Steam Boiler

BMcGahan

Hi Everyone,

Attached is a photo of my heat exchanger. Is this 100% a leak? It had scaling but I've ever seen a water leak or steam.

STEAM DOCTOR

Fill the boiler to the top. You will know instantly if the heat exchanger/boiler block is leaking. As you can imagine, those pictures don't look kosher.

ethicalpaul

How often and how much do you have to add water to this boiler? It sure looks like a leak to me.

BMcGahan

The automatic filler as far as I can tell adds water a couple times a week.

ethicalpaul

Yeah that is definitely leaking somewhere. Ideally you'd want it to fill less than once per month during winter. it's not even winter yet.

(Actually ideally you'd fill it manually and not let it get low enough for the automatic feeder to kick in. This lets you have a better idea of water usage)

BMcGahan

I had one company say it's fine to run and another say its not safe. I still haven't seen any water leakage or an indicator that steam is hitting the cover.

ethicalpaul

The water leakage is evidenced by all that crusty white limescale deposit. I can't speak to how safe or unsafe it is, but I don't like stuff falling onto my burner tubes.

mattmia2

Looks like it may be leaking between the sections. It possibly could be fixed but probably isn't worth it on a boiler that small.