Hello,
Last year we bought a house with an oil boiler, which provides heat via baseboards, and also provides domestic hot water. I do most of my own plumbing work, but I've never worked with a boiler before.
The hot water pressure wasn't great initially, but lately it's gotten really bad. Cold water is great (10 gpm at the hose), but in all the sinks, the hot water stream is about 1/3 or 1/4 the size of the cold water stream.
After reading these forums, I did a coil flush with a gallon of white vinegar and a submersible pump in a bucket. I ran it for an hour. Afterwards, the vinegar was dark brown with a little bit of gunk in it, but nothing major. But the hot water pressure didn't improve at all.
[Edited to add: the coil is in the boiler; I don't have an indirect.]
That was a couple months ago. Last night I did a second flush, this time for 2.5 hours. Same result, no improvement.
Boiler pressure is 20 psi, temperature is around 150F. Other details: our well water is very acidic (pH ~5.2), and also has a lot of iron in it (visibly yellow/brown and smells like iron). For the iron, I installed a stenner pump to inject NeutraSul (peroxide), which solved the problem, but the acidity remains. We're planning to get a more proper solution soon, something like the Pro-OX Iron Filter with calcite blend, to hopefully solve both problems.
What else can I do to troubleshoot/fix the hot water pressure problem?
Thanks,
Anthony
Last year we bought a house with an oil boiler, which provides heat via baseboards, and also provides domestic hot water. I do most of my own plumbing work, but I've never worked with a boiler before.
The hot water pressure wasn't great initially, but lately it's gotten really bad. Cold water is great (10 gpm at the hose), but in all the sinks, the hot water stream is about 1/3 or 1/4 the size of the cold water stream.
After reading these forums, I did a coil flush with a gallon of white vinegar and a submersible pump in a bucket. I ran it for an hour. Afterwards, the vinegar was dark brown with a little bit of gunk in it, but nothing major. But the hot water pressure didn't improve at all.
[Edited to add: the coil is in the boiler; I don't have an indirect.]
That was a couple months ago. Last night I did a second flush, this time for 2.5 hours. Same result, no improvement.
Boiler pressure is 20 psi, temperature is around 150F. Other details: our well water is very acidic (pH ~5.2), and also has a lot of iron in it (visibly yellow/brown and smells like iron). For the iron, I installed a stenner pump to inject NeutraSul (peroxide), which solved the problem, but the acidity remains. We're planning to get a more proper solution soon, something like the Pro-OX Iron Filter with calcite blend, to hopefully solve both problems.
What else can I do to troubleshoot/fix the hot water pressure problem?
Thanks,
Anthony
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