Steam heating System

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Paul Fitz

Steam System

I have owned my home for 9 years. When I bought it I knew nothing about homes, especially 85 year old homes.
I have, over the years, learned a lot.
When I bought the house apparently the home inspector missed the hole/crack in the boiler so my first winter was expensive and cold. As the bills came in I turned the heat down.
In the spring I had some look at the system and found out about the crack. So I had 3 companies give me estimates. A "friend" of mine owned a plumbing company with his dad and asked if he could bid on the job....his uncle was a boiler expert.
They ended up with a reasonable price and for the most part the boiler works good. I do have some problems though. My heat bills are still highish, and they never explained maintenance and general operations of a steam system to me.
I have learned more in the last 1/2 hour on this ste than in the last few years.
Although my system is a 1 pipe system the main pipe "Y's" to the different sections of the house. The one side of the y has a vent on the end in the basement and the radiators on that half of the house get real warm. There is no vent on the other half of the y and those radiators don't get as hot and the house has hot/cold zones. My question is can I put a vent on the other half of the "Y" and where do I get the parts. Is this a do it your self job.
I have, out of necessity become very handy over the years, to the point where I replaced all the old galvanized water pipe with copper and the old drain pipe with PVC.
I would like to make the system as efficient as possible as I live in Buffalo and it gets really cold in the winter. (high temp today 10F)

Gary Segal

Supply for air vents for main line

check out http://www.pexsupply.com/product_dtl.asp?pID=3524&brand=Gorton&cID=302

This link is the best price non-contractor price I have seen on Gorton #2's - depending on the size and run of your main, you will need between one and 3 of them, most likely.

The way to check (if you have a plug at the end of the main) would be to pull the plug when the boiler is cold and measure how long it takes to get steam. Then install one Gorton #2 and repeat the test. There are excellent resources on this website in the reference library for understanding venting further.

Good luck!

Daniel_3

That "Y" is called a bullhead tee which does not give the steam adequate room to drop away condensate, does not give proper expansion of the steam to dry it out for supreme latent energy, and makes balancing a steam system very difficult. You can install a vent at the end of the other main but the best outcome would be to change the near boiler piping to have separate take-offs for each main from a common header which you currently don't have. If I can picture it you have one 3" pipe, most likely reduced to 2" though, coming vertically out of the boiler then you have a tee which splits left to right for each main. If the installation manual according to piping specifications was followed upon installation you would not have for near boiler piping what you have now. This is spoken of from first hand experience as I had exactly what you describe about one year ago before the light shined.