Sorry, Ed, I didn't mean to send the message to your personal address.

We have just converted to natural gas for our steam boiler, but I hadn't
observed any steam -- or whatever -- before today.

There's no moisture at all in the furnace room itself -- which I guess is a
good sign.

"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
...

"Ray Jenkins" wrote in message
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A little history is necessary:

In 1995 our 80-year-old six-unit apartment building replaced our
furnace-boiler. From the start steam came out of the chimney. That seemed
to grow worse until 2004, when the steam got really bad and soon the
boiler broke down.

We replaced the boiler -- and there was no steam at all. The new one was
much more efficient.

But this morning when the temperature dipped down into the single digits,
I saw steam coming out of the chimney for the first time. It wasn't a
great deal, but enough to cause a little alarm.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has had experience in this sort of
thing.

What type of fuel? Natural gas contains water, as does al combustion air,
but seeing water vapor out of a chimney is very common. If the exit
temperature of the exhausts gasses are not hot enough, you can actually
get rain inside the chimney.

If you have a steam boiler and it gets bad, it could be a leak, but given
the circumstances, my guess is just natural condensation of the vapor in
the stack.