Gas boiler maintenance

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

I've been trying to track down a manual or video of maintenance on an old Smith gas boiler. Can't find anything, nothing comes up on Google even recognizing the model.

I believe it was built in 1980. It's hot water, not steam.

Any tips?

 

[wooduser]

Please post the make and model number as listed on the rating plate of the equipment.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Please post the make and model number as listed on the rating plate of the equipment.

HB Smith model: SGB2-8W CON

I have all the other information from the plate if any of that is helpful.

Thanks.

 

[wooduser]

file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/GB200IM-5.pdf


Does this look like your equipment?

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/GB200IM-5.pdf


Does this look like your equipment?

Close, but I don't think so. Side, front, top.

 

[wooduser]

What are you trying to accomplish?

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

What are you trying to accomplish?

Maintenance. I'd like to figure out the procedure for looking it over for any issues with the burners, or whatever else needs attention. Both to make sure it's safe, as well as running at the highest efficiency that it is capable of. A video would be best, but the manual would be good, too.

I think it's almost 40 years old, and while it infrequently gets used, when we need it, we need it.

 

[wooduser]

In my view as a now retired gas appliance repairman, it's often safer for a DIYer to repair a problem on a gas appliance than to do regular maintenance on such equipment.

A wide variety of things can be wrong with an appliance, most of which a DIYer is not going to be able to recognize. So it's easy to overlook problems which can be serious.

It can be useful to look for direction for an owner's manual for maintenance items, but such list are bound to be incomplete and probably not a lot of help in identifying what should be done.

While manufacturer's typically recommend annual maintenance by a trained repairman, doing that even every three years and getting suggestions from the repairman on what to look for and do in the intervening years would be a better approach, in my view.

In addition to that, boiler systems are typically a lot more complicated than hot air furnaces. The boiler itself is only one of many parts of such a system, and unraveling how the whole system works is not going to be something you find in the boiler manual, and can be a difficult task to figure out.

In short, I don't consider this kind of task to be useful for DIYers, but good luck if you want to give it a try.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

In my view as a now retired gas appliance repairman, it's often safer for a DIYer to repair a problem on a gas appliance than to do regular maintenance on such equipment.

A wide variety of things can be wrong with an appliance, most of which a DIYer is not going to be able to recognize. So it's easy to overlook problems which can be serious.

It can be useful to look for direction for an owner's manual for maintenance items, but such list are bound to be incomplete and probably not a lot of help in identifying what should be done.

While manufacturer's typically recommend annual maintenance by a trained repairman, doing that even every five years and getting suggestions from the repairman on what to look for and do in the intervening years would be a better approach, in my view.

In short, I don't consider this kind of task to be useful for DIYers, but good luck if you want to give it a try.

Thanks, I think this is probably good advice, and was starting to lean in this direction, the more I looked at it and thought about it as I searched for resources.

Just to clarify, when you said that "it's often safer for a DIYer to repair a problem on a gas appliance than to do regular maintenance on such equipment", did you mean to hire out the repair, or to do the repair themselves? If the latter, how would we know what repairs are necessary?

 

[wooduser]

To illustrate the difficulties, read the directions for maintenance on page 14-15 of the manual linked to in an earlier post. While I can see from the pictures that your boiler is an earlier version of the boiler in the link, to a repairman the manual would provide good directions on what should be checked during a maintenance check. Are those directions something you can clearly follow and understand?

And those directions are a good list, but not one I'd consider complete. If I were doing an annual maintenance check I'd be looking at a wide variety of other possible issues to see if there were things not described that should be checked or inspected. Beyond that, there are all the other parts outside the boiler that should be checked and inspected as needed for correct operation.

Perhaps this illustrates my reluctance to encourage DIYers to undertake maintenance that probably required more skill than a lot of repairs.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

. Are those directions something you can clearly follow

Absolutely not. They are written in Chinese or something, aren't they? ;-)

I totally get what you are saying...

Except the part about doing repairs diy. How would repairing something be easier than maintenance? Perhaps one would know that a valve or thermocouple needs replaced, but if I could figure that out, I could probably figure out the maintenance.

Trying not to be thick here, maybe an example of a repair that a diy'er could be comfortable with?

 

[wooduser]

Just to clarify, when you said that "it's often safer for a DIYer to repair a problem on a gas appliance than to do regular maintenance on such equipment", did you mean to hire out the repair, or to do the repair themselves? If the latter, how would we know what repairs are necessary?

Oh, I give assistance to people in identifying problems with their gas equipment here all the time, and will gladly coach people in doing repairs themselves if I think it's safe for them to do them. If I think a repair is unwise for a DIYer to do, I tell them that too. That may be the best advice and help I can give a DIYer!

Except the part about doing repairs diy. How would repairing something be easier than maintenance? Perhaps one would know that a valve or thermocouple needs replaced, but if I could figure that out, I could probably figure out the maintenance.

Thermocouples are replaced a lot more often than they are bad. People usually replace thermocouples when the pilot burner wont stay lit, bexcause it's an easy task to do, the part is cheap and fairly readily available. However, it's far more common for a dirty pilot orifice to be causing the problem than the thermocouple.

So when such a problem is reported, I'll typically try to help diagnose the problem accurately, which usually doesn't involve replacing the thermocouple. But if that is the likely problem, then I'd encourage people to replace it, for the reasons given above.

But the MAINTENANCE would involve cleaning the pilot orifice. Do that each year, or even each two or three years, and you will largely avoid the issues of pilot outages or pilots that are hard to get to stay lit.

Those are my biases in offering advice. However, other people on this board offer advice too, and they may have different methods that they use in doing so. And sometimes I'll violate my own rules when there seem to be good reasons for doing so.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Oh, I give assistance to people in identifying problems with their gas equipment here all the time, and will gladly coach people in doing repairs themselves if I think it's safe for them to do them. If I think a repair is unwise for a DIYer to do, I tell them that too. That may be the best advice and help I can give a DIYer!



Thermocouples are replaced a lot more often than they are bad. People usually replace thermocouples when the pilot burner wont stay lit, bexcause it's an easy task to do, the part is cheap and fairly readily available. However, it's far more common for a dirty pilot orifice to be causing the problem than the thermocouple.

So when such a problem is reported, I'll typically try to help diagnose the problem accurately, which usually doesn't involve replacing the thermocouple. But if that is the likely problem, then I'd encourage people to replace it, for the reasons given above.

But the MAINTENANCE would involve cleaning the pilot orifice. Do that each year, or even each two or three years, and you will largely avoid the issues of pilot outages or pilots that are hard to get to stay lit.

Those are my biases in offering advice. However, other people on this board offer advice too, and they may have different methods that they use in doing so. And sometimes I'll violate my own rules when there seem to be good reasons for doing so.

Wanna come over and help me out with a maintenance call and advice about what to repair? I know you are retired, but my boiler hasn't been looked at by other than me in at least 6 years, probably more than 10. You sound like my kind of guy.

 

[wooduser]

Having your boiler inspected by a competent person should be done every 3-5 years. Tearing it apart as described in the manual might be appropriate after the lengthy period of non maintenance your describe, but would be more of a judgement call if someone is checking it more regularly.

And there are sharks and marginally competent people swimming around out there, quite a few of them.

In my view, the most important qualification for pretty much any service supplier is HONESTY. Competence would be next, but honesty is the most important in my considered opinion. Diogenes famously searched for one honest man....


I'd ask around among friends, families and neighbors for recommendations on honest and competent service providers, including roofer, electricians, plumbers, doctors and lawyers and such. That's a good start.

I've often thought that a terrific Christmas gift would be giving the gift of a list of honest and competent service providers.

I was self employed as a gas appliance repairman for 13 years from 1994-2007. And I didn't hire employees ---- I did the work myself. That insured that my standards and values were a regular part of the service I offered.

By contrast, most furnace repair companies have employees doing the work. That often means that the person who shows up at your door is marginally trained and experienced, but hopefully is backed up by a competent and experienced person who can be called in to solve problems that the first line person cannot. Of course, that happens (if it happens at all)_usually after problems remain unsolved for multiple service calls.

And all too often, "repair" services masquerade as sales jobs on customers to buy new equipment, whether they need it or not, and the customer pays for the sales job!

Your older boiler would be a target for that kind of sales job. You have a standing pilot ignition system and a draft hood, which suggests a boiler dating from the 1960s or so, with an efficiency of around 60% or so.

New condensing boilers can have real efficiency of 92% or so. In your boiler,when the hydrogen in the natural gas is burned the result is steam and other combustion gasses which is vented out of the house with temperatures of 400-600 degrees F.

With a condensing boiler, those combustion gasses are cooled down to about 120 degrees F, which causes the steam to condense into water. The water is then drained out of the boiler system as waste, which can be a gallon or so of condensate if the boiler burner were run continuously for an hour.. Just as it takes a lot of energy to boil water into steam, if you condense steam into water you get "latent heat" which is used to heat your house when the water in the combustion gas is condensed into water. And in addition to that, by cooling the combustion gasses down to 120 degrees F you get additional heat from that, including getting the heat from cooling that water vapor down from 400-600 degrees to 120 degrees.

Condensing boilers often take their combustion air from outdoors, while your boiler uses combustion air from the space in which it's located. Every cubic foot of air the boiler uses that is probably already heated is replaced by letting a cubic foot of cold air from outdoors infiltrate the house, which then needs to be heated. That draft hood I mentioned takes additional room air and vents it directly out the chimney!

So while you can very likely continue using your existing boiler for decades to come, there is a reasonable argument for replacing it with a much higher efficiency condensing boiler. That's something you can think about, but too many "repair" men will use the opportunity to do a sales job on you and pressure you to make a fast decision rather than taking the time to make a smart decision. And the smart decision may be to keep using what you have for some additional years ----since you may have other more important ways to spend your money at this time.

And new boilers are expensive ----perhaps $5-15,000.