Dry Fire

Ralph_3

I had an incident where my Lennox oil-fired boiler ran with out water in the pipes (dry fire). Since I was not home at the time, it ran long enough and got very HOT and is now ruined. Besides the aquastat, are there any safety features on a boiler to shut it off if it overheates in a situation like this? Seems like relying on only the aquastat is risky as the boiler has to get pretty hot in order get the aquastat up to temp with no water in the pipes.

Thanks.

Pinball

It's called a Low water cut-off and is now code in NYS.on all boilers, residential and commercial

Al

Robert O'Connor_7

LWCO..

Pinball's right, and if your boiler were really big, you would need two..Robert O'Connor/NJ

Mijola

Dry fire boiler

Is the boiler a steam boiler or a forced hot water heating boiler?

Regards,

Ed

Ralph_3

The unit is forced hot-water heating, i.e., it has a circulating pump.

Weezbo

sounds like a LWCO is a good thing....

on the boiler or associated piping within 6" of the boiler with no valves ahead of it,with a air relife and automatic fast fill...although maybe some larger ones might be better off with two and an additional high limit safety..

Sweet_2

Question ???

LWCO seems to be concensus , would a flow switch suffice as well?

Steamhead

Good Idea

combined with a LWCO, a flow switch shold provide additional protection. The only exception would be on a boiler that has a tankless coil, where the burner would have to fire without water flowing thru it.

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Pstef

Where does six inches come from


Weezbo,

Why do you say within six inches?

Needs to be located above minimum safe water level available for boiler, which is indicated by boiler manufacturer. Make sure there is no shut-off valves located between the LWCO and the boiler, in order to prevent isolation of the boiler from the LWCO.

My LWCO is located in the Primary loop about two feet above the boiler, no shutoff valve between boiler and LWCO. This way the LWCO will cut out way before level of boiler water beomes to low for dangerous operation.

Weezbo

the deal is theres the code, theres the man recs,and then

theres your standards. you want to run the wires two feet up the wall thats fine ...i have no problem with that. i have no problem with having a pressure relife valve on the incomming water ,and on the boiler, either .one of them is code,the other well it is my preference with larger boilers.in some things i am an extremist :)the flow switch is a great idea too.