Air purges from Spirovent everytime I cold start my EKO

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hartkem

Member
Jan 24, 2012
249
KC
Ive burned about a cord of wood through my new eko 40 boiler system and I am happy with the way it works. I have 500 gallons of pressurized storage in my basement. The Eko is in an outbuilding 150' away. Since the outside temperature has been up and down lately sometimes my storage and boiler cools off to around 100 degrees when its nice enough outside to skip a fire or two. When I fire the eko up and the primary pump kicks on at 170 degrees the spirovent on the outlet of the boiler purges a little air. This only happens the first time the pump kicks on after the boiler is started. I have an oversized extrol tank hooked up to my storage tank in the basement. I never see pressures over 18 psi. I am concerned that this air is being introduced to the system when the water contracts due to cooling off. I don't think I still have air in my system because its been a month or so since I started burning on and off. I have an automatic full valve hooked to the top of the storage tank also. I know the spirovents can suck air in because when I was draining my boiler outside I could hear the spirovent sucking air in. Do I need to add a small expansions tank outside plumbed off the spirovent? Maybe my expansion tank being so far away is causing me problems.
 
What pressure does your system drop to when you let it cool down? Its possible if you have any auto air vents in the system that you are pulling air in through those when the pressure is low...

Or it could be that there was some dissolved oxygen in the system that is just still working its way out.

Is your autofill valve turned on? You could turn it off, and just watch your pressures. That way you would know if you had a leak somewhere and were making up water.

But in all seriousness, it could still be air somewhere in your system. Running on and off for a month could just still be purging some air out of nooks and crannies if it wasnt all eliminated the first time.
 
I keep the caps closed on my auto vents, and just open them once in & while to see if they've collected any air. They did quite regularly at first, now it's rare. It does take a while for all of it to work its way out. I've also got an auto fill setup, but it's turned off unless I need to add a bit of water.
 
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