go to a maximum of 60 so I'm not entirely or what to do with that information that I looked up saying that the expansion tank has to be pressurized to the same pressure as your house water pressure.
I hope you all can see how I'm confused by all this because I feel like everything I'm saying right now is probably confusing you lol.
I really want to try to get The boiler fired back up so I can test the voltage in the aqua staff but I'm afraid to turn it on before I get the pressure right, Don't want to further damage something or have the to release valve blow back open and then I got more water all over the floor coming through my ceiling because I'm not sure exactly how much is going to blow and I'm sure it's not going to be a little bucket worth like I currently have under the pipe.
Something else that I thought of is when I'm adding the pressure back to the boiler and it's increasing the pressure in the expansion tank, why can I not just decrease a little bit of pressure to get it to match the boiler pressure?
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you're confusing 2 different tanks, heating, and domestic,
heating system wants to be set at 12 psi air, then take your heating system water pressure back up to the 12 psi fill, it shouldn't take much water unless you have air in the system also,
you asked how adding 6 water doesn't add to your 12 air, well 12 air is stronger than 6 water, so it stands its ground, when your cold fill 12 water heats up it expands, and THEN it will push on the 12 air, and sinse the air is compressable, the air psi increases(and water will some too),
set you air to 12, add water to 12, and let it fly,
that tank in your picture is a domestic hot tank, so it's air pressure needs to match or slightly exceed your well or street pressure coming into the house, then when the domestic water heats up and needs a place to expand to, that tank takes that expansion,
I think the pictured tank is on your heating system, and that's ok, set the air to 12, and add heating water pressure back up to 12, let it fly,
known to beat dead horses
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I think the tank you see in the picture above is actually connected to his heating system right below the air scoop. I assume whoever installed his boiler went with this compact tank because of the limited space behind the boiler to the floor and didn't think to put in an extension to move the tank out a little more remote from that spot.
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Like @neilc did say, there are 2 different types of expansion tanks you can find in a house, one could be on a plumbing and the other on a heating system. But they are pressurized and slightly different in different ways.
The one you find on your hot water system is made for potable water and will clearly say so on the tank. This one is usually located somewhere near your hot water heater and is pressurized to match your city incoming water pressure (could be 60 to 100psi) all depends on what's coming in past your water meter.
The one you find on the boiler system is made for heating systems, closed loop etc it will say NOT for pot-able water typically right on the box. This one is pressurized to 12-15psi.
either one of these tanks when you have them pre-pressurized right once the water comes on should equalize 12-15lbs in the heating system should still read 12-15lbs in the tank, same with the domestic hot water expansion tank, when the city water fills up and equalizes it should be close to the 60-100lb range that you pre-charged the tank with. Its when the systems are heating up that's when the magic happens and the expanding water heats and compresses the air in the tank the air pocket gives the water some space to move in to and once it starts to cool the air bladder pushes that water back out and equalizes the system again. That cushion of air is what keeps the water from expanding so much that it does blow out the pressure relief valve every heating cycle and cause the system to have to refill the lost water every time it cools.
So in your case like @neilc said you just let your system cool down. just drain out enough water in your system so the gauge on your boiler reads just above 0 pounds. Check your red tank and if its below 12 pounds pump it up to 12 pounds. Once its at 12 pounds check the gauge on your boiler it should have climbed up from 0 psi. If its at at 12 or below 12 no big deal just turn your auto feeder back on and it should fill a little until it stops at 12-15 psi and you're good to go on the boiler side. Now you just need to go around and purge any air that you think you may have in your heating system. But that's a whole other thread.
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"The one you find on your hot water system is made for potable water and will clearly say so on the tank. This one is usually located somewhere near your hot water heater and is pressurized to match your city incoming water pressure (could be 60 to 100psi) all depends on what's coming in past your water meter"
@PeteA how can you be so sure that @The_Comedian has a Hot Water Heater and not justa regular water heater? Click here to see the difference.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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I have followed these directions and I'm still winding up with a higher pressure in my expansion tank. I just did everything again, turned the main water line going into the automatic valve filler off, lower the pressure by opening up the pressure release valve enough to drop it to just a little bit above zero. From there I checked the expansion tank pressure I was at about 2 1/2 PSI, I added air to get it back up to 12 PSI. After doing that I opened up the main water valve and manually added water back into the boiler until I reached 12 psi. Went back to measure the expansion tank and it was at 17 1/2 PSI.
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your going to be fine. Leave the expansion tank alone and bleed out any air that you may have in your heating system. If your expansion tank is good then it will do its job just fine, make sure the cap on the schraeder valve is screwed on nice and tight and run your heat as normal.
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@The_Comedian You need to stop using the relief valve to take the water out of the boiler. You need to look for one of these valves on your boiler system.
This is called a boiler drain. It gets its name from the fact that it is attached to a boiler usually at a veny low point of the boiler. Very near the floor in many cases. And it is used to drain water from that boiler. Someone that has taken @Larry Weingarten class in the school of hards knocks: Common Sense 101has chosen to put both of those words together Drain and Boiler in order to describe what this valve is ment for. You can purchase replacement Boiler Drains at many locations all over the country. Places like hardware stores and big box stores and even on line stores have these in different sizes and materials. You can place a hose on the open end of the Boiler drain to send that water outside and not on the basement floor
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Hi @The_Comedian , I like to put a valve like this between the expansion tank and piping. If that waste port on the side of the valve is towards the tank, you can use it to quickly isolate the tank and get pressure to zero, so it can be pumped up to 12 psi or whatever you're looking for. This makes it simple to replace the tank when it fails also.
Now to @EdTheHeaterMan 's mention of my school… I suspect we all take the course there, even if we try to skip that grade… Having a boiler drain or even a ball valve with proper adapter to hook up to a hose elsewhere on the system will allow you to leave the relief valve alone, as they are not designed to be an operating or control valve, just a safety valve. They should be operated yearly, to make sure they aren't stuck somehow. I've tested thousands of relief valves on domestic hot water systems. Roughly 25% fail, and must be replaced… Now if you need to see what a hot water drain valve looks like, Ed will be the one to show you 😮
Yours, Larry
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If you don't leave a drain open in the system as you pump up the expansion tank, you are going to have to keep opening the drain and brining the pressure back to 0. When you pump up the waterlogged tank you are forcing water out of the water side of it and increasing the system pressure. you need to have the system pressure at 0 and the air side of the tank at 12psig before you refill the system.
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Comedian says, "From there I checked the expansion tank pressure I was at about 2 1/2 PSI, I added air to get it back up to 12 PSI."
what's going on here? when you found the air at 2.5psi , , , hadn't you aired up to 12 previously? that tank may be bad and leaking air, it should not have dropped to 2.5, unless you had been checking air after the fact and let it all out, DON"T DO THAT,
set the air to 12, bring the water back up to 12, DON"T CHECK AIR again, unless you start blowing off the relief valve, and suspect , , , but is that tank down to 2.5 cuz it's leaking, or did you let it all out checking?
known to beat dead horses1 -
they aren't keeping the system open while they are pumping up the expansion tank, they are likely building pressure on the water side as they pump up the tank.
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IDK,
comedian does state he lowered water pressure to just above 0, so airing up tank should be fine, but point taken,
Comedian, after airing up to 12, check your boiler pressure and be sure it's still below 12, or drain some more water, and air back up to 12 again, rinse , repeat,
then water up to 12, and let it fly
known to beat dead horses0 -
you have to check that the system pressure is at 0 psig, not 12 psig after you add air to the tank. if the tank is waterlogged which it probably is, adding aur will push water out of the tank and build pressure in the system. how critical this is depends on how much volume is in the system. if it is close to what that tank can handle then you need to do the precharge correctly.
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So A lot of you have responded to me rather than respond to each one of you individually Will try to respond to everybody as a whole. Regarding what was said about me doing this before that also did not make sense to me when I had added the pressure back I thought the same thing it should have been but the entire time I was checking the pressure on the expansion tank the first time around and never once did it show any signs of the pressure changing so it was not leaking at all and I had left it alone for probably 2 to 3 days I can't recall exactly but at least two days before messing with the expansion tank again I got that reading the second time that gave me two and a half PSI.
As I had mentioned I thought that I was doing something incorrectly. Nobody pointed out that I was so I'm assuming that everything I did was correct. That issue still baffles me as well. You may very well be right that the expansion tank is an issue and has to be replaced but if you look at my setup it's not going to be something extremely simple to replace. I cannot find that pancake style looking expansion tank online something that would fit in my setup and I am very limited on space. Protection moving a lot of pipe around would have to be done that's for sure and placing that expansion tank somewhere else and I cannot even have it off to the left top portion of the heater because my hot water heater is right next to that and it's already a pain in the **** to get one in there with the small amount of space I have with the boiler being in the way.
Good to know to use the drain valve on the boiler instead of the pressure release valve. I know exactly where that drain valve is it's on the front and not the back where I've been at most of the time. Your future reference I definitely will not do that I kind of figured that was the wrong way I didn't think that that would be the way that you decrease the pressure but I did not know until that message was just put there. So thank you for informing me of that.
As of yesterday, I did what a member on here told me to do, just let it fly. The system was started back up. Everything is functioning it called for heat opened up the right zone valves I have the upstairs zone working and the downstairs zone. Just an FYI I have the main zone which is my first floor, I do not have a basement, That is the floor that this entire issue started with. And then the upstairs is obviously zone 2. I kept an eye on everything as it was heating up and since yesterday late afternoon I have not had an issue like I was having. It's heating up the pipes perfectly fine turning on and off when it should. I have checked the temperature repeatedly to ensure that it's not getting too hot. I did reset the aquistat as I stated before the previous homeowner had it set to 230° I knocked down to 180°. My pressure with the system up and running is right at about 20 to 22 PSI. And the temperature is averaging about 160° when the boiler is up and pushing heat to either zone or both. With that being said as I was typing this up it does look like my boiler right now is at about 173° and the pressure is reading slightly under 20 probably about 19 psi. Also just gave that temperature pressure gauge a little tap and it jumped closer to 180 degrees. I'm fully aware of that that temperature pressure gauge is also going to have to be replaced I'm just hoping to make it through the next month or two and then I'll try to address a lot of these issues that you guys have made me aware of and I've also become aware of myself through this process.
One thing I did notice that I'm also going to have to do when the system is cooled down whenever I do this work to it. It seems like my automatic fill valve either needs to be recalibrated or It has gone bad. I am assuming giving the name, automatic fill valve, and the fact that on the label it says It's set to 12 PSI that when that boiler goes below 12 psi it should automatically be adding that what are back into the system until it detects 12 PSI. Whenever I would turn that main valve back on after having the system pressure down to zero I had to manually add the water back by flipping that lever up. Am I defense I had no clue how that component worked entirely until I did a little bit more research after realizing that yesterday and the system was already fired back up. I did not know that that cap on the top unscrews You can loosen the locking nut and then adjust the pressure accordingly using a flathead screwdriver.
As I mentioned, as long as I can get through the remainder of this winter without any issues I'm definitely going to address some of these problems.
I just wanted to thank everybody on here for your time and your patience, I'm sure I'll be back when I go to fix these problems lol. I definitely did learn a lot and know more about the system that I knew before that's for sure.
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Oh, it was just boiling because the aquastat was cranked up to 235 f.
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Hey guys, unfortunately I'm back because I'm experiencing the same problem I had. Just walking around my house and notice it felt pretty damn cold looked at my thermostat it was reading 68 I have it set to 70 went upstairs opened up the panel to get me access to my boiler and checked the zone control box and the lights will lit up It was calling for heat to the boiler but I could tell that the boiler was not fired up. I want to look at the temperature pressure gauge and I was right at 180 so I figured it was going to shut off but I haven't had any problems with it hitting the 180 point since I got it running again until now.
I gave a little tap to the aquistat box and it fired the boiler up. Went downstairs felt the pipes everything felt good. Went back upstairs to check on the boiler The temperature shot up over 190 so obviously the system shut back down again. When it initially turn back on I went on the other side of the boiler to feel the pipes and I could feel The heat building up on both pipes going in and out of the boiler. From here I turn the power off on the system opened up the aquistat box and I noticed that the wire clamp nuts was not attached and was kind of touching the wires going to the TV and T screws. So I took care of that tightened it back down I actually had to pull the wires off of the screws to flip the nut over because I guess it was never secured properly from the previous owner and I didn't take notice to it until now.
I I unscrewed the cap to the air vent and I did get some air that came out when I did that, not sure if that's something that's guaranteed to happen or if that is a sign that I still have air in the system. When I turned the power off to the system and make sure I turned off the thermostat and went to look at the boiler again my temperature was rising up to 220° and it wasn't doing anything other than pilot like being on. I don't know why it was heating up like this. I don't know if this is a sign that maybe my circulator pump is bad or if it's something else.
With all That being said after I did all this I turn the power back on to the boiler turn the thermostat back on and sat by the boiler until I heard it fire back up. Once it fired back up the temperature started dropping from 220° and as I'm currently typing this up it is sitting at 130°. I don't understand how it was extremely hot doing nothing but while it's actually functioning currently it cooled down. Hoping maybe this is something that is going to point me in the right direction as to what is faulty on this or causing this issue. Any ideas?
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