Corroded Brass fitting on Central boiler

Welcome to the forum. It's been a while since our boiler days but do you treat your water? We had a water "conditioner" we used to add to keep corrosion down.

Boiler folks will hopefully chime in with more current/better info...

Good luck.

Might want to start a new thread with that in the title as I'm sure there are other forum members that have the same fittings... Thanks for the info!

As touched on above, lack of water treatment may also have played a part.

And also perhaps high pump flow & water velocity - which would be related to exact type of pump, and pipe size & head. I think there are a lot of OWB setups out there with undersized underground piping that gets compensated for by using a big pump & high water velocities.

Home Depot has simple test kits not sure how much they cover. Supply houses carry better test kits. Check for the ph levels is a good start 7.0 is what you want less then 6.8 ph ad water is considered acidic and can start doing damage to copper and brass.

I'm not familiar with what chemicals they I've for pool ph. http://www.rhomarwater.com/products/residential-hydronic-radiant/. This Is the brand I have been using for about 8 yrs now for my house and company jobs. Do you run glycol in your hot water system. Glycol that breaks down can wreak havoc on the ph in a system.
I think ph is atleast the first place to start looking and should e a rather cheap test kit.

Also how old is your system and any other signs of corrosion on other fittings.

Garn guys also have to do the water chemistry thing. There is an outfit most of them use, not 100% sure of the name - Precision Chemical or something like that? You'd send them a sample & they tell you what's what & what you need to do.

I'm pretty sure it's more than just ph - some of this stuff also scrubs oxygen out too. I think. Talking a bit over my head here.

These are the guys that can tell you what you have and how to correct it as far as open boiler system water goes. I talked to Mike. Very helpful.

http://www.woodboilersolutions.com

We use Mikes products exclusively in open and sealed systems for all our installs.

heaterman said:

We use Mikes products exclusively in open and sealed systems for all our installs.

Click to expand...

Do you use this stuff in Garns too, or does Garn have their own brand?

Buzz Saw said:

Do you use this stuff in Garns too, or does Garn have their own brand?

Click to expand...

Mike "packages" product specifically for Garn based on water samples sent in by the owner. That's part of the Garn program and gives the user a chemical mix that is custom tailored for their actual water conditions.

When we do a system using another brand or type of boiler, we send in the water samples for that particular system and he'll analyze and recommend accordingly. The generic water treatment he sells "off the shelf" is a basic mix of inhibitors, oxygen scavenging and PH adjusting chemicals which we have found to be very good for most normal capacity OWB's.
If you call them up you can order a test kit and they will analyze your particular sample and furnish a recommended package made specifically for you. I think the cost is in the $25-35 range for the test kit and testing.
The number I have for Precision Chem is 920-324-2007.

I had a fitting that looked like that. It was on a secondary loop. Not sure if the fitting came from CB or pexwarehouse.

That was 2 or 3 years ago. I have at least 6 that are the same size. System installed in 2007. No leaks since.