Steam boiler keep restarting

The water in the gauge glass looks extraordinarily oily. You are experiencing carryover, where gallons of water are being vomited into your main. That water no longer being in your boiler causes your LWCO to activate. The water returns and the cycle continues.

The boiler needs to be skimmed, and since it's a brand new install, if it were me, I would wash it out first according to the manufacturer instructions with a TSP substitute or washing soda which are both kinds of detergent.

This will need to be repeated, since the vomited oil water has been distributed all through your system and it will take time for the oil to return to your boiler.

And don't forget to get it inspected to close out your permit (this is said with some jest)

You did a good job of understanding, yes you have it correct.

Yes the LWCO gets triggered because there is a shortage of water in the boiler (because so much water is in the pipes) due to the oil causing violent boiling, like when you are heating milk on the stovetop and it starts to boil, it boils over instead of boiling cleanly like water.

Yes the glass is oily and so you can assume the water in the boiler is as well. See all that black oily gunk?

PS: and to be pedantic, it's water combined with steam that is being vomited up into your main pipe (the horizontal pipe that makes its way around the ceiling of your basement)

Yes you would see a drop in the water level in the gauge glass when that happens.

But I'm confused…if the water level isn't moving what happened here?:

When the boiler shuts off, the LWCO devices has a red light on, then blinks after a minute then goes away as the boiler comes back on. Once or twice a day I would hear the water feeder add water into the boiler.

The gauge ports are jammed with the same oily residue thats in the glass. Probably the top one, so you arent getting a true reading if the water level.

not really. If they are really gummer up, you may have to get in there and literally poke them clear. Hopefully not. Try skimming and the soda wash down trick first.

Maybe but if it is still carrying over I would expect the LWCO to trip again as it did before. Anyway, it's oily in there for sure!

where is the skim tapping on that boiler?

Yes, it needs to be skimmed. First though clean out the gauge cocks. Drain it down to LWCO. When its cool, take the stems out of the gauge cocks, use the rods that protect the sight glass to poke inside the gauge cocks. Then fill and flush each one. I would prove they are jammed before assuming anything you see pertaining to the water level is true. And skim the boiler.

IF you manually add water to the boiler or drain water from the boiler do you see the water level in the site glass go up and down?