Steam Boiler not making hot water

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afjes_2016

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As of last night my steam boiler stopped making hot water. Noticed it when trying to take a shower.
Pics attached.
The boiler kicks on to make heat as it should be it is not kicking on to make hot water.
Nothing was done to it for at least 1-1/2 months since it was serviced.
I run the hot water from any faucet and the water is warm to cold and the boiler won't kick on as usual.
No valves were touched etc.

Any ideas of what could be causing it. I know nothing about the boiler system.
My friend is a plumber but I know it will be very hard for me to get ahold of him for a few days unless I get extremely lucky.


Thanks

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Sorry - Seems to be a false alarm.
I now have hot water.

I believe the thought of no hot water started last night when my friend's girlfriend was taking a bath and used up all the existing hot water. My friend came and told me no hot water. The boiler was not running at the time. I tried the faucets and no hot water. I moved the mixing valve (hot and cold water). Probably moved it in the wrong direction causing too much cold water and not pulling enough water from the boiler to kick it on. Held off until morning.

I woke to the boiler running but the house temp was where it should have been so figured the boiler was working on making hot water. Noticed I did turn the mixing valve in the wrong direction mixing far too much cold water. Turned it back in the right direction. Let the boiler run for a while and hot water again - really hot.

I asked my friend last night if his girlfriend ran the hot water too much and drained the hot water and he had said no last night but realized this morning that was probably the case. I did nothing other than move the mixing valve. So I guess she just tried using more hot water than what the boiler could make.

Thanks anyway.
 
It's not really operator error on her part because she maybe reasonably can't have known about WH limitations, gallons delivered vs. water temp.

So the service call was probably not the cause & the house guest was. I guess she took a tub bath & not a shower. In this case I don't need a photo of said female. :D
 
I think he and his girlfriend will start to contribute to the water bill. They live here. They both run the cold and hot water full blast while taking showers and shaving and brushing teeth while in the shower. He is helping with the heating oil bill but I think it is time to help with the water bill.

P.S. Believe me you would not want a photo of said female. :eek: :eyeballs:
As Kevin McCallister would say about his brother Buzz's girlfriend - "Wooofff".
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For future reference I would assume your hot water tank is just another zone on your whole house boiler system. So if you ever do lose hot water your problems will be isolated to that one zone. You will know the boiler is working so it will ether be the valve controlling that zone is staying shut or the Tstat /sensor is not telling the valve to open.

I had a friend with hot water heating and he ran a zone to his swimming pool and used his house heating system to heat his pool in the summer. It worked pretty good.
 
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...I had a friend with hot water heating and he ran a zone to his swimming pool and used his house heating system to heat his pool in the summer. It worked pretty good.
I used a solar cover on my above ground pool and it worked really well in raising the temp of the water - the sun gave me a lot of energy for free :thumb:

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I was trying to see if your hot water tank is electric... or just storage... maybe both as a backup?

WOW! That is a BIG natural gas pipe! Is this a single family home?
 
Buzz
I bypassed the hot water tank which is electric a few years back.

The large black pipes are not natural gas but steam pipes. Natural gas is not available in this part of town. Anyone who does not want electric uses propane (my neighbors use propane).

Yes, single family.

I have not had any more trouble since then.
Thanks for suggestions everyeone.
 
"Pipes for steam systems are commonly manufactured from carbon steel to ASME B 16.9 A106. The same material may be used for condensate lines, although copper tubing is preferred in some industries."


"Usually, pure steam is not aggressive from a corrosion point of view. However, if its condensates are contaminated by CO2 and dissolved oxygen it becomes rather corrosive [1-6]. "
 
If there is "no hot water" and the boiler is not running then we have not actually found the problem. Your system might be such that any zone or any combination of zones calling for heat would also heat domestic water, and the purpose of a separate zone for hot water would only be for times when none of the other zones were calling for heat. Whether you have/need a separate zone for domestic water heating and whether that zone is functioning correctly has not been diagnosed yet, no?.
 
Thanks for the warning but the problem was solved last year.
 
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