mystery heating in old house

heatguy

back in the day they used to run a pipe to the roof to deal with expansion it just spilled on the roof

GW

how did the air get out?

I was in this old house last week, three floors, old hot water system. One corner of the house wasn't heating up (all three floors), at first I just thought there was a balancing problem because there was water coming out of the rads. The home owner asked if I could bleed some air from the valve in the attic (another heat guy did this last year), I didn't think it would help, but then it dawned on me this was a system where the supply mains went to the top of the house THEN down, so perhaps there was hope, perhaps that one supply main had air in the top.

Sure enough I got a bunch of air. What troubles me is that the valve I was bleeding at was not at the highest point in the system. It's a bit hard to explain, but there was a pipe that was HIGHER than where I was getting air, and it goes into a finished ceiling of the third floor, and I assumed it headed towards this problem area of the house. I was in the knee wall area of the third floor, if you could picture that.

I did not see any evidence on an old expansion tank, but the old timers wouldn't put that at the tippy top of the roof where the peak is, would they? I realize the third floor may not always have been finished.

Anyway, the corner started heating up, all three floors. I'm just baffled by the piping arangement; I wish I had x-ray vision! thanks for any help on this.

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Steamhead (in transit)

That's a \"Mills System\"

named for John Mills, who came up with the idea of running steam and hot-water mains at the top of a building.

There probably is an old expansion tank up there, tucked away in a closet or attic or something, or maybe even a wooden tank high on a third-floor wall, with a pipe leading out to the roof or soil stack vent to discharge excess water as Heatguy said. Not sure why those bleeders would be up there, unless the main is at the second floor ceiling level and the rads were added to the third floor later.

Post some pics of this if you can.

"Steamhead"

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GW

piping

yes, it's all original for sure, the express riser appears to run from the basement right up to the knee wall area of the third floor, then goes horizontal about 5 feet off the floor in both directions (good sized knee wall area), apparently downfeeding the various drops to the basement level.

Interstingly, the bleed valve is about 3 feet off the floor, and like I mentioned previuosly there is a pipe that shoots up the roof line in this exact same general area and dissapears into what becomes the ceiling of an ajoining room on the third floor. The amount of cavity above the thrid floor ceiling is absolutely minimal, perhaps 2 feet high at the peak if there was a hole to get your head into.

That's what got me some bunched up with the fact that I got air out of it, because it was not the high point. If I could only see in the walls that would be great.

Thanks, Gary

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rob brown

mills

iv'e seen a couple mills systems where the dead man that closed the open system ran a 1/4" copper line down next to the main to boiler room. fitted a small petcock to line. all you had to do to bleed every rad in house was open fill valve, then petcock. when you got water, your done. no rags, no bucket, no rusty water stains on floors, curtains or walls. simple and beautiful systems. rob