Hello all, I have a 10 year old furnace that supplies my hot water on demand, it was serviced last fall. Now it is leaking water on the floor. It looked like a lot until I put a bowl under my best guess of the leak. Now I see it's about a 1/8 of a cup in 24 hrs. It's coming from a spicket, yet I can't feel any dampness from it.
How do I find out where it's coming from & If I can tighten it?
In the image you can see the spicket over a bowl with red lines showing the only areas possible.
Thanks




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That is a boiler drain (hose bib) and the leak is probably coming from the interior portion or valve outlet.

Put a brass hose bibb cap on it. If the valve is leaking, that'll take care of it. Oh.........It's a boiler. Furnaces blow hot air.

if the drip is from the hose threads, you can screw on a hose cap.

Or you could try turning the handle another 1/8 turn or so, that might stop the drip if not a hose thread cap will work.

What's involved with just removing that boiler drain valve (spigot) and replacing it with a new valve, maybe one that doesn't use compression to seal, like install a ball valve? Would the boiler have to be drained? These type valves can leak thru the valve stem or past a worn rubber washer.

replacing the valve is an option but requires draining, refilling and then removing all the air in the system..
lots of work when a simple screw on hose thread cap will solve the problem.

I see. I thought maybe if the boiler was turned off so the water would cool you could then remove the old drain valve and quickly insert and screw in a new valve without too much water coming out. I've done that on water heater drains and it wasn't too messy.

water heaters are different in that you just turn the water back on and the air will come out the faucets. a heating system you can't do that. you have to remove the air somehow and that 'somehow' depends on how the system was installed. also, sometimes you turn the water back on and the automatic fill valve (pressure regulator) doesn't co-operate and needs to be replaced.

thanks for that info, didn't know it was that more involved.

It's about a 2 minute job to unscrew the boiler drain and screw a new one in, and about an hour to drain, refill and bleed the system.

First, thank you everyone for your replies. I will try adding a cap to the spicket, and report back on my boiler leak



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What ever you decide to do remember that this hose bib has only one thread left to tighten up. Also if you go with a new Hose Bib just wrap 3 or 4 wraps of Teflon and then use some Pipe Dope over the Teflon and tighten it until it feels right. Hopefully it will have more than one thread left to tighten if you have to do that.