Anybody have the venting rate for the Durst Little Wonder A880B?

Angela_2

that stinks, i acquired these over the last few years when i didn't know any better. i think that this one and the vent-rite were all lowe's and/or home depot sold. honestly, i was doing well just because i actually knew that the vent was usually what was wrong when a radiator went cold.

i have had too replace a lot of them, as a matter of fact.

do you also like the hoffman 1a?

Angela_2

I bought the online vent book, but this one isn't listed. Trying to balance my system, and I have a whole load of these vents. Thanks, Angela

Steamhead (in transit)

It's the same

as the US Air Valve. It's made in China and doesn't last long. Invest in quality vents.

"Steamhead"

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gerry gill

never heard of it..

made in china huh?? what the hell do they know about steam heat? hehe

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Brad White_194

Personally?

I like the compactness and variable adjustment features of Heat Timer Vari-Valves. The venting capacity, fully open, is about as much as a Gorton D or #1 if I recall.

Only thing is, they have tended to spit like angry, rutting Llamas, (which, to be fair, may have been more a function of wet steam than the valves, even though the piping was ideal).

My choice then would be Gorton Air Valves. I like their classic look too.

gerry gill

Angela,

my personal opinion is that i have a preferance for Gorton vents..the hoffman's are well made but vent a little slow for my tastes..if you really want to know what those can do, if you send me one i'll gladly test it for you and send it back..

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Angela_2

Air Vent Puzzle

Alright, I'm looking at the Gorton valves, and trying to decide what I need for good system performance while balancing cost.

I am wondering if I need any C's at all, or if 6's would be sufficient for my third floor rooms and hardest-to-heat rooms.

Each side of my duplex has a boiler, 15 radiators totaling just under 500 EDR, 3 floors, approx. 2500 square feet of floor space to heat, and 16 old, double-hung windows. I could get super detailed and buy a few 4's, a few C's, some 6's and a box of 5's. Or I could buy a box of 5's, a box of 6's, and a few 4's.

Each floor is relatively small, this place is stacked. Only a couple of the radiators on each side are very hard to heat, and a couple more get too hot.

I guess my question is, in a place this small, do I need to mess around with all four sizes? Are C's probably unnecessary? The 4's?

Brad White_198

Seeing as you like this, Angela....:)

I think the general Gorton guidelines are fine, using C's and D's on the furthest radiators or ones with a lot of air ahead of them, 4's, 5's and 6's closer, etc. A #4 is a tight valve, as they say, for the room with the thermostat. I do not think that there is much difference in cost between the radiator type valves.

Of course, your mains should be vented well ahead of these. (Radiator vents only want to vent their volume of air plus the piping that feeds that radiator only.)

When you buy the valves, just make sure you order straight or angled pattern. Straight if you have TRV vent valves and angle if they go right into the radiator itself.


If you really want to get technical, I have a small project for you! Well, maybe not that you like this so much as have an excellent grasp of things and have little fear that I detect...

Go to the Online Store tab and get a copy (e-mailed in PDF form), of Gerry Gill and Mike Pajek's e-booklet on balancing steam systems using vent charts. I think the CPU is 300 but do check. The proceeds go to a good cause, so for ten bucks last I checked, everyone makes out.

THEN, measure your pipes and get the internal volume in "cubic feet per linear foot", the goal being to get the volume of each run in cubic feet.

You can then select your vents to get rid of the air proportionally for each leg so that all radiators heat in about the same amount of time. Your effort at doing the measuring, buying the e-booklet and so-on will mean possibly smaller vents (not a savings specifically) but the mains might need say one or two #1 vents versus the more expensive #2 as one example. Point being, you will know your venting rate at a certain pressure and can then gauge how you are doing.

Angela_2

I bought the book last year

but didn't do much with it.

i did make a map of my basement risers, trying to figure out which risers went where. 1st floor was easy, 2nd and 3rd not so. my map has question marks! 13 pipes for 15 radiators, and some could be one or the other.

I have no main vents, which is strange because this system seems otherwise pretty well designed. But there is no evidence that there ever were any. I plan to have them put in when the boiler is replaced. Their placement will also be tricky, since it isn't that easy to figure out which end is which, both pipes coming off the boiler appear to rise to the same height. Mr. Riley, the fellow who is putting together a bid for me, didn't seem positive either. There is also a strange spot where they took the pipe up over top of the gigantic vent and then back down, and he thought that there should probably be a vent near there, though there isn't much room for one.

Next door, the system was piped differently in the basement. [I haven't bothered to map it, self interested little wench that I am, I have been a hell of a lot more concerned with my 1200 gallon winters than I have been with their gas bill, which has consistently been half of my oil bill: it was hard to have pity!] Kind of funny that the piping was designed differently, since the houses and placement of the radiators are identical. I didn't even notice it was different myself, but I took my oil man over there to discuss quick vents and he noticed it right away. There are two clogged or broken main vents right next to the boiler. They are both on T's which is probably why they are no good.

I am now trying to get both systems in premium working order, my tenant is complaining because the prettiest room in the house (her bedroom) is ice cold. And since we are now good friends and she's pregnant, I've decided that I can make at least a little effort while I'm at it. I'd like to use my prettiest room too for something other than storage, so if I'm going to fix one I may as well fix the other. At first I told her there wasn't much I could afford to do, the problem with the room is that it has a poorly insulated gable that is over an open porch and under a roof, and the radiator in that gable never heats up much at all. The room has a second radiator as well, but it doesn't begin to make up for it.

I really wanted to avoid all that measuring and calculating. Not that I couldn't handle it, but jeez, I'm not going into business here! The work around I've come up with is putting all the same make of vent on the system using the cheap adjustable vents I lalready own, (I put them all in a pile and grouped like with like, then boiled them) and then noting which radiators do what with this variable held constant. Then I could guess how many of each size of quality vent I would probably need based on which radiators got hot first, etc. Or I get adjustables and play with them.

I was all excited to do this last night but my pilot was out and there was rusty dust everywhere, so I got derailed.

Brad White_198

If you have no main vents

And it is not practical to install them or that it may be some time, then Gorton D's may be OK on the furthest radiators to speed things along for the benefit of the other radiators.

Not fully sanctioned, but I did this in a pinch in a church and it made a huge difference in heating time to this last cluster of radiators. I did say cluster, so leave it at that.