i have a self designed and self made heating system in my house. basically it consist of a fire heated heat exchanger, with water in the exchanger. it runs under low preasure and and has a small pump to move the water through around 200' of pipe. today i had the exchanger out for repairs to the flue and was wondering if there is anything i might add to the water to inhibit corrosion inside the piping. i few years ago i used ultrasound to thickness test the piping and found no metal lose so it appears i don't have a problem, yet. thanks

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Knowing what kinda pipe it is would help.

You could always get the stuff teflon lined

 

black iron 1" sch 40 mostly there is some copper in the system for the regesters and a few stainless valves and maybe even a piece of galvanized. i'm not really worried about the rest of the system just the exchanger that is exposed to fire. since it's welded and exposed to fire teflon lined isn't the best idea, besides i already have it made, was just wondering if there is anything i can do to stop any potential corrosion.

[This message has been edited by ede (edited October 02, 2001).]

 

Ed,

Nitrates in closed loop water heating systems and process steam boilers can significantly increase the life of the plumbing and metallic parts. It builds a thin, brownish/gray coating in the system that inhibits corrosion but still allows efficient heat transfer.

There are a few proprietary brands of the treatments that I've used, but usually in 55 gallon drums. ICQ? I'll give it a try a little later today.

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[This message has been edited by Vader (edited October 02, 2001).]

 

Antifreeze?

 

Dowtherm !

Couldn't you just use some water wetter or pour in some automotive corrosion inhibitors?

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I was just being a smart @#$ as usual... teflon is nice but rediculously expensive and it probably wouldnt handle the boiler area but the rest it would.

A problem that I know that has been recently noticed by our local fire department (and I heard something along these lines before) was that bacteria would eat the pipe, to the point they would eat right through it. Hows that? It makes sense that a dose of nitrates would work, give the bacteria something else to eat first. Another thing is to keep the fluid moving, so maybe every once in a while (once a week?) turn it on for a little while (like a half hour as a wild guess) to circulate the water. You might end up with some reactions between the metal of the different kinds of pipe, so once every few years you might wanna flush it with something like a coolant flush, and leave it at that.