I have an old American Standard natural gas boiler with 3 zones to hydronic baseboards. Question is that the boiler fires until the temp gauge reaches 210 degrees. This seems high to me. There is a Honeywell aquastat on the boiler with what looks like 2 limit dials. Is 210 degrees correct or should it be lower? The reason I ask is that it seems the room (especially right above the boiler) heats up too quickly so the other rooms haven't had a chance to warm up as much. Seems if the aquastat high limit is lower then the circulators will work longer and the temp should be more balanced throughout the house. Any sense to this?? Thanks... Gene

I live in the Northeastern US, and I have a steam boiler (Burnham, model PV86-ST) that is used to heat the house. It is 6 years old. The boiler has a leak above the water level (so it loses most of the steam via the flue...) and I'm told that it was due to corrosion. Because of the leak, I need to constantly add water to the boiler. It was explained to me that it was due to the presence of Oxygen in the water. The more water we added to the boiler, the faster the corrosion process took place. I have also been told that the presence of chlorides in the local water system makes the problem even worse. 1st: are these explanations plausible? Are there other explanations? 2nd: doing some research, I found several suppliers of "oxygen scavenger chemicals for steam boilers". Is this something that I need to look into? If yes, how does one purchase this? by the pound? Are these chemicals safe? How does one "inject" this stuff inside the boiler? 3rd: Instead of chemicals, are there filters that would "condition" the water and make it less "corrosive" if there is such a thing? I'm lost and confused... Sincerely, Frank Lopes