Best Of
Re: Viega FostaPex issues
Interesting. That would not be the first time a company kept the manufacturer's rep from knowing all the details.
Re: What brand of radiator air vent do you suggest/avoid ?
Missing something basic.
The 1/8" tap is only used to clean the threads, right?
In the video, he uses an 11/32" drill bit. That is much larger than 1/8 (or 4/32). In fact, that is 3x larger !!
If you drill out the hole, it's now bigger than the original 1/8" and the vent will be too small for the enlarged hole?
Re: What brand of radiator air vent do you suggest/avoid ?
I used to keep a 1/8" NPT tap on hand and clean out the threads a bit any time i was changing a vent.
Dan_NJ
Re: What brand of radiator air vent do you suggest/avoid ?
Wouldn't use VV if I got it for free.
Re: near toilet floor constantly wet
I had a really weird one once — a flush valve (antique!) which sprayed a little water onto the tank lid. Which then flowed along the lid to the rim of the lid outside the tank itself, and then dripped onto the floor behind the toilet, but not right away when you flushed.
Took a while to track that one down…
Re: near toilet floor constantly wet
Is this the same building as your other post? If this was on a slab I'd have guessed a leak in the slab floor soaking through the mortar. But I would guess there is a leak in the wall behind the toilet.
Grallert
Re: near toilet floor constantly wet
agree although I use toilet papers, readily available and show wet spots quicker.
PC7060
Re: No Header, No Equalizer, No Problem!
Confusion reigns! (What else is new?). No, I don't think you are saying installation instructions should be ignored, @ethicalpaul . At least I don't read it that way. I think that what you are doing is exploring some fascinating corners of steam heat — which, as I have said before but without the hand-on fiddling yuo are doing, is incredibly forgiving.
I think it's clear enough that if you are installing a new boiler, you'd , be slightly nuts not to follow the manufacturer's recommendations — as an absolute minimum (you'd be amused at the overkill we did when installing Cedric).
Where it gets difficult is, as the folks above have said, is where you are dealing with an existing installation which is having problems. This becomes a judgement .call, and has to be based on a combination of experience and overall cost, as much as anything. Sometimes the best approach is to rip the whole thing out and start all over. Each situation will be a new challenge.
Re: No Header, No Equalizer, No Problem!
In general I think your findings are fine — although I'm much less concerned about water quality than I think you are.
As a friend of mine who does towing has said, there are many ways to get to 10. That applies to steam. In my view, while there are preferred ways to do things — particularly in near boiler piping — so long as the basic principles are there the thing will work. What are these? There has to be provision to allow any carryover splashing to get bacck to the boiler without getting into the steam mains. Lots of ways to do that. There hase to be ways for air to get out of the steam mains and radiators. Lots of ways to do that. There have to be ways for the condensate to get back to the boiler reasonably freely (I expect well over half the problems we see are here). And there has to be a small but controlled pressure difference to allow the steam and air to move.
That's it.