Best Of

It's certainly not hard to notice that these days if you call a company for HVAC, plumbing, electric, etc. more often than not if your former contractor is not around anymore, you're going to find yourself in a jungle of a diminishing number of sole proprietors vs a burgeoning crowd of statewide and national chains, each with multiple/interchangeable names and teams of receptionists. You email one company and get a reply back from another that claim to have the same owner. When I recently found some actual sole proprietors I breathed a sigh of relief as if I'd been stuck in a world of androids.

Correct.

Before I tackle DIY project I always try to figure out what could go wrong. I don't want to be left hanging with a limbo situation. One thing I've learned in car mechanics is that if something can go wrong it will. A simple half hour job can become an 8-hour job. I'm very careful not to bite off more than I can chew and get in over my head. If it goes well unscrewing event looks like a 5-minute job. Or it could crack off and disable the entire heating system for a week until I get a tech to tap out the thread or whatever if the vent cracks or crumbles while I'm removing it.

I'm assuming if they're vent cracks off and leaves a gaping hole in the side of the radiator then I can't use the heating system at all because it'll be spewing steam everywhere. So I'm carefully trying to manage and assess the risk of a half functioning system bird in hand....versus the risk of a totally broken system If the vent breaks. I'm also trying to determine if I'm qualified to do this repair or if I need to call a shop to do it who has proper tap and die experience. It's all about knowing what to do when s*** go sideways.

I have no idea when these vents were last replaced. One of them is painted over with caked on paint. They don't look new at all. The main vent is been encased inside the ceiling of the basement. I think the last owners were clueless and had no idea how to maintain a steam system besides having a tech do the annual service (whatever that I means).

On a typical winter day all of mine will get heat to the inlet valves of the radiators (pipe side) within 3-4 minutes and they all start heating within a few seconds of eachother. In extreme cold they get steam in 90 seconds. This balancing took a lot of effort, but it is possible. On a cold start 20 minutes is normal.

The radiators will not get the vents hot in less than 30-40 minutes of constant running. Most of the time my vents are room temperature and only a few sections heat. Even on really cold days the vent side bottom of my radiators will tend to be cool.

This cheesy picture shows the area that tends not to heat on mine during normal use even on really cold days. It just never runs long enough to work that last bit of air out.