Pump Question

[Stihl310]

I have my circulating pump mounted in my basement for my OWB. My question is, on just two occasions now I have woke up in the middle of the night to hear the pump making a sort of "tapping" noise, it's not rythmic or anything... just random light taps. The pump is right below my bedroom so that's how I am able to hear it so clearly. My question is, what can be causing this? I went down last night and open a bleeder valve, it just spit a little and then the pump quit making that noise.

I've had no trouble at all with the pump up until now, and now I notice that it makes a light noise when it's running, almost sounds like air bubbles passing through it. Never had this problem before. I did go out and check the water level at about 2 am this morning, it was fine, but I did just top it off a little.

To me it sounds like some air bubbles being trapped and getting pushed through... just confused as to where they are coming from.

Anyone had any similar problems???

Thanks

 

[Butch(OH)]

A guess? Localized boiling in your OWB and the bubbles are getting to loop inlet. By localized I mean that I have noticed in my 4400 Woodmaster that under ceratain conditions there is sometimes boiling even though the temp gage reads well under 220. Most often it will happen when we are using very little heat and I fire it a bit heavy or when it is very cold out and it fires for a long period of time before the high limit shuts it down. Even under what I would call normal operating conditions I have heard some boiling and opened the door to find localized hot spots in the firebox, as soon as I moved the coals around it stops. It is suppose it is possible to have a suction leak and introduce air but the farmer scientist in me says that even on the inlet side of the pump we are above atmospeheric and that means a system leak is a a water leak out and a drip, not an air leak into the loop.

 

[trialanderror]

^--- yup, what he said.

when i built and set mine up i had my pump pull from the bottom, as if it did boil in the WJ air will float to the top, somewhere up top there i put a 1/4" valve to bleed the air off. I do it few times a week....

are you sure there's air in the system?
if not, the bearings/seals are probably about to puke/puked.....

 

[Stihl310]

^--- yup, what he said.

when i built and set mine up i had my pump pull from the bottom, as if it did boil in the WJ air will float to the top, somewhere up top there i put a 1/4" valve to bleed the air off. I do it few times a week....

are you sure there's air in the system?
if not, the bearings/seals are probably about to puke/puked.....

Pump hasn't even run more than about 2 weeks...


Thanks for the info though guys... that calms my nerves somewhat. I'm picking up a replacement cartridge tonight.

 

[Butch(OH)]

Pump hasn't even run more than about 2 weeks...


Thanks for the info though guys... that calms my nerves somewhat. I'm picking up a replacement cartridge tonight.

We are running 014 and 007 TACOs and I have been saying that since we started up, "need to have cartridges handy" Been four years and I still havent got the cartirdges, LOL. Luckily we havent needed one either.

 

[blackdogon57]

"need to have cartridges handy"

:agree2::agree2:

When Taco pumps start to make more noise than normal it is only a matter of time before they fail. I sleep way better at night knowing I can fix my pumps as soon as they break.

 

[ericjeeper]

Put some sort of air eliminator in the high point of the line.Spirovent would be my first choice.