Pork chop boiler

Boiler Sections:

If a "Pork Chop" boiler is a dry base boiler like a H.B. Smith 2000 series, every boiler has different installation parameters. You need to get the manufacturers installation instructions. And follow them carefully.

But remember what my old, late boss told me once. I was installing a Smith Series 2000, 8 section boiler and I questioned the lack of deep information in the boiler erection instructions. His comment, "When you get to this level, you are supposed to know what you are doing." He was right.

I replaced a leaking Weil-McLain 70 series boiler. It was a 72 or 74. It had the Nitiril gaskets between the sections. It did not have a holding ring on the INSIDE of the ring groove. The assumption was that boiler water pressure would always be pushing the ring to the outside. Some of the rings were hanging out into the water sections, allowing water to leak into the exhaust passageways. I replaced it with a 476, 4 section boiler. In the installation manual, it was ABSOLUTELY STATED that NO RTV SILICONE was to be used on the rings bit only on the metal surfaces where the exhaust could get at the rings. The previous installer had slathered RTV, all over the wings and the surfaces they were set in. Because there was no inner ring, when the sections were tightened together, the pressure would force the rings into the water passages. It must have been a problem because on the 476 boiler I was installing, the inner wall was there. Like the groove on a circulator.

I must also add that this boiler I replaced was only 8 years old. It leaked like the seashore from the time it was installed. It destroyed a chimney from the water vapor, and the repair choked the flue to unacceptable levels. It leaked so badly that they shut it off in the Spring and turned it on in the fall after pumping the water out of the chamber.

Get the proper installation instructions for the boiler in question.

IMO,