Teams that work well together are essential in improving service and meeting the needs of customers.  A customer of our member, Service Unlimited, Inc., had an old steam boiler that was having a hard time staying on line.  The old boiler held a lot more volume of water and its water line had to be higher than its replacement.  “Unfortunately, no one remembered how high the water line was nor the pressure it operated at,” said Service Manager, Kurt Sieminski, Service Unlimited, Inc.  With very little details to work with, it was speculated that the boiler was either flooding itself or going off on the manual low water cutout.  This problem continued and Service Unlimited, Inc., reached out on The Unified Group’s Email Tool for help from fellow members.

Once the email went out, Service Unlimited, Inc., received several responses from members of The Unified Group with some ideas to help control the boiler.  “I found an old device mounted on the wall that I never had seen before. It was a Hoffman #3 Differential loop device.  Also, there were no steam traps on any of the radiators; this is only the second time I’ve seen that.  I talked to Bill Pappa from Mechanical Service & Systems, Inc., and he also had never seen that type of device before, but helped troubleshoot,” said Sieminski.

“First, we concluded that I had the pressure too high at 5 psig. So, I lowered the pressure to the point that I had to replace the operating control to a vapor control. Now, the boiler is operating at 1 +lbs. which helps keep the water from leaving the boiler when it’s cycled off.  The second thing was the Hoffman control had the incorrect vent size.  It actually called for a Hoffman #11A which is no longer made.  The closest thing we found after doing research was a Groton #2.  We changed that out and it helped but the boiler was still flooding.  We ended up having to install a boiler feed tank. That has kept the boiler on line for several weeks without flooding or any low water issues so far,” said Sieminski.

With the assistance from Bill Pappa of Mechanical Service & Systems, Inc., Service Unlimited was able to determine the problem and get the boiler back up and running after replacement.  A big thanks to our members:  Bill Pappa of Mechanical Service & Systems, Inc., Joel Knight of Harvey W. Hottel, Inc., and Jay Cederberg of Air Controls for reaching out on The Unified Group’s Email Tool to aid a member in need!