Boiler water looks very dirty

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jsher
jsher Posts: 8
in Strictly Steam

Fired up my boiler for the first time this year. I had cleaned my sight glass prior to firing it up. Shortly after firing it up the water got dirty. Seems like my water is surging when I watch the site glass. After reading through old posts seems like I may need to skim my boiler. I am not familiar with the process at all. So any input would be very helpful.

boiler sight 1.jpg boiler site 3.jpg boiler site 4.jpg

Comments

  • ethicalpaul
    ethicalpaul Posts: 9,041

    You should only need to skim it if oil was recently introduced by pipe work or new boiler install (which it doesn't look like it's too new).

    You can get surging from other water quality issues than oil. Yours looks like chocolate milk with lots of suspended solids. I am not a fan of draining and refilling boilers just for fun, but you might need it here. Do you perform any water treatment? If not, you should consider adding a little 8-way when you refill, but keep the amount to like 1/3 of the directions…they want you to add too much.

    See what others say, but that's my opinion from here.

    NJ Steam Homeowner.
    See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el

    109A_5
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Posts: 18,238

    Is there a valve on the return that is closed? I can't tell what that valve is.

    There could be oil in the system if work was done elsewhere in the system.

  • 109A_5
    109A_5 Posts: 4,626

    May want to flush the wet returns also if you can. Do the flush when you can use the system immediately after.

    National - U.S. Gas Boiler 45+ Years Old
    Steam 300 SQ. FT. - EDR 347
    One Pipe System
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Posts: 21,181

    The older Smith 28s did not have a skim tapping. You can take the flange off the back of the boiler near the smoke pipe.

    3 options

    If the blind flange is cast iron, you could drill and tap it. Smith has an 1 1/4" (maybe 1 1/2") tap on the newer boilers

    Or by a steel blind flange and have a welder weld a tapping into it.

    Or call Smith and buy the new flange

    Chances are the poor thing has never been skimmed

    mattmia2

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