Hot on the left, cold on the right

Andy N.

sounds like you may have a piping problem. could you possibly post some pictures or drawings of the system?

we could give you a little better advice if we could see whats going on in the system.

thanks,

Andy N.

GP

Hot water on the left, cold on the right!!!

Greetings guys. THanks for all your advice and help in the past. It's helped out a layman (if I can even call myself this) like me immensely. Please help me with one more issue.

I just had a 120,000 BTU boiler installed. It replaced an old 500,000 BTU (the original from the 1930's). What I just realized as I ran through the thing by myself is that the installer ran the hot water line to the make up tank (I had requested a makeup tank since we were downsizing drastically.)

Now, I think the make up tank is pointless. If the water coming in is already hot, what's the point, right?

So, 3 questions/issues I have:

1. Is it BAD to have hot water from a hot water heater feeding a boiler? Are there chemicals that inherently build up in a hot water heater that can damage a cast iron boiler? (Note: The hot water heater is very big. I'm not worried about loosing hot water suppply for the bld. Besides, I only typically run this boiler once per week. This is a church.

2. Should I just bypass the make up tank altogether? (or rather, request the installer to come back and bypass it. I don't know if he'll be willing to do this, but it's worth a try. If not, I'll do it myself.)

3. The make up tank isn't even working properly! The pump that puts the water back into the boiler only kicks on for 4-5 seconds at a time! It doesn't even run long enough to get sufficient water into the boiler. When the boiler's on and the pump on the make up tank DOES run, there's banging on the pump for about 30 seconds afterwards. Something's wrong. I think there's back pressure coming into the make up tank.

MAN! I certainly am not used to the difference in volume yet. I guess the Kewanee had hundreds of gallons of water volume, whereas this new Weil Mclain has much less.

Sorry for the long email. THanks in advance.

P.S. I heard that on a sink Hot water is on the left, Cold is on the right because originally Cold was all there was availibl. Therefore, they had to choose which side to put the faucet on. The most logical place was the right side because most people are right handed. Is this true?! Makes good sense.

Cheers,
Gene.

Robert O'Connor_3

One of the few \"racy\" jokes

Dan tells at his seminars involves this "cold water on the right" topic. Have him tell it to you sometime.

Arlene

Art Pittaway

Hot water is good

This is a steam boiler? The makeup tank and pump are necessary usually because the new boiler has less water volume and will steam below the cutoff before the condensate returns from the system. With the feed tank, pump and a water level control you will hold the boiler water line at the correct level. The Feed tank level will rise and fall above the float until you need makeup. Unless you have huge leaks, or use steam in process, make-up won't be that much. But, your building hot water may be softened, so he has hooked you up to water that may be of "better quality" for the boiler. The tank should be vented and the pumps need check valves on the discharge. Also, code may require a backflow device on the connection from potable to non-potable depending on if an "air-gap" makeup valve is or isn't used. As to the banging, you should never hear anything but the pump motor run very quiet. I would look into what the factory recommended header hookup is and see if it's correct. Is the water line surging up and down? Did they skim and clean it correctly? So many questions.

Dale

Back flow issue

I guess I would run a simple little 1/2 inch cold line to the boiler. Most codes require anything going to the boiler to be from a back flow preventer to make sure the potable can't be contaminated from any potential boiler chemicals. If the heater in question is fed from an approved back flow preventer and the hot doesn't go to any sink I would guess you're legal as is.