I found out more about steam boiler treatments in the first ten minutes of you video..after 5yr of searching the TH-cam for information..this is awesome thanks
I have had this problem with surgex and other chemicals as steam clean and squick. I have always gone back to the old timers trick of using arm and hammer baking soda. I am the youngest of 7 family members all boiler service mechanics. It has never failed me.
@@pb7379-j2k baking soda neutralizes the acids in the water and settles to the bottom. I have 2 jobs that I straightened out and stopped the banging in the system with 3-4 treatments on 1lb baking soda
For those of us with no sight glass risers, how can we tell if we are surging? I think it’s normal to get some sight glass bouncing and that is the normal indicator. The other way I was thinking is if you have a bunch of carryover then the equalizer will get hot quickly and if you don’t have carryover the equalizer will stay relatively cool. Do you have any idea if this is true?
@@tkpk5119 my equalizer gets pretty hot regardless. I think the gauge glass is the best indicator. If you see it drop more than 2” especially if it happens suddenly, that would be the indication. Often the level will drop to the very bottom of the glass during surging, then there’s no doubt. Sometimes you can tell from a whooshing sound in the header
Where did you get the sight glass on the header? Thanks for this video btw I will stop using surge X from now on I use it for lots of my customers but not anymore I always noticed on the sight glass surging water was more noticeable but I always tell my customers to completely flush boiler after 24 hours
I have installed over 1000 boilers in 30 yrs. I never have many steaming problems and I don’t build a drop header as they were never installed on the original steam boilers of the last century (true or false). I have been thousands of boiler rooms commercial and residential. My personal opinion is that drop headers were created to fix a problem of using chemicals to maintain water conditioning.
Thanks for your comment! I agree with you that decent water quality, a drop header isn’t necessary at all. But I will differ a bit about the additives. Something simple to get the ph up to 11 will dramatically cut corrosion of iron and won’t affect the steam quality (see my other video where I add 8-way)
Hey Paul, I'm just about ready to fire up my new steam boiler for the first time. I was going to use SurgeX but have now decided against it (largely due to your findings). The fact that your boiler was running fine BEFORE you added SurgeX tells me all I need to know.
I would stick to the manufacturer's instructions...many of them recommend putting some TSP (or similar washing soda) into the boiler, run it for a short time, let it cool, drain it, refill it, and then perform "skimming" on it to remove any remaining oils. There are lots of videos and online instructions about skimming, it's better than any additive. Once the boiler is clean and running well, you can consider adding something like 8-way or similar to bring the PH of the boiler water to 10 or 11 to reduce corrosion
Not sure I'd be confident in the interpretation here. Previously a bunch of oil was added to the tank for the Squick demonstration, but there was clearly still oil/squick residue remaining as the water @24:00 was clearly sludgy.
I skimmed first but let’s say you’re right-the water wasn’t great. Isn’t that this product’s claim that it prevents surging?!? If it only prevents surging with perfect water that doesn’t need treatment then what is the point?
@@pb7379-j2k I think there is an expectation that the tank would be oil free. Even without that expectation, the tank should be drained until the water coming out of the tank is clear, not just the site glass as any precipitate will settle to the bottom. I'd love to see a repeat to see if SurgeX behaves the same. I have piping without a drop header so wet steam is a concern.
I love your steam site pipes , better then the Carlin test trailer which I have seen many times but never impressed me. I would like to see you use 1 lb of baking soda after using surgex in that boiler. Don’t get me wrong you will have to drain and add more baking soda to correct very bad water conditions. But once you correct to water you will not have those problems again.
Thanks, I like them too! You can get them on Amazon. Look up “tri-clamp sight glass 2.5 inch”. They are like $40 plus a little more for the NPT adapter fittings. They have a built in discount kind of because they are easy to assemble unions also
@@pb7379-j2k For $40 or so, they'll be on every steam boiler I install. (the very few I install) Seems like a tiny cost relative to the benefits. Thanks!
You could have just dumped the powder into the pipe elbow and then just dumped a few cups of water into it to get the powder in to the boiler and then just let the auto feeder inlet fill the boiler to the perfect level. Then you don't have to risk spilling the bucket of surgex everywhere. Also the reason why surging occurs is due to a very high TDS count in the water as well as oils the have accumulated in the boiler from the factory and any black pipe. To get rid of that you need a top level skimming tap which the boiler should have. Then you let the boiler sit off for an hour. Then just crack the skimming valve open and let it run for an hour.
There were no factory oils in my boiler. I added surgex to a clean boiler. It’s garbage. I don’t have an auto feeder. I didn’t want chunks of powder remaining in my skim tapping setup.
@@pb7379-j2k No no you did it a completely acceptable way that ensured proper mixing and you absolutely did nothing wrong. I've just found through experience that it's easier to dump the powder in directly and then just pour water into the skim tap to wash all of the powder into the boiler and then none of the powder would be stuck inside the tap. It's just easier because then you don't risk spilling the surgex when trying to pour it in.
@@pb7379-j2k I agree it was surging but I'm curious at what pressure do you operate your boiler? Also at the end I noticed that the boiler must not have had any pressure on it when you were showing us the comparison of the fresh water because when you shut the boiler off after you said it was boiling, you immediately opened up the skimming valve. What's weird is if your boiler was hot and boiling at that point, then opening that skimming valve would have been a very bad idea because of you had any steam pressure you would have seen steam come out of that skimming tap. I am curious to know how long you were running the boiler after filling it with cold water before showing us how much better the system was running. Because if you weren't actually boiling at that point I wouldn't expect to see any hot billing water appear in the sight glass header. By the way I like your set up man. That's really cool that you have the ability to see inside the header.
@@nightone9720 it was steaming when you saw the boiling water in the riser 😅 It doesn’t build any significant pressure except on a long return from setback. It’s normally like 1” of wc
Sorry, I missed this comment until just now. You can search Amazon for "tri-clamp sight glass", they are not too expensive and you can get fittings for them for NPT pipes. They are used in brewing and chemical manufacturing.
@@pb7379-j2kMegapress on near boiler piping, replacing perfectly good oil boilers with less efficient atmospherics rather than just putting on a conversion burner, replacing straight pattern Gorton D vents with Gorton 1s even though they both flow 0.330 CFM, replacing dry returns with copper, replacing an entire perfectly good Robertshaw millivolt gas valve with one of those stupid intermittent pilot Honeywells because he didn't have a spare powerpile generator, ripping off customers like charging $1000 for a loose wire, attaching copper directly to galvanized without a dielectric union, not skimming new boilers, and much, much more. Questionable is putting it lightly, the guy is a real hack.
when you test the three surgex concentrations, the water level is a gal higher / closer to top of chamber- which we would send more water to the pipes- or did you dump some to level?
So let me see if I get what you’re saying: if you use plain water or other products with one extra gallon in your boiler you are fine, but if you use surge-x, your boiler will surge like crazy. Is that the sales pitch? Honestly I don’t recall the exact level but I’ll look. But regardless, no product should increase surging vs plain water. Otherwise what’s its purpose? Ps I looked back at the video- the water appeared in the risers when I added the first surge-x amount and the water level was actually low
@@pb7379-j2k i meant that higher water level is more likely to cause splashing into the mains just by being closer, so ideally the level would be the same for each test case, so as to isolate the effect of the treatment. but, the change with surgex is so dramatic, any water level differences can probably be discounted.
@@BaconJD420 give this one a try, it’s nice and short. In the other ones I put various stuff in the boiler to show what happens but this is the baseline th-cam.com/video/4IymyZB4wlI/w-d-xo.html
Hmmm…Is your boiler feed water pH unusual? From what I’ve read, there’s very little discussion of - and recommendation for - rust inhibitors on the Heating Help forums and in the literature. Seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Amazon. Search for tri-clamp sight glass. You need the glass, two clamps, and two NPT adapter fittings. The sizing is a bit confusing, look at the documentation/drawings to clarify
Your scale probably wasn't broken, Most professionals will take a reducing elbow, Dump a whole bottle of the Sur-x you got into the reducing elbow & then wash it down with a couple liters or so of water. If your interested in HVac type stuff especially boilers you should check out Mikey Pipes, He's a Plumbing Master who teaches people alot of the information that every hvac worker should really be telling people.
@@pb7379-j2k Lol Personally if its having issues, its best to drain it replace the water, The reason he doe sit all the time, is most people don't do maintenance on thier stuff, Most people don't even know you have too. So odds are none of it has been drained or redone in years in most peoples house. That goes for all hvac type stuff, & most of the "service professionals" don't really tell you about it when you get them. So from what i have seen he does it mostly to put it in the videos & to tell the customer about it, & of course it adds more content to the videos of course. But yeah he's one of the few that i have seen that explains even stuff pro's go to school to learn. Which today of course can be found online thankfully.
@@KingKaturaI watch Mikey Pipes. But he never skims and only drains/refills a few times, then dumps in surgex. This includes his new boiler installations. Any true steam expert would tell you skimming the boiler after a new install is far better than any chemical you could add, and absolutely necessary.
@@pb7379-j2k Yeah man. Hydrolevel warns against excessive makeup water and then there are guys recommending draining down till the LWCO probe says low water, to test once a month or even weekly. Don't they see that as excessive makeup water lol?
How about if I heat it up on the stove and pour it in 😅 My system doesn’t leak, my makeup water is like a gallon a year and my ph is 11. That tiny amount of oxygen isn’t going to hurt it
Looks like SurgeX is so turbulent that you could use it to flush the system. Maybe it would break loose and move a lot of sludge. And it seems like putting corrosion inhibiting additives into a system would be a no brainer, but I don't hear it talked about much. That's like filling your automobile cooling system with pure tap water. Uggg...
I love your boiler set up.
Thanks Gerry! That means a lot!
I found out more about steam boiler treatments in the first ten minutes of you video..after 5yr of searching the TH-cam for information..this is awesome thanks
Thanks, I'm glad it helped you!
I have had this problem with surgex and other chemicals as steam clean and squick. I have always gone back to the old timers trick of using arm and hammer baking soda. I am the youngest of 7 family members all boiler service mechanics. It has never failed me.
What does the baking soda do for you? I’d use plain water exclusively but I like to raise the ph to reduce corrosion
@@pb7379-j2k baking soda neutralizes the acids in the water and settles to the bottom. I have 2 jobs that I straightened out and stopped the banging in the system with 3-4 treatments on 1lb baking soda
I may have missed it, as I just found this video. but I did not hear you state the recommended ph of that boiler. I can be found in the included paper
Yes different manufacturers say different things. I think peerless says 10-11 but some other makers are silent
I believe Weil McLain is 7.0 - 8.5 ph but I am going to check , I have paperwork for Weil McLain from 1989 on oxygen corrosion I will my folder
@@atlasfueloilinc.2421 did you find out the correct ph for weil mclain?
For those of us with no sight glass risers, how can we tell if we are surging? I think it’s normal to get some sight glass bouncing and that is the normal indicator.
The other way I was thinking is if you have a bunch of carryover then the equalizer will get hot quickly and if you don’t have carryover the equalizer will stay relatively cool. Do you have any idea if this is true?
@@tkpk5119 my equalizer gets pretty hot regardless.
I think the gauge glass is the best indicator. If you see it drop more than 2” especially if it happens suddenly, that would be the indication.
Often the level will drop to the very bottom of the glass during surging, then there’s no doubt.
Sometimes you can tell from a whooshing sound in the header
Where did you get the sight glass on the header?
Thanks for this video btw I will stop using surge X from now on
I use it for lots of my customers but not anymore
I always noticed on the sight glass surging water was more noticeable but I always tell my customers to completely flush boiler after 24 hours
The sight glasses are on Amazon and eBay. Search “tri-clamp sight glass”
I have installed over 1000 boilers in 30 yrs. I never have many steaming problems and I don’t build a drop header as they were never installed on the original steam boilers of the last century (true or false). I have been thousands of boiler rooms commercial and residential. My personal opinion is that drop headers were created to fix a problem of using chemicals to maintain water conditioning.
Thanks for your comment! I agree with you that decent water quality, a drop header isn’t necessary at all.
But I will differ a bit about the additives. Something simple to get the ph up to 11 will dramatically cut corrosion of iron and won’t affect the steam quality (see my other video where I add 8-way)
Hey Paul,
I'm just about ready to fire up my new steam boiler for the first time. I was going to use SurgeX but have now decided against it (largely due to your findings). The fact that your boiler was running fine BEFORE you added SurgeX tells me all I need to know.
I would stick to the manufacturer's instructions...many of them recommend putting some TSP (or similar washing soda) into the boiler, run it for a short time, let it cool, drain it, refill it, and then perform "skimming" on it to remove any remaining oils. There are lots of videos and online instructions about skimming, it's better than any additive. Once the boiler is clean and running well, you can consider adding something like 8-way or similar to bring the PH of the boiler water to 10 or 11 to reduce corrosion
Not sure I'd be confident in the interpretation here. Previously a bunch of oil was added to the tank for the Squick demonstration, but there was clearly still oil/squick residue remaining as the water @24:00 was clearly sludgy.
I skimmed first but let’s say you’re right-the water wasn’t great. Isn’t that this product’s claim that it prevents surging?!?
If it only prevents surging with perfect water that doesn’t need treatment then what is the point?
@@pb7379-j2k I think there is an expectation that the tank would be oil free. Even without that expectation, the tank should be drained until the water coming out of the tank is clear, not just the site glass as any precipitate will settle to the bottom.
I'd love to see a repeat to see if SurgeX behaves the same. I have piping without a drop header so wet steam is a concern.
@@NuncNuncNuncNunc I might, thanks for the note
I love your steam site pipes , better then the Carlin test trailer which I have seen many times but never impressed me.
I would like to see you use 1 lb of baking soda after using surgex in that boiler. Don’t get me wrong you will have to drain and add more baking soda to correct very bad water conditions. But once you correct to water you will not have those problems again.
Thanks! I don’t have water problems unless I’m creating them purposely for you to watch (you might enjoy the one where I added oil)
A can of steam clean or do the same thing
I love those sight glasses. Where you'd get them? Were they expensive?
Thanks, I like them too! You can get them on Amazon. Look up “tri-clamp sight glass 2.5 inch”. They are like $40 plus a little more for the NPT adapter fittings.
They have a built in discount kind of because they are easy to assemble unions also
@@pb7379-j2k For $40 or so, they'll be on every steam boiler I install. (the very few I install) Seems like a tiny cost relative to the benefits. Thanks!
@@pb7379-j2k Even for 3, that is a pittance
You could have just dumped the powder into the pipe elbow and then just dumped a few cups of water into it to get the powder in to the boiler and then just let the auto feeder inlet fill the boiler to the perfect level. Then you don't have to risk spilling the bucket of surgex everywhere. Also the reason why surging occurs is due to a very high TDS count in the water as well as oils the have accumulated in the boiler from the factory and any black pipe. To get rid of that you need a top level skimming tap which the boiler should have. Then you let the boiler sit off for an hour. Then just crack the skimming valve open and let it run for an hour.
There were no factory oils in my boiler. I added surgex to a clean boiler. It’s garbage. I don’t have an auto feeder. I didn’t want chunks of powder remaining in my skim tapping setup.
@@pb7379-j2k No no you did it a completely acceptable way that ensured proper mixing and you absolutely did nothing wrong. I've just found through experience that it's easier to dump the powder in directly and then just pour water into the skim tap to wash all of the powder into the boiler and then none of the powder would be stuck inside the tap. It's just easier because then you don't risk spilling the surgex when trying to pour it in.
@@nightone9720 what do you think about what my boiler was doing after I added it?
@@pb7379-j2k I agree it was surging but I'm curious at what pressure do you operate your boiler? Also at the end I noticed that the boiler must not have had any pressure on it when you were showing us the comparison of the fresh water because when you shut the boiler off after you said it was boiling, you immediately opened up the skimming valve. What's weird is if your boiler was hot and boiling at that point, then opening that skimming valve would have been a very bad idea because of you had any steam pressure you would have seen steam come out of that skimming tap. I am curious to know how long you were running the boiler after filling it with cold water before showing us how much better the system was running. Because if you weren't actually boiling at that point I wouldn't expect to see any hot billing water appear in the sight glass header. By the way I like your set up man. That's really cool that you have the ability to see inside the header.
@@nightone9720 it was steaming when you saw the boiling water in the riser 😅
It doesn’t build any significant pressure except on a long return from setback. It’s normally like 1” of wc
The name says it all. Surgex. Extra surging
I would like to know were you got your site glasses, or did you make them I want a few. Thank you Eric H
Sorry, I missed this comment until just now. You can search Amazon for "tri-clamp sight glass", they are not too expensive and you can get fittings for them for NPT pipes. They are used in brewing and chemical manufacturing.
Mikey pipes puts an entire bottle in every new boiler he installs yet he uses drop headers and dis(advantages)? Boiler setup is dope af man!
Thank you-he does a few things that are questionable
@@pb7379-j2kMegapress on near boiler piping, replacing perfectly good oil boilers with less efficient atmospherics rather than just putting on a conversion burner, replacing straight pattern Gorton D vents with Gorton 1s even though they both flow 0.330 CFM, replacing dry returns with copper, replacing an entire perfectly good Robertshaw millivolt gas valve with one of those stupid intermittent pilot Honeywells because he didn't have a spare powerpile generator, ripping off customers like charging $1000 for a loose wire, attaching copper directly to galvanized without a dielectric union, not skimming new boilers, and much, much more. Questionable is putting it lightly, the guy is a real hack.
A high PH over 11 will be in the acid range.
@@2pugman no, acid is under 7
What’s the point of shutting off one of your main vents?
It lets me easily compare the venting time of 1 vs 2
Where did you get those sight glasses from
Amazon
@@pb7379-j2k those are awesome
@paulbruneau7379 what does the boiler manufacturer call for ph?
@@jasonjohnsonHVACit depends. At least one says 10-11
Thanks
when you test the three surgex concentrations, the water level is a gal higher / closer to top of chamber- which we would send more water to the pipes- or did you dump some to level?
btw kickass setup, i also have multiple gauges but love the sightglasses. look $$$
So let me see if I get what you’re saying: if you use plain water or other products with one extra gallon in your boiler you are fine, but if you use surge-x, your boiler will surge like crazy. Is that the sales pitch?
Honestly I don’t recall the exact level but I’ll look. But regardless, no product should increase surging vs plain water. Otherwise what’s its purpose?
Ps I looked back at the video- the water appeared in the risers when I added the first surge-x amount and the water level was actually low
@@pb7379-j2k i meant that higher water level is more likely to cause splashing into the mains just by being closer, so ideally the level would be the same for each test case, so as to isolate the effect of the treatment.
but, the change with surgex is so dramatic, any water level differences can probably be discounted.
@@tarikhussein7506yes that is true. But in looking back at the video I believe I was at or below the nominal waterline
If you watch the video US boiler put out with glass headers the boiling water goes several feet above the top of the boiler
If you watch my videos you’ll see that is nothing but a show. In a correctly piped and sized boiler, water doesn’t reach the supply
It’s definitely interesting stuff I’ll check it out
@@BaconJD420 give this one a try, it’s nice and short. In the other ones I put various stuff in the boiler to show what happens but this is the baseline
th-cam.com/video/4IymyZB4wlI/w-d-xo.html
Why are you a proponent of using 8-Way? Weil-McLain, for one, clearly advises adding NO chemicals to the boiler water.
Because I want my boiler to last. A PH of 10-11 virtually eliminates rust
Hmmm…Is your boiler feed water pH unusual?
From what I’ve read, there’s very little discussion of - and recommendation for - rust inhibitors on the Heating Help forums and in the literature. Seems like a solution in search of a problem.
@@marcinmerrimack1726 no, my water is about neutral, so that would create rust. It’s a solution to rust, which is the killer of boilers
Hi Paul, what parts do I need to put a 3" sight glass like yours?
you can get this stuff at brewers supply websites, adapters, clamps, gaskets, sightglass.
Amazon. Search for tri-clamp sight glass.
You need the glass, two clamps, and two NPT adapter fittings. The sizing is a bit confusing, look at the documentation/drawings to clarify
how much was one complete setup (for one main)?
It has to be changing the boiling point.
Why do you think so?
@paulbruneau7379 You show that you're getting more boiling. Maybe it's lowering the boiling point.
@@MrBen527 I don’t think so
Hot water feed for steam
Your scale probably wasn't broken, Most professionals will take a reducing elbow, Dump a whole bottle of the Sur-x you got into the reducing elbow & then wash it down with a couple liters or so of water. If your interested in HVac type stuff especially boilers you should check out Mikey Pipes, He's a Plumbing Master who teaches people alot of the information that every hvac worker should really be telling people.
He’s ok. He wants to drain boilers too much
@@pb7379-j2k Lol Personally if its having issues, its best to drain it replace the water, The reason he doe sit all the time, is most people don't do maintenance on thier stuff, Most people don't even know you have too. So odds are none of it has been drained or redone in years in most peoples house. That goes for all hvac type stuff, & most of the "service professionals" don't really tell you about it when you get them. So from what i have seen he does it mostly to put it in the videos & to tell the customer about it, & of course it adds more content to the videos of course. But yeah he's one of the few that i have seen that explains even stuff pro's go to school to learn. Which today of course can be found online thankfully.
@@KingKaturaI watch Mikey Pipes. But he never skims and only drains/refills a few times, then dumps in surgex. This includes his new boiler installations. Any true steam expert would tell you skimming the boiler after a new install is far better than any chemical you could add, and absolutely necessary.
@@nybiggs ya ive seen him.
@@pb7379-j2k Yeah man. Hydrolevel warns against excessive makeup water and then there are guys recommending draining down till the LWCO probe says low water, to test once a month or even weekly. Don't they see that as excessive makeup water lol?
Wow, that’s crazy !!!
its due to high ph. you could do the same test but add lemon juice until you get a 9 ph
Lemon juice, an acid, will lower the PH.
High PH does not cause surging. See my other video where I run it up to 13 with no surging
your water line should be coming from hot water line not cold
How about if I heat it up on the stove and pour it in 😅
My system doesn’t leak, my makeup water is like a gallon a year and my ph is 11.
That tiny amount of oxygen isn’t going to hurt it
Great content! A script would be helpful and result in more likes and sub's.
Looks like SurgeX is so turbulent that you could use it to flush the system. Maybe it would break loose and move a lot of sludge. And it seems like putting corrosion inhibiting additives into a system would be a no brainer, but I don't hear it talked about much. That's like filling your automobile cooling system with pure tap water. Uggg...
I think adding enough to get ph to 10-11 is desirable
Steam clean
It’s di-amine lol pronounced dye- ameen
Thanks. If you couldn’t tell, I’m no chemist