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Nothing but trouble from those vents. They vent way too quickly and they have a remarkably short lifespan. Only real benefit is that they can fit into tight spaces. Would not install them in my own home, if someone gave them to me for free.

I would say that the Cyclegard is not gong to be a problem — or even if it were, a minor adjustment to the Heat-Timer would take care of it.

Too many other, bigger variables for it to show up.

You're not missing anything. Radiator valves have been removed and supply lines capped off in these areas. And you're certainly correct that the sizing of the boiler was done by intuition not calculation. I was new to the property and knew relatively little about steam heating when the old boiler failed. Steam heat is extremely rare here and the contractor mainly deals with process steam.

Or the boiler may be leaking above the waterline. If true, you wouldn't see water on the floor, but you'd have steam coming out the chimney.

I never met the dead man that installed the 1920s Smith one pipe steam boiler system in the basement of that church in Cape May NJ I used to work on. But it was originally installed in a basement. I could tell by the covered up chimney opening in the corner of the basement.  The boiler was close to a window that was obviously used to deliver coal to the basement.   At some point that boiler may have been under water since much of Cape May is below sea level and flooding is a regular occurrence for those buildings with basements.     

At some point in time (1940s or 1950s) the church upgraded the boiler to operate on oil heat and so a section of the parking lot was used to build an above ground boiler room.  You can’t have an oil burner and all the related electrical controls getting flooded out.  This must have been an interesting feat of engineering to move the basement boiler (all 16 sections) to the new boiler room that was above the steam mains in the basement.  There is a condensate return pump in the basement that was connected to three steam dry returns that dropped to the floor after passing thru steam traps from each return.  

So now the returning condensate goes into the return pump reservoir and gets pumped to the boiler thru a small tunnel that contains the steam main, and the return pipe from the condensate return pump, some electrical wiring from the thermostat(s) and power for lighting and the boiler, along with Hot and Cold water piping for a commercial water heater that is vented to the same chimney as the boiler.   

At the time of the boiler being moved there were some Honeywell motorized valves added to the three mains so the entire building would not need to be heated.  This was a very large building that included the main church building.  Then an annex was added that was 2 stories.  It was about as big as the original church building with two floors.  The first floor had the equivalent of 2 class rooms and 2 activity rooms.  The second floor was one large auditorium that was used as a basketball court at times and other activities that required a stage at one end of the hall.  There was a third area that connected the church and the hall that included a small chapel that accommodated about 40 people in the pews and a small altar at the head of the room.  Just behind the chapel was the connecting hallway from the main church to the annex hall.  The restrooms and the parson’s office and secretary's office were on the first floor.  A full commercial kitchen on the second floor.   This was quite a large building.

When the dead men moved the boiler that fed the three steam mains, the zone valves were included in the project and for the life of me, I don't understand it but there was no banging and the valves when closed did not create a problem with the one zone that was open.  And that happened a lot.  There are other stories about this building that I have shared on HeatingHelp.com but I figured this one about the zone valves was appropriate for this discussion.

I assume the two boilers were installed in order to be able to let each resident pay for their own heat (even though the one on top gets free heat if it is an upstairs downstairs situation). Out of curiosity, is that situation going away?