New Video: How to make your steam boiler last forever

Very interesting and informative as usual. I listened to the first video and may have missed some points. And I am not much of the chemist. That said, can you explain the benefits to boiling the oxygen out of the water before the water is added to the boiler? Can't you do the same thing by adding the water to the boiler using the manual feed valve and then just running the boiler to boil out the oxygen? Thanks.

Interesting. I don't know enough about chemistry to have an opinion on the matter. One other question. A very high percentage of the boilers that have holes in them, have the holes pretty close to the top of the boiler. What is causing those holes? Well above the water line in many cases

You only added boiled or distilled water? Wouldn't tap water in your boiler be boiled after the first cycle?

Just kidding Paul!

Just my findings

Calling all chemists. @ethicalpaul is stating that the oxygen in the water, will cause corrosion, immediately. Any thoughts from the chemically inclined on this forum? Will adding water and immediately boiling it out, or draining it out, cause corrosion? On a similar note, will oxygen in the air cause corrosion?

I’ve been considering this as well. Dissolved oxygen in water is a function of pressure and temperature so boiling will reduce dissolved oxygen as Paul and Steamhead have both stated. However, in an open system I’d expect the O2 to return to a steady state level over time when boiler cools and pressure falls.

In a closed system, free Oxygen is captured and held by water treatment or through the creation of iron oxide.

Paul’s use of distilled water ensures feed water is free of contaminants but dissolved oxygen would move to steady state when container was opened.

So as much as I like @ethicalpaul steam boiler posts and cool videos, I can’t see how boiling prior to filling boiler will reduce corrosion in an open system.

Paul’s advocacy of proper water treatment is well founded Free oxygen is highly corrosive and will quickly bond to ferrous metals when released from water. I expect this is why steam boiler tend to rot out above the water line.

Gotcha. Water quality is key, I hope I live as long as your boiler will under your care!
Happy Thanksgiving.

Boiler PH is 7ish as the makeup source from the softener and acid neutralizer, would like to never drain the casing in attempt to increase PH (if possible) however each season I only open until clear water is present but this requires water replenishment.

I used a borescope this past summer to inspect the internal surface condition, even after the boiler being off from last winter, fogging was heavily present on the lense and was unable to inspect.

This humid environment could be another concern.

My inherited boiler is also 50 years and makeup already had soft water.

Incoming well hardness is approx 350 so I can see why a softener was put it to control possible scale formation and in my opinion keeping the water clean will go along way for proper health although rarely reaching the max PH of 9

motivated by @ethicalpaul s videos I have been on a 2 week long journey of “cleaning” my 34 yo boiler in a 100 yo house.

using old mason jars I take a sample from the skim tap (I have an elbo pointing down and a valve that collect a couple a couple of ounces of muddy water) and the drain until it runs clear. Each daily sample is about 12-16 oz. The mud settles out in a couple of hours and I’m left with cloudy pink water.

I replace this water with distilled water.

I am using 8 way and am keeping the ph in the 9-10 range (Weil McLain recommends 8.5). I don’t think I’m getting the full benefit but it is definitely improving.

I am 100% certain the water is getting clearer and the mud is 100% magnetic. I plan to do one more week of the current process then I will drain and refill with distilled water and retreat with 8way…then I’ll watch it for a month and then go to FL.

Paul, this is a great video. Thanks for your continued contributions to this board. This video is very much in line with our recent conversation about steam boiler fill water. Seeing your boiler drain crystal clear after a summer of being shut down really speaks for itself. As with some others above, I still can't wrap my head around why heating the water before putting it in the boiler produces a different effect than just running the boiler shortly after filling it. I'm not sure exactly what is making the difference, whether it's your HPWH condensate water, high PH, dehumidifier water, etc. Whatever it is, or the combination of things you are doing, it's. obviously working and I can't help but want to mimic your actions in hope of getting even remotely close to the same results. Keep it up!

Wonder if there's any value to filtering the feed water? Meaning, putting a filter on the incoming feed water.

The focus seems to be on oxygen content and pH. Chlorine and whatever else might be in municipal water for corrosion control it seems would/could be driven off by boiling? If boiling the water in advance works then by all means do that.

As I posted earlier, I add just a "dash of water" every one or two weeks after I addressed steam leaking vents. Thus, my approach to addressing oxygen concerns in added water was eliminated via the venting approach. Seems that "venting" concerns is not acknowledged in comments as an alternative to chemical / distilled treatment, just saying

If the steam system requires a lot of make-up water, consider finding out why and go from there. I drain a little water 1x each month from the McDonnell -Miller LWC and it runs clean and clear

Regards,

RTW