Steam boiler pipe makes water noise

Hello WillS,

Steam piping is pitched to drain condensate properly. If pipe support straps have been damaged, removed, dilapidated, etc. water may collect where it should not be. One pipe or two pipe system ? Pictures help us help you.

Pictures to help you? Near boiler, boiler with above piping and a few farther away to get a look at what you have to work with.

Why is the water level so low and pressur so high?

I was going to ask about the water level it looks full. Drain some water out of the boiler to about half the glass or even a bit lower. Very wet steam could be being carried into the system, condensing and falling back down causing you water noise. Is the new valve you installed open fully?

How often will that happen? If you repeatedly drain it will it repeatedly refill? Once the water level is set it should stay there. If it goes up it could be the supply water valve is letting water pass. This is pretty common. If you have an automatic water feed valve it could be leaking. If you have an auto feed there should be a bypass so you can isolate the auto feed.

Thats not the water level at the bottom?

If Full then WHY

If that filled back up right after you drained it to halfway, either the auto feeder is broken and constantly filling it or the bypass valve is passing and filling it. You probably had water filling your system, causing that noise. Long shot but it's also possible something is wrong with your Low Water Cutoff and it's constantly calling for water even though its filled

yeah you need to drain it, but if it keeps filling up there’s another issue that needs to be repaired. Need to figure out what’s causing it to refill

Get the water level to the half way point in the sight glass. Is the pressure gauge back under 1 Lbs. The pressure gauge may be broken and stuck, if it is not broken there was way too much water in the system. In general the water should be around the half way point in the sight glass. Above the half way point in the sight glass (when boiling) the rest of the system will fill with steam.

Repair the water fill issue.

Make sure you still get the issue resolved, remember you need to go check your boiler now and refill it so it doesn’t run in a low water condition god forbid you LWC off isn’t functioning

Keep draining until you can see the water level in the glass, as described above.

Is the red light lit?

OK then it seems the low water cutoff is not seeing the water. The probe may need to be cleaned, or the electronics might have failed requiring a new LWCO.

Is the boiler firing? I would think it would refuse to fire with that red light lit.

I guess another possibility is that the valves to the gauge glass are closed or clogged. Have those red valves in the photo above been messed with recently? Make sure they are open, lefty-loosy

Are both the valves on that gage glass (top and bottom) open? The valve/valves to the gage could be blocked up. One way that sometimes works is to close and open them. Is the water you're draining clear? Try draining the glass by closing the bottom valve and opening the little petcock on the very bottom of the bottom valve. Drain the water out, close the petcock open the red handle and see if the glass refills. If you can clear the glass you can start to get a handle on where the water level is. Is really important to know where you water level is.

There are a couple issues at play here that are separate.

1. Something is making your boiler fill with water. This could be a failed valve, or failed LWCO that thinks the water is low (but probably not the LWCO due to the issue below)
2. Your gauge glass was full of water even though the boiler was in fact empty

Work on these issues separately, or call a professional to work on them if you are in doubt. You really really want to know how much water is in your boiler at any given time.

I removed the glass tube by unscrewing it

You unscrewed what exactly?

I'm suspecting they are clogged too, or the valves are shut, since the glass was full of water while the boiler was empty 😅

But you did say above that after your boiler was empty and you started to refill it, you saw the water level go back up in the glass, so that indicates that at least the bottom is allowing water to flow.

You can remove the nut that holds in the valve and poke a metal rod or something in there to clear it, but you don't want to do it when the boiler is full of water probably.

As mentioned above, you can try closing and opening the valves repeatedly to try to get them to clear.

hidden under the lower fitting is a small almost useless drain plug, but it can be hard to remove because it gets corroded and the hex head on the plug is very small and brass and rounds out very easily. That's why @Gordo and some of us always remove the whole plug assembly and replace it with a small 1/4" ball valve

like I have done below. This lets you periodically flush any gunk out of the gauge glass fitting

I would not recommend changing the heating system, I would recommend fixing the current system. In my opinion, steam is a very good heating system that with minimal attention is also one of the simplest with fewest moving parts requiring the least amount of paid maintenance.

No, that wouldn't make sense unless they are broken. My radiators are maybe 100 years old. The noise you experienced I believe was due to your boiler being overfilled with water.

Assuming your plumber knows what they're doing, they should be able to set you up with a nice quiet system as part of the maintenance they are going to do. Hopefully they know what they're doing!

how did we get this far in the thread without anyone asking about the steel pigtail ?

when was it serviced last, is it clear breathing all the way back into that boiler?

While we are at it, the pressuretrol should be set to the minimum 0.5 (outside scale, Cut In) and 1 on the inside knob (differential).