Opions on steam boiler replacement, please!

Ted Robinson

During the cold weather I noticed excess vapor coming from a neighbor's chimney. The 12 yr old Peerless Model JOTTW-150 oil fired one pipe steam boiler has a leak, "on the top due to water corrosion", she was told. Since my house is similar, I suspect that the 550 sq ft of radiation is excess for a 2100 sq ft two story, only partially insulated. Question: Is this rather early for a cast iron boiler to fail? Could the leak be braized? Successfully? Should she replace with a W_M or Burnham? Or another Peerless?
Since I have have a (stopped-up)steam boiler leak, and multiple corroded sweat water lines, could the NY City water be unusually corrosive to plumbing & heating?
Those are many questions, I know. Many thanks, in advance.

Christian Egli

Yeah water is so bad, many stick to drinking beer only...

Fresh water is always bad, it contains lime and oxygen, which are bad for heating systems. The lime falls out of suspension and forms sludge in the boiler and the oxygen gets married to the iron pipe and their offspring is rust. Once these items are settled there is no more monstrous corrosion and silting that occurs.

Things go bad when a boiler gets addicted to fresh water. The ravages caused by the fresh oxygen and the lime become obvious.

You can resort to water treatment to make things better. But then you also have to blow down your system a lot more, which promotes the addiction to fresh water.

Curing the addiction by finding and plugging the leak is always the first and best thing to do. Immediately. Particularly leaks in easy to replace piping.

Leaks can be plugged. It is often worth it if you can do it yourself. Cast iron is a very tricky thing to either weld or braze, let alone inside a dirty and corroded boiler. For a small unit, it is rarely economical to get a professional to do it. Your unit will never be as good as new and the side effects of the whole operation might cause other leaks to spring. Nothing to be happy about. Plus you still have your tired and dirty boiler, it just leaks more now.

Beyond water corrosion, cast iron can just crack at anytime. Just because. This usually goes back to a difficult childhood at the cast iron foundry, but sorting out the good from the bad castings is not necessarily possible.

Trying your luck on a new boiler might seem as the best gamble. The immediate payout: a reduced fuel bill (steam leaks up the flue can loose you a lot of heat)

To size your boiler, you need to look at your radiators, measure them and add them up. Your neighbors radiators may be altogether different.

Will you still drink NY water?

Ted Robinson_2

Peerless Boilers

Would it be advisable NOT to use another Peerless boiler, or has the experience been similar to the other two brands?

Geno_15

Many things

could have contributed to your neighbors boiler demise. A cast iron boiler should go 40-100+years, they usually outlive their efficiency.

What may happen, or, what I've seen is people replacing old large boilers with small, because the firing rate is what they are sizing to. Problem is steam needs a water reserve, if you turn so much to steam and the level in the boiler drops, fresh water will refill and add to corrosion and mud. I oversize the boiler by a section or two, depending on the amount of radiation, but fire at the rate needed. This makes the steam rise very smooth with no surging and no make up, ie- you can't have a 3 section boiler with 4 galons of water in it heat a 3,000sq.ft. home with 22 radiators.

The boiler may have been shocked by someone adding cold water when it was hot.

Peerless makes a great cast iron boiler and I only saw one go in 30+ years, something went wrong, they need to find out what or the new one may go again.

Al Gregory

I would stay with Peerless and make sure the installer checks the system for leaks. Make sure he sizes the boiler for the system and not just put in the same size that was there.

ThermalJake_2

Did you say Vapor out of the chimney???!!! You'd better check the masonry.