Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.
If our community has helped you, please consider making a contribution to support this website. Thanks!

Delete

Options
cloudd
cloudd Member Posts: 58
edited April 7 in Radiant Heating

Comments

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,836

    does the system keep pressure if you turn off the makeup water supply?

    usually a lot of makeup water is what kills boilers.

    what does the ci circulator look like? a lot of makeup water would corrode that too.

    it was not running glycol, correct?

    a lot of chlorides in the water is hard on stainless steel but I wouldn't expect that to be a problem unless there is also a fair bit of makeup water but i suppose very high chlorides on their own could do it.

    GGross
  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 27,386

    Chlorides. Your municipal water people shuld be able to tell you what the chloride concentrations are in your water. And note you are interested in chlorIDE, not chlorINE. That's "ide" not "ine". There is a world of difference from the water chemistry standpoint.

    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 27,484

    maybe buy a ph and chloride test kit. It seems to be water related

    I’d imagine there are water testing facilities up there. You need to tell them what the concerns are. Most often potable water is tested for health concerns, not corrosion

    If it is high chloride fill it through an Axiom DM cartridge on the boiler side, but high chloride in potable water will still be a problem in the HX

    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • GGross
    GGross Member Posts: 1,905

    I'm always a bit hesitant when I see boiler water in a closed loop run crystal clear. to me that says the system was taking on makeup water, and lots of it. just an observation. Prior to the failures was a fill valve left open to maintain pressure, or was the valve only ever operated manually?

    ethicalpaul
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 27,386

    A further thought. You don't mention a water softener. Are you using one?

    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,836

    or more specifically, did the system maintain pressure with the feed turned off before the boiler started leaking?

  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7

    Delete

  • kcopp
    kcopp Member Posts: 4,683

    What boiler is this? Seriously would be looking at using D Ion or Distilled water. What boiler was installed before this one? Did that have issues?

  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,836
    edited March 25

    i would suspect inadequate flow through the boiler or a bad run of heat excahngers. 2 ppm of chloride is well within most manufacturers' specs, they usually want under 50 ppm or 100 ppm.

  • kcopp
    kcopp Member Posts: 4,683
    https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1892874#Comment_1892874

    Not waht I was refering to…

    Before you installed this new boiler what was there?

    Cast iron unit? Another modcon?

    What boiler is giving you this trouble?

  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7
  • 109A_5
    109A_5 Member Posts: 4,062

    I would inspect the " -stainless steel manifold " and any other stainless steel parts in the system that touches the same water. If no degradation is found elsewhere I would suspect what @mattmia2 stated, inadequate flow through the boiler or a bad run of heat exchangers.

    The thing is, if there is inadequate flow through the boiler it may short cycle or some other odd behavior.

    National - U.S. Gas Boiler 45+ Years Old
    Steam 300 SQ. FT. - EDR 347
    One Pipe System
  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7
  • GGross
    GGross Member Posts: 1,905
    edited March 26

    You never need to operate the heating zones in the summer months to circulate, no need to do this, it's strange that you thought to do this?. Can you take pictures of the near boiler piping? not selfie style, far enough back to see everything involved, model of boiler may also help as we have no idea what exact type of heat exchanger is in this thing. the super close up photo above looks different than what I am used to seeing

  • Larry Weingarten
    Larry Weingarten Member Posts: 4,105

    Hi, I may have missed it, but what type of stainless is the heat exchanger made of?

    Yours, Larry

  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,836

    so it is a fire tube boiler and it is leaking between the tube sheet and the tubes? that really seems like a manufacturing defect.

  • GGross
    GGross Member Posts: 1,905
    edited March 27
    https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1893038#Comment_1893038

    that model is more akin to a tankless water heater heat exchanger if im not mistaken. I agree probably defect though, leaking at a weld point

  • GGross
    GGross Member Posts: 1,905

    There are piping issues here for sure. But I'm not necessarily convinced that's the cause of failure. The flue is also very sketchy but again probably not the cause. are you getting intermittent ignition errors? does the relief valve on the space heating side blow off ever?

  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 7

    I think using deionized water in the closed loop is probably the best solution to eliminate as many variables as possible.

    Like I said this is a combiboiler both DHW and Closed Loop Radiant are using the same municipal water. As well, everyone in the subdivision around me is using it in their hot water heaters.

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,836

    2021 was a tough year for manufacturing, we had vendors that wouldn't manufacture stuff because they couldn't get quality parts to use. it is probably manufacturing defects.

    cloudd
  • cloudd
    cloudd Member Posts: 58
    edited April 5

Categories