Too loud venting valves - help!

Steamhead (in transit)

if you can hear the vents venting, you need more vents- but not always on the radiators.

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Bart_8

Too loud venting valves - help!

Recently I had some Honeywell valves that were spitting and hissing replaced. Because I am on the top 2 flrs of an 8 story building, my boiler guys replaced the adjustable Honeywell's with Gorton Ds (the boiler is in the basement). While the hissing is gone, the sound of the steam being released, that pressure, creates an incredible amount of noise. There is no way anyone could possibly sleep through it. I am trying to figure out what valve will be better. I didn't have this extreme loud problem with the Honeywell - should I go back to that? Alternatively, I read about doubling or tripling up on the Gorton's, but one technician says this will create double or triple the noise, while another says the pressure will be distributed among the additional valves and that will reduce the sound. Which is right? Seems the latter since there is only a finite amount of steam each cycle, but since I am the top floor, maybe all the leftover steam from below would simply be louder? I don't know.

The boiler itself is not an issue, I spent the better part of this heating season working with our technicians getting the boiler in good shape because it was flooding. Got that under control, have the system pushing less pressure than it was, using low and high fire properly, got the water on a treatment schedule, etc. Now it's just a matter of getting the venting right so I can sleep! I can deal with the expected noise of steam heat, but I'm telling you, this is really loud! HELP!

Thanks.

nicholas bonham-carter

loud vents

sounds like still too much pressure and dirty water to me.try going chemical free and skimming the boiler.
what is your pressure anyway?should be less than 16 OUNCES measured with an accurate 0--3 psi gauge [from gaugestore.com ] mounted on a clean pigtail.--nbc

kpc_20

sound to me....

that you either need to add MAIN vents or the ones you have are not working.... radiator vents are only supposed to vent the rads. You probably should add some allong the main if the building is that tall....

Big-Al

Mine Too

After reading how highly regarded the Gorton vents were on this forum, I bought a couple. The C size was OK . . . hissed some. I have it on my biggest radiator. The D size was really, really loud and fluttered like crazy and seemed to take forever to close. This was on a 2PSI max system. It was just bad.

I'm not a heating tech, just a lowly mechanical engineer. I've tried other vents and here's my observations based on my limited experience . . .

1)Watts SVA - fairly loud when venting. Close with a sharp snapping/pinging noise. Sometimes whistle when the system is cooling off. Truly annoying. I made mufflers for them out of copper tubing. It helped, but not enough.

2) Heat-Timer Varivalve - vents really fast and makes more of a heavy-breathing noise than a hiss. The design is somewhat prone to spitting, but overall I like them. I put one in my coldest room and it helped quite a bit.

2) Maid-O-Mist #6 and C - nice gentle whoosh when venting and they close gently too. My favorites!

Steamhead (in transit)

Do you have

properly-sized main-line vents?

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