boiler expansion

[[email protected]]

My Eko 40 was put in by a licensed plumber, but it seems he forgot to put in a big enough expansion tank so my boiler expanded on the right side. I was wondering has this happened to anybody and has anybody had any success taking off the whole side and re-welding a new side on. I have had the right lower corner welded a few times, but it just keeps expanding and shrinking. I now will have a large enough expansion tank so will just re-welding the cracks work now that I have an expansion tank big enough. The unit is only two years old. Any advice would be great.
thanks
hulk

 

[__dan]

If the expansion tank was undersized, the excess would have weeped out the relief valve over 30 psi, which is a common cause of relief valve weeping.. If your EKO is rated for 30 psi working pressure and you have a functioning relief valve installed on the system, it is physically impossible for system pressure to exceed 30 psi, contingent on the relief valve.

There is something else causing this, if in fact the Eko steel is moving for system pressures less than the relief valve setpoint at 30 psi.

 

[[email protected]]

Yes I have 30 PSI valve on the system so I do not know why this happened. The guy with the EKO warenty said my warenty is voided due to undersized pressure tank. I told him that I had a relief valve on so why did the boiler expand? He kept saying the expansion tank.

 

[mikefrommaine]

What size expansion tank did you have. And did the relief valve ever weep or open?

 

[leon]

Yes I have 30 PSI valve on the system so I do not know why this happened. The guy with the EKO warenty said my warenty is voided due to undersized pressure tank. I told him that I had a relief valve on so why did the boiler expand? He kept saying the expansion tank.

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This is not possible physically unless the steel was on the order of 1/32-1/16
inches thick and you had water pressure that exceeded 80 plus PSI.

Any expansion tank would simply permit the bladdder to expand absorbing
the pressure to a point where the bladder pushed up against the shell
so his argument is nonsense.


The relief valve would have weeped or popped off losing much water and making a mess.
I would make phone call to someone above your dealer to resolve this and or go to small claims court too.

 

[[email protected]]

My relief valve valve did open. I had to connect pex and run it out side so water would not keep getting all over.

 

[heaterman]

Functioning relief valve in place..........Pressure vessel sides bulging.........and the distributor says too small an expansion tank?

Sorry sir but that is BS. You have a serious problem with that pressure vessel and I would advise discontinuing use of it immediately. If the metal it fails while burning the water draining into your boiler room will be the least of your worries

The only "if " in the scenario would be the possibility of the relief valve failing to open or the line you ran outside becoming plugged or blocked with something. Other than that, there is virtually no way an undersized exp tank would cause a weld to break or metal to fail.

 

[heaterman]

Not knowing what the rest of your system consists of as far as volume is concerned..........You would probably need 2 tanks along the size of the Extrol XV90 which will accept about 30gallons of water. With 500 gallons of storage + the system you are probably in the 40-45 gallon range going from room temp to 180* water. Best to have extra capacity when dealing with anything wood fired because they don't go "on/off" immediately like a gas, oil or pellet fired appliance does.