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I am not a QA engineer. I am an RF Engineer with QA QC experience in addition to design test and measurement in manufacturing and now at the end of my career in the service sector . I am certain that I know why your vent float was in it's condition, I just do not want to be the one to say it because I have made statements that some would consider critical of some manufacturers. When I was a young lad in the 1970s I followed auto racing. USAC NASCAR CANAM. There was a number of incidents when during races at racing speeds the wheels came off of cars. The pit crews were blamed. They were not doing anything differently than they had before. The engineers and tire people discovered that the crews were not at fault. The tire fasteners were not suitable for the vibrations and higher centripetal forces above 185 mph. Whenever I was given investigative duties I had a saying. "Trust no one suspect every one" and "what is obvious to you may not be to others"

ethicalpaul, I do not know what you mean by trauma. I and other members on this site have dropped and thrown these vents and could not dislodge the pins. I have opened measured and inspected over 50 G#5, G#6, GC and GD vents which all use the same case and bimettalic strip arrangement as the G#4. In all cases I had to use both hands. One to press hard to get the extended end of the strip to touch the base of the case and then more pressure to deform it and the other hand to pull the pin out of the hole. In addition, the same was done to restore the pin to it's position on the strip. In one vent I could not get it out. If you have big fingers it is difficult to do this. I have a QA/QC background earlier in my career and statistically if they could be dislodged by banging them around, it would be verified. If anyone has successfully dislodged the pins in these vents please let me know.

Hi--I'm renovating my living room and bedroom and I want to replace the old cast iron radiators with Runtal Charleston Pros--brochure here:

https://runtalnorthamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/charleston-radiator-1.pdf

I realize many people feel that these newer radiators don't provide as good/consistent of heat as the traditional cast iron ones. I'm willing to live with this--I'm on the first floor and it's always quite hot down here compared to upstairs. I'm insulating both of these rooms as part of the renovation and I've taken all the obvious steps to balance the system. For the purposes of this discussion let's not get into the 'quality' of heat provided by these radiators--I want to use them because they're wall hung and the 16" height will fit between my baseboard and window sill.

That said, I don't want to end up dealing with water hammer issues or anything like that. I've spoken to a couple of plumbers who seem comfortable working with these radiators, but I also spoke to one plumber who said he had a horrible experience with one and that he refused to ever do it again. He said that there was water hammer so bad that he had to pitch the radiator 1/4" per foot to get it to stop. That got me scared, but he wasn't really able to give an explanation for why this would be any more of an issue with these radiators versus traditional cast iron ones. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I can't imagine this company is able to market these radiators for one-pipe steam if this kind of issue always comes up...

I'm also getting mixed opinions from different plumbers about whether it's okay to pipe the steam up through the wall to have a horizontal stub supplying the radiator. Most are telling me it's fine--and I would prefer to do it this way--but again there's one plumber telling me that for one-pipe steam the stub has to emerge vertically from the floor. Is it crazy to supply steam to a radiator with a horizontal stub coming out of the wall?

Thank you everyone for your help!