After boiler is up to pressure can I shut off the water to auto

Joe.G

Hi I was wondering after I set my boiler pressure to 12 psi, should I shut off the water going to my auto feed valve? Thanks

Rob T

You're going

to get two different lines of thought on this one.

Some pros say turn it off, that as long as you have a tight system it will be fine. Their second line of reasoning is that if you do spring a big leak and the valve is on and there is no one around you are going to, most likely, flood something out as the water feed will just "keep feeding".

Some pros say leave it on so that if, by chance, you do have a slight water leak the system will stay full.

I am not a pro but from what I have read here, in Dan's books, and surmised it is better to shut it off once the system is up to pressure. This is with one caveat though.. You really should (MUST?) have a LWCO (Low Water Cut Off) installed and tested. This way if the system does leak down it won't have a chance to hurt the boiler. This is what I do and I also check the pressure frequently during the heating season.

Just MHO

Rob

Glenn Harrison

If you are going to shut off the water,

you HAVE to have a low water cut-off (LWCO) installed to keep from firing the boiler dry due to a leak. Due to the fact that adding cold water to a red hot boiler could cause the boiler to explode (rare but it has happened) under the right circumstances, it is highly recomended that you install a LWCO and turn off the water supply. This also forces you to notice a leak and get it fixed, rather then just feeding fresh water into the boiler.

For some interesting reading on this subject, check out this link:

http://fhaspapp.ittind.com/literature/files/610.pdf

It is a pdf file so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open it.