steam heat

burnerman_2

i have worked on heating for ten years i blow down the system but have never cleaned a trap and if a system is giving not enough heat in part of the house what would i check you old timers be easy on me you only learn by asking sometimes people assume we know everthing

Pete_18

novice advice

I'm a novice homeowner myself, but having gone through fixing one piece of my neglected steam system at a time, making progress with each step, here's what I'd check (assuming 1 pipe steam).

1. That the mains are vented. If vented, that they are not clogged and that they're appropriately sized. I decided to go with overkill on my mains ( Gorton 2s ) instead of attempting to calculate how many Gorton 1s I needed. However, if you need main vents or to check they're appropriately sized, post how long your mains are and what size.

If your mains are not vented, your radiators could be choking on air and this will prevent them from getting hot. If you can't get the air out, steam won't go there. If the main doesn't fill quickly with steam because instead it is finding its way to whatever radiator is closest that it can get out of, you're going to have very unequal heating.

2. That the radiators not heating have properly sized vents that work. I've had good luck with the Heat-timer Varivalves and Gorton's. Both are high capacity /quality vents, but the Gorton's need to be sized properly since they're not adjustable. Some people like the Ventrites, but they don't vent as much air. Try taking off the vent and see if the radiator heats up. The adjustables are nice because then you can fine tune them based on if they heat up too fast.

3. That the steam radiator valve is actually open all the way. This one annoyed me for weeks as I struggled with a radiator that didn't want to heat up well, just to learn that the valve was broken and although it seemed like it was open, it was actually shut.

4. That the steam mains are insulated. You don't want all of your radiation in the basement. (My basement used to be about 50 degrees warmer than the rest of the house).

5. That the pressuretrol is set to 1 on the differential and .5 on the cut out/or whatever you call it.

And of course that the boiler is the proper size for the amount of radiation in the home.

will smith_4

Pete-He's got traps. It's two pipe.