Can I inspect my own boiler as DIY?
Question - can I perform boiler inspection myself as a homeowner or do I need to have a professional come and check it out?
First, some background - my boiler has an electrical and gas components. From what I understand, electrical portion is to control the 3 heating zones that I have, and gas is to provide the fire for heating the water. There is also a fuse that is supposed to stay lit.
During the Summer months, the heater remained nonoperational, as there was no call for heat from the thermostats, despite electricity and gas still being on. Somewhere along the lines, the pilot light went off unnoticed. I noticed it just recently when it started to get cold, and I wanted the heater to be on.
Somehow, despite gas being on and pilot light being off, there was no gas escaping, either due to some safety mechanism that I don't know about, or it was indeed escaping, and went unnoticed. I did have a professional gas detector come and check my boiler when he came for an unrelated reason and he did not detect any gas leaks from the boiler. He originally came to check for source of gas smell outside, which turned out to come from my neighbor's house. He checked my boiler for gas leaks, just because he was at my house already.
So I cleaned up the boiler a little bit, ensured there was no gas smells coming from the pilot light area, and I lit the pilot light using instructions on the boiler. (Turn off gas & electricity, lower thermostats, then light pilot, set thermostats, and turn electricity on).
The pilot light turned on just fine. I set the thermostats for heat, and the boiler responded appropriately by lighting up as expected, and heat was delivered to my house through the baseboards.
Question - do I need to do anything now?
In particular
- should I test any safety switches? Can I do this myself?
- I understand boiler is a closed system filled with water. Do I ever need to drain and refill this water? I don't think it has been done ever to my knowledge.
- Aside from safety switches do I need to test anything else?
- Given my situation, do I need to have anyone come look at my boiler in professional capacity to do something I cannot do?
My point really is ... since the boiler appears to be working fine, do I need to do anything, and *can I* do that anything to ensure proper boiler operation going forward, and avoiding said boiler from blowing up in case things are not properly operating that are not immediately apparent?
Thanks!
Here are some photos of boiler components with valves of switches that I see but don't fully understand how they operate.
Comments (8)
Elmer J Fudd
3 years agoDennis Matveyev
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