Tips for Condensing Boiler Maintenance

So you’ve decided to use a condensing boiler to heat your building. You’ve made a great decision! Condensing boilers use hot water instead of fossil fuels, so you’re heating your commercial building with renewable energy and increasing its energy efficiency. Now the question is this: how do you perform proper boiler maintenance? The following tips will teach you how to maintain it properly.

Put a Boiler Maintenance Plan in Place

Create a maintenance plan that includes a boiler preventative maintenance schedule. You should schedule an annual inspection at least once a year to maintain maximum boiler efficiency. During these yearly inspections, a technician should perform the following tasks:

Inspect the heat exchanger’s fireside by removing its inspection covers. The technician can clean the fireside out with tools and water. If you have an aluminum condensing boiler, they should coat your boiler and its parts with mineral oil to keep it from fouling up between inspections.
Remove the burner and clean its mesh thoroughly. If the burner and its mesh look clean, have your technician clean it anyway. After all, you never know what unseen particles may have built up on it.
Choose the right water treatment to prevent scale from building up. Scale can greatly reduce your boiler’s efficiency.
Replace old gaskets, igniter, and flame rod.
Check your boiler’s electrical connections for signs of corrosion. Condensation can cause corrosion, and a condensing boiler produces condensation through its normal processes.
Clean the condensate trap, since your condensing boiler’s condensate naturally causes corrosion. Make sure your technician checks the trap for any potential leaks.
Restart the boiler’s equipment and adjust its combustion.

If you use this condensing boiler maintenance checklist, you and your boiler technician should keep it working for a long time. After all, preventative maintenance can prolong a system’s or appliance’s overall lifespan, since it helps you catch small problems before they grow into large ones.

If you use this condensing boiler maintenance checklist, you and your boiler technician should keep it working for a long time. After all, preventative maintenance can prolong a system or appliance’s overall lifespan, since it helps you catch small problems before they grow into large ones.

Daily Maintenance Steps to Take

In between annual inspections, you should check on your condensing boiler daily. Here are some daily steps you can take to check your boiler:

Make sure the area around the boiler is clear and unobstructed.
Check for leaking water under and around the boiler.
Make sure all temperature and pressure readings are in the right ranges for proper boiler operations.
Check for blockages in any air openings.
Listen for any unusual noises coming from the boiler.

Then, once a month, you should check the PVC fittings, condensate drain line, drain system, and drain trap for blockages. These daily and monthly checks will keep your boiler installation running properly and help you spot any small problems before they create larger disasters and disrupt your building’s heating operations.

Why Choose a Condensing Boiler?

Maintaining your boiler takes vigilance, but overall, condensing boilers are more energy efficient than their conventional counterparts. How is this possible? Condensing boilers have a larger heat exchange surface than traditional boilers, so it can transfer more heat from the natural gas or oil-fired burner through the boiler and turn it into usable heat. Because of this, less heat escapes as exhaust gases, which is a common problem with traditional boilers.

If you want to install and maintain a condensing boiler in your commercial facility, reach out to Air Comfort today. We will select a boiler that fits with your facility’s specific heating needs and the rest of your ventilation and air conditioning systems. Additionally, our 44 service technicians have the knowledge and experience to determine what maintenance your condensing boiler requires.

Do you need us to perform a boiler installation? We will install the boiler and use our in-house fabrication shop to create any custom parts it needs to fit with the rest of your HVAC system. Air Comfort is your one-stop shop for all your HVAC needs, from condensing boilers to entire HVAC designs and installations. Reach out to us today to learn more about our HVAC services and solutions.