treatment chemical for steam boiler

Cost and time. I'd have to add a gallon a week from flushing the LWCO on one system. (Mcdonnell Miller)

It can be used. It forms the buffer pair with sodium bicarbonate/sodium carbonate with a stable pH in the range of 9.5 to 10.0. You may have to use sodium hydroxide (fun stuff) to drive it to the stable range. As I mentioned earlier, you will need to titrate using your actual boiler water to determine the correct amounts.

I bet you could get to the point where you could return the flushed water into your boiler it would be so clean

And that is why you titrate it: you want to use the least amount possible to reach the stable range, if that is your objective. This is one of those situations — among many! — where too much is WAY too much.

Borax is a fascinating stuff. Useful for all kinds of things. There are several buffer pairs using borax as the basic side of the pair — none of them are either cheap or easily available, and they all buffer between pH7 and pH8. Borax alone, without a buffer pair, can go quite basic depending entirely on concentration, which is undesirable for pH control as the resulting pH is concentration dependent and unstable.

Please see an older thread I created which about half way down shows what I found Steamaster does. I asked what the individual chemicals listed in the MSDS would do for water in a boiler on a chemistry forum. I feel it's quite accurate.

I'm sorry.

I'm one of the "some of you" I'm afraid. What was your point again, @ARobertson13 ?

My situation is somewhat bad: I've got sludge in my boiler. I would like to get that situation under control. The reason I got sludge, I think, is because of some years of lazy maintenance as well as a badly leaking pipe at one time. Does controlling pH halt corrosion when it's already started?

Because of this thread, and because of the time of the year here in the States, I made a trip to my friend's house just last night. Her situation is similar to yours, and also perhaps to that of @SlamDunk so maybe what I found can help you both.

She has a reasonably-sized boiler for her house, it's 4 sections and three burners, a Lennox branded Dunkirk design (that is prone to carryover due to its side-supply design) installed in 2007.

The boiler behaves quite well but she tends to listen to her plumber who advised her to drain the boiler monthly (BAD ADVICE). She certainly hasn't done it every month, but she has done it periodically. Her water is generally brown when I look at it, but I've never tried to get the corrosion there under control before. But with her permission I am now.

After last night, and also remembering my very-unmaintained boiler that I used to have, I think it can be a rather long road, but not a hopeless one. I'll tell what I did and what my plan is going forward. See if it matches what you are seeing.

1. Her boiler has run a few times this season, and about a month ago she drained probably 4 gallons. The water was clearish-looking in the gauge glass. First, I released about 1/2 gallon from the boiler drain which started out medium brown but then ran mostly clear and indicated, as expected, about 7ph. Then I flushed the bottom gauge glass port. Then I cleaned the pigtail for good measure. It was dirty but not blocked.
   
2. I added some water to the cold boiler to get it to nominal level again.
3. I added only about 3 ounces of 8-Way the easiest way I could which was the main vent fitting, believe it or not. (Her main returns to the boiler resulting in a 4" wet return right next to the Hartford Loop.)
4. I steamed the boiler for awhile to let the condensate carry the 8-way into the boiler
5. Very quickly the water started to turn brown in the gauge glass. There was a little water coming into the glass from the top port which indicates foaming. Her boiler doesn't have a sight glass on the header (pity) so it's really hard to tell if it was carrying over, but it may have been slightly (the water level was down about 2-3" in the gauge glass).
6. I stopped the boiler after about 10 minutes of steaming and drained about a gallon of what was surprisingly dark brown water which indicated about 10ph (higher than I expected). Some of that color was no doubt from the 8-way purple indicator, but a majority must have been from sedimented "mud" and/or scale that the 8-way freed up. I was reminded at that moment of my own experience in 2017 with my original boiler at my house which was another unmaintained and filthy (inside) Dunkirk-design Utica. In one of my very first boiler videos, you can see me being clueless about it but I already had a sight glass installed at the end of my main which indicated quite clearly that I for sure was carrying over (this was immediately after I started trying to clean my boiler with 8-way). See the 2 minute video here, it's quite shocking to see carryover for the first time!
7. I ran the boiler again, and again it seemed it might be carrying over some (but not catastrophically—steam was getting to her radiators). I stopped it again after 10 minutes and drained another brown gallon that measured about 8-9ph, then slowly added more fresh water. I repeated this step once more.
8. Finally it was getting late. I didn't want to leave her with carryover condition, so I drained to the bottom of the gauge glass and again slowly refilled. The water I drained this last time was still brown, I believe still from the freed-up mud/scale. When I dumped the bucket there were in fact some scale pieces.

So between my experience years ago, and last night, and what @SlamDunk saw, it seems pretty obvious we do have to be careful of carryover when adding 8-way (and I'm sure any of the other treatments) to boilers with scale and/or mud buildup (a new clean boiler has been shown to be able to handle even an extreme overdose without carryover. Not to say that's advisable, just stating the fact). This is interesting and ironic given that all these treatments claim to reduce surging. My own thinking has been flawed regarding this because I missed the idea that even though my clean boiler can take seemingly any amount of treatment, mud/scale in an older boiler can present a completely different behavior.

My recommendation is start SLOW and be ready to drain off the freed up stuff to avoid carryover. As much as it pains me to add fresh water during these steps, I think it's necessary. I feel that the amount of corrosion caused by this fresh water should be much less than the overall benefit of getting the water chemistry to a place where corrosion is greatly reduced over the long haul.

My plan going forward is to revisit this boiler in a week or so and try another couple ounces of 8-way. I believe that eventually the vast majority of mud/scale that is going to break free will do so, then her boiler can be almost as clean as a new one and won't require any cycle of drain, add fresh water, corrosion. Of course I'll report back, thanks!

What do you mean this time? You aren't going to drain the nice 11 pH water with 8-way in it that's not rusty, are you?

No, it just seems a shame to throw out nice boiler water 😅

If you're adding boiler water treatment without actually testing the water, then you might as well be using a Ouija board to determine the answer to chemistry questions. And yes, I'm old enough to to have actually played with a Ouija board - the "Magic 8-Ball" of the before times…

The type and chemistry of the MU water varies all over the country. What works in one part of the country may not work elsewhere. Also the type and quality of the CI is variable.

In my area (Western, MA) many have given up on Burnham and from what I have herd Eastern, MA and Rhode Island are worse. Why? I don't know because I know nothing about water chemistry. Chlorides in the water is what I have herd.

But I know this much in my 46 years of being in the business.

Boiler failures pre 1980 was almost nonexistent. If you had a failure back, then it was usually from excessive MU water or a failed LWCO. HB Smith was the big player around here because their foundry was in Western, Ma years ago. Now all brands of CI boiler are sold around here

Now all CI boiler seem to not last as long as they used to for several reasons:

Increased firing rates/lb of CI pushes the boiler harder

The thickness of the sections is claimed to be less

Changes in mU water quality

We all know of CI boiler 100 years old (or more) that lasted and I am sure there are many still running that never had a drop of water treatment. Why? More iron and less firing rate/lb of CI is probably the biggest reason.

In the 80s 90s and 2000s Burnham made a big push in this area. The failures were many. And not just on steam their HW boilers failed as well and they didn't get serviced any differently than any other brand. Most of them you would be lucky to have them last 10-15 years. Water or steam.

When the efficiency of the boilers needed to be pushed up due to government regulations the life expectancy of the boiler dropped.

The harder a boiler is pushed and the more condensate a system loses (more MU water….like process boilers) the more important water treatment is.

I have personally cut up and removed steel steam boilers that were 90 years old that were in good condition. But that was HP steam with I guess good water treatment. But the old boilers were not fired as hard…….they were by today's standards oversized.

Less boiler mass/BTU input is probably why Mod Cons fail in a shorter time frame and are required to have better water quality.

All in the name of Progress😊😊

I hate to beat a dead horse, but in my WM SGO-5 (about 5-6 years old), it has some type of elastomeric or rubber seals between sections. I had added some 8 way. pH was around 11. Then someone had posted about having a seal leak on their WM boiler and it was blamed on their pH of 9. I drained completely a couple times and refilled. I now have a pH of 9.5. Water is very clear. I know about the buffering capacity of the 8 way from this board. WM recommends pH 7-8.5. Should I continue to chase the pH or just leave as is? My main concern are he seals. My system is very tight. I think it added one gallon all last season. Thanks.

The case we heard about from the homeowner said that WM claimed that his 9.0 pH led to the failure of his gaskets. To me that is insane that WM would say that 8.5 was OK but 9.0 was death to their boilers.

I suspect his pH had nothing to do with the failure and WM was just looking for a reason.

I don't use any "pool additives"

Literally the only thing I put in my pool is bleach, occasionally cyanuric acid and on a rare occasion muriatic acid to bring the pH down.

So, I guess I should just leave well enough alone at 9.5? As I mentioned, water is very clear after about 5 seconds of draining.

Many pools experience PH rise which is primarily caused by the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. I believe it forms carbonic acid when in solution. I wonder if the boiler system doesn’t allow this as it doesn’t have the same exposure to the atmosphere (though its not exactly a closed system). Alkalinity speeds this process as the alkalinity ions compete for the hydrogen in the water, changing the equilibrium and letting more CO2 leave quickly

Thats probably an overly simple explanation but its what my tiny brain has been able to absorb from troublefreepool, another blog site which competes for my limited attention span.

@ethicalpaul - I hate to bust your theory about new vs old boilers and 8-way, but too much 8 way (ph got above 10) caused surging on my new install. The surging happened immediately after adding it and happened right after a good skim so I think the water was otherwise clean and the surging can be attributed to the too much 8-way.

I drained and added just enough to the refill to put the ph around 9.0 and its been good since. Before treatment the ph was down around 7.0 which was the minimum level in the manual so I wanted to add some to bring it above minimum ph.

You're not breaking my bubble. I have published the video evidence showing me adding way way too much 8-way with no ill results. Your water may very well have had some oil or other contaminant in it or something (shrug).

I have also boosted my pH with a pH booster product for pools with the same result.

I do NOT state that 8-way or other pH booster can't be involved in surging, just that it's not the direct cause.

But pH alone does not cause surging.

1.3 inches of water column instead of about 1inch of water column? Hardly conclusive or persuasive 😅