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Adding SurgeX

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BoilerGunk
BoilerGunk Member Posts: 2
in Strictly Steam

I have an old Superior steam boiler that is powered by natural gas. It's getting to that time of year where I want to make sure we are running.

I had a wonderful person who taught me a lot but he passed away. He swore by Surgex and he would unscrew the pressure safety valve and pour the powder in.

I did the usual maintenance. I opened the ball valve on the LWCO and flushed the system. Sight glass is now clear. The LWCO fires off.

I am extremely hesitant to unscrew the safety valve because I don't have a wrence that big and I am so concerned about cracking the cast iron or stripping the thread.

There is another port. On the return pipe, there is an opening. I believe it is either a manual way to add water if my auto feed stops working or an overflow. I learned of this port when my LWCO did not stop. Water came out of there. I did add a 6" nipple to it so if that ever happened again, it wouldn't spill directly on the boiler.

Do you think it is fine to add to this port?

Comments

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 27,395

    Don't see why not.

    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • ethicalpaul
    ethicalpaul Member Posts: 8,862
    edited October 2024

    I'd rather add into the boiler instead of into the wet return, but either way the stuff will get into the boiler. I don't like SurgeX however. I use 8-way

    When I added SurgeX to my boiler, surging occurred:

    https://youtu.be/GXy67aziqZI

    NJ Steam Homeowner.
    See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el

    BoilerGunk
  • STEAM DOCTOR
    STEAM DOCTOR Member Posts: 2,601

    8-way for the win. Just be aware that you might dislodge sludge, which will need to be drained out and flushed up at some point.

    ethicalpaulBoilerGunkdelcrossv
  • BoilerGunk
    BoilerGunk Member Posts: 2

    I bit the bullet and undid the safety valve. Added the SurgeX and now firing for 15 minutes. Cast iron scares the crap out of me but I was gentle. So far so good

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