When the power is out!

[Deleted User]

for several days, due to weather, the thought occured to me that I should be able to keep this one-pipe,nat.gas (gravity) system up and runing.I was thinking some kind of power supply,battery maybe, to maintain the controls as well as the gas valve. Does anyone do this. Is it a viable option? Thanks.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Have seen old auto/manual gas valves

but I doubt (for safety sake primarily) that they are still made.

One was accidentially set to "manual" and the boiler ran amok, reaching well over 250° before the homeowner's blind wife started hearing crazy noises. Homeowner had removed the T&P valve "'cause it started leaking." Homeowner attached a hose to the drain and opened it.

Amazingly there was no damage to body, system or home!

Homeowner (a decent friend) called me to "fix" it--Friday about 5:00 p.m. Nearly lost the friend over the ****-chewing I gave him!

Unknown

If it is a gravity

system then convert it over to Powerpile. It will run year round with out power.

Unknown

Auto/manual gas valves-remove it

all of them should be taken out and replaced with a new dual seated 24 volt gas valve. Those old valves are dangerous because people do not realize when they put them on manual there is no safety until the relief valve or pop safety blows, that is assuming it is going to open if not then we have a potential bomb.

REMOVE EVERY ONE YOU SEE!!!

Unknown

Where do you buy a redundant gas valve

in powerpile?

If you are going to redesign a control system, it still has to meet current codes. What is the current code on gas valves, Timmie?

Unknown

ANSI Standard Z21.8

In order to comply with new ANSI standard (redundancy), an energy cut-off device, consisting of an auxiliary limit, has been added to the powerpile generator circuit in order to operate the magnetic valve, in case unusual operating conditions are encountered.

In the event the main valve should fail to close when normal system operating conditions are satisfied and excessive water temperatures or steam pressures are encountered, the auxiliary limit will interupt the POWERPILE GENERATOR CIRCUIT, causing the magnetic valve to close. Thus stopping main and pilot gas flow.

By the way Robertshaw still makes a single seated valve in thier 700 series. Robertshaw and Honeywell also still have a provision on their gas valve for an ECO.

There are thousands of these still up here in New England.

Very important this ECO is wired into the generator circuit(this will shut down the pilot safety) not the valve circuit.

[Deleted User]

I agree with getting

rid of any manual gas valves. Don,t want one, but I would like to have control over this boiler if I need to.Can you tell me more about Powerpile please?,thanks.

Nick_3

Millivolt (Powerpile) gas valve

Go to www.grainger.com and search for 36C03U 333. This will take you to information on a White Rodgers millivolt gas valve and a millivolt generator.

Duncan

What Tim said...

An old gravity system should be a self-powered millivolt system, unless it's been converted to 24 volts.

I've thought some about power outages, we get 'em here in Teller County from time to time. But I've never acted on it.

Small DC to AC inverters in the 100 watt range are available, and a 24 volt gas valve doesn't use much power. I'm almost certain your average car battery could handle it at least for a little while.

Never actually sat down and calculated the amp hours needed to keep a boiler going for a couple days.

There's a couple other things to consider. No lead-acid batteries in the boiler room, they make hydrogen gas. If you patch into your home's wiring, you have to disconnect from the grid so you don't backfeed and zap the lineman who thinks there's no voltage.

Bob W._2

Good points...

There was a good discussion on this sometime back. One guy suggested a simple UPS, like they use for computers. I settled on using the invertor in my car to run 120V AC to the boiler room, ahead of the 24V transformer. Of course I would disconnect the house wiring first. The beauty of using the car is that it has its own built in generator to recharge the battery.

Earthfire

battery charging

But don't run it in the garage. the Co will get you.