Furnace Question

gnahthe

After a gas steam boiler has sat dormant during the summer, is there anything that should be done to it, before firing it up for the winter months?

Thanks

mdshunk

Not really. There's no expansion tank to drain like you might do on a hot water sytem. Gas fired units don't get cleaned like oil burners and coal furnaces do. The only think you might do is visually evaluate the condition of any metal flues, then fire her up. Gas fired steam systems require almost no PM. That's one of the main advantages. Commercial steam boilers have a tapping at the bottom of the boiler where you open a series of valves to "blowdown" the boiler on occasion. This removes solids from the system (read, sludge rust and scale chunks). This has proven largely unnecessary in residential steamers, but if you have a tapping in the very bottom of the boiler with a valve in it, it sure wouldn't hurt anything to blow it off for a minute into a bucket or floor drain. Residential boilers don't really have a proper blow down valve setup, but you can sorta blow them down a little. Don't kill yourself if you can't or don't want to blow down your residential steamer.

gnahthe

Thanks again.

ATS

I would blow-down the low water cut-off valve, they fail on occasion due to lack of maintenance. ITT recommends a weekly blow-down for their valves. Their is a float inside them and they will get calcified and stick to the point that replacement is needed and their not cheap. They are also very important to the safe operation of a steam boiler as they also control the operation of the boiler feed water. I'll also have to disagree with MD on the cleaning of the burners, 50% of the gas fired furnaces and boilers that I see could use a good cleaning even though they are running to spec.

mdshunk

That white ashy stuff? Awww... that's not gonna hurt a blessed thing. Vacuum it up if it bothers you.

ATS

Yeah maybe you're right. It maybe a little overzealous to brush off the burners every year but the customer does expect me to do something before I present them with the bill for a pre-season tune. I'm sticking to my guns with the lwc though, seen too many fail to ignore that.

mdshunk

I guess. I've never seen anyone blowing down a low water cuttoff on a resi boiler. I know that it's part of the daily PM for commercial streamers.