How do you deal with water quality issues if non-condensing?

[Wearyman]

I live in an area where there is plenty of fresh water (Near Lake Erie and the Erie Canal area) but not all of it is really good quality water. Short of using a condensing system, what is the most common way to deal with using makeup water from a lake, river, or canal that might have contaminants such as iron, silt and organics in it that you don't want going into your boiler?

Does one put a Brita water filter on the intake line, or do you just suck in whatever is there and blow down more often? Any other methods? (I think I remember hearing about someone using a synthetic media oil filter, but I'm not sure.)

[dhic001]

There is only so much filtering you can do on a hobby size boat. Sure, you can use a suction strainer to filter out anything largish, but the finer things like iron that are contained in the water won't be able to be filtered onboard. Iron for example can only be removed by putting it through a water softner filter arrangement, which uses resin to remove the iron. To so this you need the softner unit, you need to pump it through the softner and then put it to storage before use.

My thoughts are either blow down often, or go to the trouble of condensing, and thus ensure you have a good supply of quality water.

Daniel

[fredrosse]

Filtering is generally a good idea, and there are many water filters available. A very fine filter, such as those used for drinking water, may clog too quickly with lake and river water.

Blowdown is very effective, and is generally the only way to deal with dissolver solids, which will build up and make deposits inside the boiler. No filter will take out dissolved solids, only blowdown, (or other methods not suitable for small steamers, such as demineralization, RO, and evaporators).

Some other options include bringing your boiler feedwater in tanks (possible for short outings, my boat has a 15 gallon reserve feed tank). Collected rainwater (from rooftop drains) is generally very low in disolved solids, and also low in suspended solids if the water is collected after the rain has washed off the roof.

Keep the water in the boiler at a Ph of about 9-10 to inhibit acid conditions and corrosion, this is accomplished with addition of ordinary tri-sodium phpsphate.