new K-6 Leaking????

Hi guys, our new K=6 Keystroker was fired up in Mid Jan and has had issues with pressure. Boiler is next to house, 65 ft of Thermopex to basement. House has new "pump wall" with 2 zones and Heat pex over 90% of house which is new. No leaks in the house at all and the pipeline is one piece so leakage would show up in the house. We used 30 gallons of Antifreeze and now the water is perfectly clear with no red color. System has a water feed, so pressure is now stable. So did the anti-freeze loose its color or is the boiler leaking inside and its going up the chimney? How can we tell and what can we do if its the Keystoker? Any idea's? thanks bob

Isolate the boiler with valves and let it sit for 24 hours at a
constant temperature. If the pressure drops a lot it's the
boiler. You should also see the leak if it's at room temperature.
A small leak in a boiler is impossible to find with it running.
The water just boils off with no wet spot.

Do you have a back flo preventer before a pressure reducing valve ( if a drop in house pressure occurs ? )

I thought this thread might be worth a peek to you anti-freeze / boiler water treatment
It gives some pretty good opinions about the use of antifreeze and some of the potencial downfalls.

More folks who have experience with your set up will be along shortly.

Thanks Dcrane and AA130FIREMAN; we did install a backflow preventer with the water supply, we did this after 3 weeks of pressure issues ( up and down) and poor heat issues into the 2 house zones. Seems that we air so alot of drain and refill etc. However the color is now gone from the system (was pink) I think from a leak but will have to wait till warmer weather to shut down the unit and run a pressure test. I used the anti-freeze since the stoker is in a shed next to the house with no heat. We plan on no DHW since its to far from the house etc. thanks again bob

Get a sample of the now clear boiler water, and take it to an automotive service provider, and ask them to use an antifreeze tester to see if
there is any remaining antifreeze in the water.

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:Get a sample of the now clear boiler water, and take it to an automotive service provider, and ask them to use an antifreeze tester to see if
there is any remaining antifreeze in the water.

Greg L

If you go that route, make sure that your antifreeze concentration measurement is made using a propylene glycol (PG) refractometer or hydrometer. (or use an instrument that can measure both types of anti-freeze)

Do you have a low water cutoff installed on the K6? Is the make-up water valved off? If not, valve off the make-up water and monitor the system pressure. If it drops below 12 psi, you probably have a leak.

As "tsb" said, any leaks should be easy to find with the boiler at room temperature.

Is it a brand new unit? You guys are a lot nicer than me. The guy that sold it to me would be there fixing it. Brand new units aren't supposed to leak. Maybe this guy needs to call Keystoker direct. Anyone have their number.

Maybe the boiler isn't leaking at all...diagnose first, then make the appropriate calls.

drzbob wrote:Hi guys, our new K=6 Keystroker was fired up in Mid Jan and has had issues with pressure. Boiler is next to house, 65 ft of Thermopex to basement. House has new "pump wall" with 2 zones and Heat pex over 90% of house which is new. No leaks in the house at all and the pipeline is one piece so leakage would show up in the house. We used 30 gallons of Antifreeze and now the water is perfectly clear with no red color. System has a water feed, so pressure is now stable. So did the anti-freeze loose its color or is the boiler leaking inside and its going up the chimney? How can we tell and what can we do if its the Keystoker? Any idea's? thanks bob

drzbob wrote:Thanks guys. We did install a backflow preventer when we hooked up the domestic water supply. No DHW is being used from the Stoker (to far from house). We used a propylene glycol mix and its the mix they sell everyone with Outdoor wood boilers. I'm just concerned that we have a leak as the color is totally gone, and some of our pex lines have turned gray or brown. thanks again. bob

Was all that PEX piping the pex with the oxygen barrier? Non-oxygen barrier would allow oxygen to get in the system. And you did say that you had to drain and refill a few times.
What do you use for air/oxygen separation? And is that installed properly?

Got any pics of the install?

I'm with Rob you must diagnose the problem first. Since it is a new system anything and everything must be a suspect. If you are losing pressure you most definitely have a leak somewhere in the system. To do it right you really need to isolate and test each zone seperately and test the boiler seperately. When I installed my new system I tested each zone with water to 25 psi and air @ 15 psi. I required that the zone or boiler in question hold the pressure stable for a minimum of 4 hours with a good quality gauge like an anderson instrument, wika, or even a swagelock gauge. I don't trust them cheap made in china gauges for something like this. With your system being hot you may never notice a leak even if it is the home until you have virtually no demand for heat due to flash evaporation. At this point you could look for a white/ chalk colored deposits on any of the fittings which could be a sign of your leak, but you really need to pressure test the system completely stem to stern.

drzbob said the pressure was good after he latter added the supply water connection and the backflow preventer. Sounds like he first ran the boiler without a supply water connection for a while.
More than likely there was still some air in the system after the first manual filling and the system's performance was hinder due to all that trapped air. Sounds like he needs a high point vent.

McGiever wrote:drzbob said the pressure was good after he latter added the supply water connection and the backflow preventer. Sounds like he first ran the boiler without a supply water connection for a while.
More than likely there was still some air in the system after the first manual filling and the system's performance was hinder due to all that trapped air. Sounds like he needs a high point vent.

I'm a betting man that this was the issue. System was air bound

Air in the system was my first thought as well...especially if the K6 doesn't have an air vent in the top of the boiler. The supply tapping on the boiler protrudes into the pressure vessel, so if you don't have a vent on the top it will trap an inch or so of air in the top.

Venting all that air must have used up all the antifreeze