Boilers act up! New end of line traps and now one is flooding

Mark_72

I only had to play in the mud a couple of times. The ends have a foot or so not four. all of the cages were wasted. I still have 15 or so left. the building is in need of attention and I feel I did stir things up. Someone said that it was doing fine till I got here. The dead men are digging their way out of the grave because of what has been done here since they have gone. I going to give the boilers a good skimming and get up to the f&t's to open them and make sure they are working.Both boilers are flooding and the glass level is bouncing. I'm getting ill just looking at them. I can hear flow on one side of the building but not much on the other. everything I read keeps pointing at dirt... F&T's are Hoffman #55's.. Ya know I have spent good money on all these traps and I still have to replace all the 2211's in the apartments and the 17c's in the lobby. I think I'll hold off for a few more weeks for that. I'm in Philly, Pa. Got to go home now, I've been here to long. Thanks for your input.

Mark_72

Boiler Flooding and low water cut off all in the same cycle

Any help would be welcomed. Two 1270000 weil macs about 20 years old. return pumps. 30 new end of line 8c cages installed over the last two days and now the system is not being nice.....

Christian Egli_2

No F&T, no bucket?

What did those new thermostatic traps replace, brand? type?. Shouldn't there have been float and thermostatic traps at the end of line? Please give more info.

Did you get a lot of water hammer during the replacement procedure? 8C and 17C have low resistance to banging slugs of condensate.

Mark_72

the 8c's replaced the old ones. I have 650 rad on line and there was hammer before I changed them out. Now I belive that the flow is washing down the return and all the crap is ending up in to steam plant.. I'm new to the building and felt that since the end of line traps had not been change since 1993 and last cleaned out in 2003 it was time to replace them.now I have and upset pair of boilers. There are two f&t's , both our off the header..looks like I'll be spending the night here keep the building warm..

Christian Egli_2

The end of the line

To recapitulate:

2 car sized boilers;
1 header with 2 F&T;
mains leading to 30 end of mains with only 8C;
riser?;
650 radiators with thermostatic traps? All good, I hope.

Can you describe the end of a typical line which drips into the Hoffman trap. Since I understand you have a simple thermostatic trap, do you have a (4ft at least) length of bare drip pipe for the condensate to cool enough so that the 8C can open?

If not, the trap will remain open exactly only once for a little while after the boiler is cold started, then it closes on heat and never opens again. Giant puddles of hot hot hot condensate rehearse for the dance. You are sitting in the steam filled mains after all, with no place to chill.

The party begins with all the banging.

Before the replacement, your system might have worked marginally better because of the many trashed traps failing to close at all anymore. When you did the replacement, did you find many wasted 8C?

Those 30 end of mains will be better served with float and thermostatic traps. You simply need a float or a bucket trap to remove uncooled hot condensate. 8C - no good here.

Next issue

How big are your 2 lonely F&T traps? Mega gigantic I hope. When the partying goes wild, boilers barf. All this ends up collecting in the header, you hope, but you have to provide means to remove all the carryover unboiled water.

Look at pictures of boiler layouts, the good ones have large (>2 in) equalizer lines to drain the header straight back into the boiler. I know it is often done the way you have in large set ups, but if you can, the good old equalizer line is my favorite. Plus, you don't vomit all this flashing carry over water into your condensate return system, that's just not cool.

Plan on investigating this header job further if you suspect wet steam.

Last issue

I wouldn't particularly worry about dirt all that much. If your returns are very old and in bad shape, then maybe planning for new ones is a good idea. Take apart a few dirt pockets to see inside, but otherwise, playing in the mud is fun.

Where are you located?

Good luck

viccipe

Steam Jumping

Jezz Luize,
Sorry to hear your problem. Trying to concentrate on parameters u spelled out. This is a tough one.
u changed traps for the whole bldg at one time???
and now condensate taking too long to get back and boiler is filling threw auto feed to satisfy float ...then condensate comes back filling system maybe spewing water out lower floor radiators steam air valves?
What to do? Good one for DAN HOLOAHAN.
Maybe now holding steam in rad longer reduce cycle time?
I really thinK a Vaporstat would work well with your new improved system?
Just trying to help. Been there, Feel your pain.

Mark_72

Dirt was the problem

Christian Egli_2

Congratulations

Awww, that blows my nice theories. What kind of dirt did you find, and where?

Good job figuring it out, now everyone will look up to you and your boiler.

Mark_72

It all came back to the boilers and they didn't like it.
A good bath & 17hours later there making dry steam again and everyone is warm now.. Good thing to it's snowing and in the 20's tonight. I still have a lot of work ahead. Got the 2211's to install in the apartments.