On Dec 30, 10:38*am, harry wrote:
On Dec 30, 12:51*pm, Mikepier wrote:

Last night while checking on one of the buildings I manage, I noticed
a pinhole leak coming from a 2" steel pipe that enters the side of the
boiler. The leak is not at the boiler, but at the top of the pipe
( it's a horizontal pipe). Fortunately it is above the water line. I
assume its probably because of corrosion, but in any event I shut down
the boiler and went to a nearby hardware store and purchased 2 part
epoxy, and applied it to the pinhole. Waited about an hour, fired up
the boiler and let it get to full steam at about 3PSI. I saw no leaks
after sitting there about an hour monitoring the situation. I'm
wondering how long it will hold. But one thing I noticed is the epoxy
dried as hard as steel.

How are these pinhole leaks usually repaired? I heard of JBweld, but
you need to wait a while until it sets, plus its rated to only 200-250
degrees. The stuff I used is rated to 300 degrees.

You can make a good medium term repair using a bit of joint/flat sheet
gasket material placed over the pinhole held on witha radiator hose
clip/jubilee clip.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ho....screw.agr.jpg

However it wants to be fixed properly, ie pipework replaced.
The fact that this has happened indicates you want to look at the
water treatment in the boiler.

I always thought it was not a good idea to add anything to the boiler.
I even heard flushing out the boiler and adding new water is bad cause
it adds more oxygen, which means more corrosion.