Steam coming through the tale tell??

Boilerpro_3

is when the condensate under pressure hits atmospheric pressure and revaporizes. Many old churches had vapor systems, so you may need to run the pressure below 1/2 psi to get proper operation. Also, I have seen many situations where the returns where not vented properly, so heat could not get up to the upper floors.
Right now you may simply be squeezing the trapped air in the system and heating the lower rads, while the upper rads are air bound.

First look for proper venting and fix it, then turn down that pressure.

Some pics of the system returns, radiator valves and traps, and the near boiler pipng will help.

Boilerpro

Dan_25

Steam and condesate coming thru the tale tell

A few problems...The first being steam and condesate coming through the tale tell. All traps, thermostatic radiator valves and regular rad. valves where applicable were replaced. The building is an archaic church where the first and second floors heat up wonderfully, but from the 3rd floor to the 5th floor, nothing except the trap gets hot. We do have steam up there as evidence in breaking the traps and allowing steam to pass through forcefully. We operate the boiler at 2.5--3 psi and the boiler was properly sized for the steam radiation, so i'm pretty lost at this point. They had astromical gas bills, so a few years ago, we installed a heattimer. The super said it didn't work and raised it to pretty much the maximum settings and maintaining pressures of 5-7 psi. We told him that his way was incorrect and completely inefficent, but he swore that that was the only way to heat the building fully. He was right!! Still cant heat the building at 2 psi and now we have steam coming thru the tale tell. Any tips???

c.t.kay

church steam system

tips for two pipe steam systems. trvs on all radiators ,orifice plates on all radiators, the orifice plates make the steam traps obsolete as the steam will condensate before it leaves the radiator, drill and tap 1/8 in holes on each radiator feed pipe prior to the trvs,install a maid o mist/gordon angle air vent with the largest venting capacity on each feed pipe.install a heatimer gold/platium series control. install the indoor sensor/return sensor at the longest pipe run to the last radiator,just below the trv/airvent.set the heat timer on a 20 or 30 min. cycle ,set the sensor to approx 127 deg. use the thermal lock out switch set to approx 25 deg. when you do all of the above the heat timer sensor becomes an occupance sensor with much more accurate calibrations . orifice plates are avalible from tunstall assoc. i can send you an orifice chart. also put vaporstats ,hi/lo controls on the burner,set the controls at 1.5 /2.o psi plus or min. i have 20 &30 plus unit bldgs runing like this.you will also save fuel. hope this helps c.t.kay