L W C O 47-2 can it be installed on the hot or cold water

Mike49

Can the LWCO 47-2 be installed on hot or cold water pipe? Whats the difference? I came across one today and it was getting the boiler feed water from a hot water pipe off the coil, the customer said the feeder hasn't worked in years.
Thanks
Mike

Tom M.

The reason for

piping the boiler feed with hot water is so that there won't be any thermal shock from cold water entering a hot boiler. It's probably unrelated to why the feeder doesn't work.

Steamhead

Yes it is related

the float-operated valve in that feeder can lime up if fed with hot water. This is probably why the feeder "hasn't worked in years". The valve unit will have to be cleaned or replaced to make it work again. It should not be necessary to replace the entire feeder unless something else is wrong with it.

McDonnell & Miller makes a big deal of this in their installation instructions. Somebody didn't read them. Dan also covers this in "The Lost Art of Steam Heating".

If you run the feeder outlet line into the wet return before the Hartford Loop, the incoming water will be tempered enough that it won't shock the boiler- assuming the boiler wasn't dry-firing!

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