New boiler short cycling

Joe_64

Sorry guys no pics at this time. I don't have a digital camera but will try to get one to take some. In the begining the water in the gauge glass was dirty. I think the installer techs should have cleaned out the system as the water in the gauge is clean now. I don't know if it was cleaned I wasn't with them all the time they were here testing it.

How would I clean it out, by flushing the system? Is it something I can do myself? Skimming? How would I go about doing that? Other than the problem explained it is a very clean job, nice and neat.What I found a little confusing is that they used copper pipe to connect the boiler to the old cast iron/steel header and the copper pipe is much smaller than the old pipping. Could this cause the steam to leave the boiler at a faster rate and drag water along with it?

Also there are 2 supply branches. One is shorter than the other. The longer of these 2 is about a 45ft. run. Shouldn't they have added at least 1 main vent on this line. When I asked them about it they replied that all I needed to do was to put biggger vents on the radiators and that would be fine.
The last radiators on this line aren't getting any haet. I would think it is because the boiler isn't running long enough for the steam to reach it or the line needs the main vent/s to speed up the steam travel.

Just to give you a better perspective of the place. It is a 3 story, 35 room/inc. bathrooms rooming house, 28 of those rooms have radiators the others are sufficiently heated by the supply pipe. When the installer came to size the job he counted all the radiators in the house (28). The boiler he recommended and installed is a UTICA J-C model 500,000 Btu input - 375,000 output. Here is a link to the Utica page http://www.uticaboilers.com/products_gasboilers_jc.asp .

Sorry for the long post and thanks for all the help/info.

Joe_64

New boiler short cycling

Just replaced my coal to oil burning dinosaur boiler to a new Utica gas boiler. The boiler is short cycling because when it is working the water level gets below the safety cut-off and it turns off...10/15 seconds later the level rises and it fires up again. The installer techs were here all this morning and fiddled with everything. They checked all the radiators and changed air vents where needed. They also installed a main vent on top of the boiler, but no main vents on either the long supply line or its return.

While the boiler is working the water level gets all jumpy and starts to drop to a point that the safety cut-off shuts down the boiler before steam has a chance to heat the farthest radiators, from it, in the house. The old boiler that I had was a slow dinosaur, took awhile for the heat to get going, but with this one it is almost like instantanious. It fires up and whamm you have heat. I would think that with this type of quicker steam they should have installed some vents on the supply line to let the steam move along faster.

I a friend of my cousins take a look at it. He was my original pick to do my job but he was so busy that he could onlydo it in mid Dec. which was too long of a wait for me. He said that the hartford loop was a bit to low in relation to the water level and that could be the reason for the jumpy water. He couldn't axactly explain why the water was going down so low and so quickly. He said that the boiler was making steam faster than the condenced water was returning to the boiler. Pipes were checked by the install techs and were found to not be clogged. So there should be no reason why the water takes longer to return.

Should I just call the Utica tech guys and have them take a look at it or do I call the install guys back up? They are getting pissed cause I still have half of there payment and won't give it to them until it is working fine. Any ideas or thoughts on what could it be or what I should do would be much appreciated.

gerry gill

can you post a picture

of the boiler and its piping..that would help us out alot.

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joel_19

pics

pictures would be good , has the boiler been cleaned / dirty water will contribute to surging .

Anthony Menafro

Dirty water

Joel is right on the money. It sounds to me that the water is so dirty and oily that as the steam is trying to leave the boiler, it's dragging all of the water with it. I'll bet that a good cleaning and skimming will do the trick here.I hope that works out for you.

Anthony

Anthony Menafro

Library

Go off the wall to the library for cleaning and skimming techniques.

Anthony

joel_19

ok.....

At this point that I've got to ask , did you choose the lowest or the highest bidder . we just are rapping up taking out a 700k boiler and put two new ones back since it is steam there is no copper pipe on the supply it is all black steel mand cast and you can bet we didn't make the pipes smaller , big pipes are your friend . still agood cleaning may be all she needs .

Joe_64

only one

He was neither the lowest or the highest. He was the only one who would take the job at such short notice. I was charged $12,300.00 for removal of old boiler and the installation of new one, this not incuding the chimney clean and prep for the new install which was $2,400.00. I called them back up this afternoon and they said they would call the Utica tech on monday and have him take a look.

All the existing pipe is 4" steel/cast iron but the new connection that they made from the boiler to the old header is in, from what I can tell, 2" to 2 1/2" copper pipe. Why would they use copper on such an important part of the installation. I can see using copper on the return and water line but on the steam supply. Could the reduced copper connecting to the bigger pipes be the cause or one of the causes of the problem?