I've got a leaker

[Granite Statah]

quick recap: we moved in to this house in September. It was built in 1987 and has had only one owner (single woman, raised 2 daughters in it). There is a New Yorker WC-90 add-on boiler that was barely used, and the realtor said "she could never get it going right". I had a heating guy stop over to give me a good once-over, and everything seemed to check out just fine (valves, circulators, chimney, etc).

I've had several good fires in it since December with no issues until last week, when I noticed water on the floor close to my domestic storage tank. It too seems original, so I figured it had shat itself. Upon closer inspection, I found a bad solder joint in the return line to wood boiler. It's not a huge leak, just a steady drip. Maybe a quart a day.

So now the question: how do I get the water out of that pipe so that I can solder it? I do have the skills, and the stuff, but I know that making steam instead of heating copper is bad for business. Should I close off the feed + return ball valves to the oil boiler and then just use drain at the bottom of the wood boiler? Seems like an awful lot of water, but if that's the way then so be it. Thanks for reading.

 

[ewdudley]

Freezing the pipe to isolate the section is all the rage these days.

Once I had a situation where I could isolate the section with valves, but I had no way to drain it, so I drilled a small hole to drain the section, did the repair, and then soldered the hole closed.

 

[tom in maine]

From the looks of it, if you shut the ball valves to the oil boiler and shut the ball valve to the circulator behind the boiler, you can drain the wood boiler down a bit once you remove the air vent near the leak. You should be able to get enough water out to re-solder.
Would be helpful to see where the other end of that pipe goes to as it heads toward the floor just to make sure there is nothing else to isolate.

You should not have to drain the wood boiler, although this is not a big deal if you had to.

 

[maple1]

Ditto what Tom said - and would be good to see what's down low there, yes.

Depending on your luck, once you get the water out - you may or may not have to unsolder/disassemble it, clean, & resolder. I would first try lots of flame & flux & some new solder, the solder might pull into the joint without taking it apart. But if not, and you have to take it apart, a couple of strategically place cuts in the pipe will help get it apart, then you can get it all back together with a new union or coupling where the cuts were made. I've gotten lucky with almost the same situation, and also have had to resort to getting the recip saw out. You've got one potential place to take part of it apart if you unbolt the circ flange - if there's a shut off valve on the other side of the circ. Sometimes things snowball though - like, for instance, if that's a gate valve I see on the other side of the circ, and it takes to leaking out the stem when you shut it off.

 

[Granite Statah]

thanks guys. Searsport, love it, we drive through there on our way to Tremont ME every summer....

it's a bit tough to see, but the pipe heads down on an angle behind the smokepipe and right in to the boiler. There's a tee right in front of the circulator; this is the dump zone that goes out to a Modine space heater.

I can give it a shot. It's supposed to be pretty mild this week.

 

[maple1]

OK, that wasn't a gate valve I thought I saw on the other side of the circ, it was a drain valve. If you can keep going past that and up that pipe and find a shut off up there, you might get enough drained off out of that drain valve past the circ. If there's not a check valve in it. As mentioned you also want to shut everything else off coming into the boiler. Then you can let air in that vent so the water will drain out the line - might have to take it out, or you might be able to hold it down so air comes in (like letting air out of a tire). If you're going to try it, you might want to check everything over thoroughly & figure where adding ball valves would make something like this easier in the future, and put them in while you're at it. Example - it's always a good idea to have a ball valve on each side of a circ so the circ can be serviced without draining much. Hopefully there's enough valves there you can shut everything off coming into the boiler.

 

[Fred61]

If there were a valve on the pipe going down behind the boiler and another ball valve to the left of the circulator the tube in could be isolated and the flange on the circulator could be loosened to drain enough water out of that area.
I have heard of people (thinking out of the box people) stuffing a wad of bread in the pipe to hold back the flow while the soldering was taking place. It will then dissolve later.

 

[maple1]

I have heard of people (thinking out of the box people) stuffing a wad of bread in the pipe to hold back the flow while the soldering was taking place. It will then dissolve later.

I have done that.

 

[velvetfoot]

How about wrapping it with that stretchy silicone tape? It's supposed to be fairly high temp and I think they're advertised for leaks. Then fix it right after the heating season.

 

[Bad LP]

I'm a tool junky.

I'd buy a pro press or rent one.

 

[simple.serf]

I don't trust the o rings on Propress fittings on a boiler. Seen them fail at work.