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Perhaps you've heard THAT noise? Oh, that's a BIG noise!
You blame the automatic water feeder for this. The feeder is absolutely innocent - but also convenient. What's next? Oh, someone decides to install a check valve in the wet return. That person figures that a check valve will keep the water from backing out of the boiler. On the day that the check valve goes in, the water stops backing out of the boiler. Problem solved? Nope. It's really just beginning. Now the condensate can't get back into the boiler because there’s not enough pressure to open the check valve. The water hammer continues its psychotic banging whenever any zone valve opens. What to do? What to do? You install an expensive boiler-feed pump. And in doing so, you also opened the system's returns to atmosphere by hooking them up to the boiler-feed pump's vented receiver. Steam vomits into the boiler room from the vent. Yikes! You decide to install one huge master trap at the inlet to the boiler-feed pump to keep the steam from spewing forth from the vent. This has never once worked in the history of Heating, but don't let that stop you. Maybe it will work for you because you're so good-looking.
The automatic water feeder gets blamed again. It's innocent, but what the heck? You should never get yourself into these situations with gravity-return steam systems and motorized zone valves in the first place. But if you do, know that a half-inch line, run from one side of the zone valve (across the TOP, not the bottom of the valve) will bleed some steam pressure into the mains. It just might get you off the hook.
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But wait, there's more. As the water goes flying into the pipes, the boiler begins to drop into a low-water condition. Bound to happen, right? The burner shuts off, but before the condensate can return, the automatic water feeder kicks in and adds water to a system that doesn’t really need more water. When the condensate finally returns from the system, the boiler floods.
The master trap allows steam to work its way into the formerly wet returns. Now, you have more water hammer than you had before. Worse yet, whenever all the zone valves close on a boiler that’s filled with steam, a vacuum forms inside the boiler. This causes the water that’s in your new boiler-feed pump to flow into the boiler and flood it.| Dan Holohan - [Intro] | [Email] | [Website] |
| The views expressed in this article are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of MasterPlumbers.com |
