BOILER STEAMING!

[EForest]

Cheers all,
Due to this wonderful weather I decided to try a burn with valves to storage shut off. Habits are a bit of a problem for me (my wife will attest to this) and I loaded the beast the second time as I always have even though it was already at 200* :shut: . Normally this would not be a problem when heating 3K of water but tonight I am heating only the 1K in the Switzer. When I went down an hour ago to investigate the odd noises coming from the basement I found the beast was pumping steam to my dump zone and the gage was reading 244* @ 8PSI yes only 8PSI My expansion tank is a 500 gal propane tank thank God.
I opened the valve to storage and an hour later the top of the boiler has dropped only 2* with the grundfos4375 running on high.
Storage has raised 30* since I opened the valve. I had raised the setting on the overheat shut down (aquastat) this winter and forgot to turn it down before tonight's burn. With the 2K of storage and the 1K in the switzer I never came close to this temp in the boiler. Wow what a night, I'm glad the welding on the beast has held or my family would be living in the barn (and I'd be in the dog house)!! The interesting thing to me is that I must have a lot of air in the system due to the fact that the air vent hasn't stopped hissing for the past hour. You boiler pro's would be helpful on that thought. It will be a long night tonight with the 14" bed of coals and wood in the fire box. OOPS! This will be a lesson learned the hard way. Happily my wife is enjoying the 75+ temps since I've cranked all 4 zones to max temp.

wood burning is not a hobby and some day I will get it right.........

 

[DaveBP]

The interesting thing to me is that I must have a lot of air in the system due to the fact that the air vent hasn’t stopped hissing for the past hour.

Trust you got through the night safely. Sure sounds like you got through it educationally!

If your pressure gauge was correct and you only had 8 psi on the whole system at 244F you have boiling water, I think. I seem to remember water boiling at 250F @ 15psi. It might not be air coming off the air vent, it might just have been steam.

If you really only got to 8 psi you must have plenty of expansion tank capacity.

 

[sparke]

Whenever my system overheats and makes steam it puts ALOT of air into the system. My spirovent air eliminator eventually gets it all but it takes a day or two. Best thing you can do is purge the system to try and expedite the process...

 

[loggie]

Wow ED,sounds scary I Have taken my 1250 switzer up to 220 deg and 30 psi but I normaly dont go above 210.Its good to know the boiler can take it,good thing your expansion tank is plenty big.

 

[EForest]

Thanks for your concern guys.
I was up till 2AM listening to the creepy creaking, and hissing of the beast Sunday night.
I won't make that foolish mistake again :red:
The system leveled out at 160* for all 3K of water, enough to get me thru the past two days.
I burned again tonight with storage off and high limit set correctly. The high limit kicked in with a very small bed of coals

YAHOO!