Single pipe Steam

Brad White_200

you remove a radiator vent? Can you feel the venting? How fast is your "wide open vent rate"?

Is the piping insulated? (You probably told us in another thread, but might as well ask).

Do the radiators get hot? You said the mains, nothing about the radiators.

Firing time seems too long both to "hot boiler" and to steam. Is your gas pressure correct? if you were oil-fired, I would suspect under-firing, but the IN-6 is gas-only- firing rate does not seem to be the issue here.

I do not have the water content at hand, but say that boiler holds ten gallons, just a guess, 83.3 lbs. At 144 MBH gross output, that would take about 11.5 minutes to raise that temperature from 60F to 212F from a cold start, so that squares with your ten minutes experience. Two to three minutes to fill the mains seems reasonable.

Unless your radiators are undersized compared to the heat loss (and we are NO WHERE NEAR that point this time of year), I suspect radiator venting absent better information.

Try removing a vent (bring oven mitts). See what happens and if that speeds things along.

Boston_2

Single pipe Steam

My system has been running a for a few days now, with the new main vents, new radiator vents and new drop header.
I skimmed the boiler for several hours and now get about ½ to ¾ movement in the site glass; however, It seems to still take allot of time to get steam to my radiators. There is a total runtime of 45 minutes to move 2 degrees.
I noticed two things 1) even after 45 min of run time I only have about .2 lbs of pressure in the boiler (the pressuretrol never kicks off). 2) It takes approximate 10 min to get the boiler to make steam and another 2-3 min to fill all the mains.

Is there a way to “turn up the heat” a little and get the boiler creating more steam? When we calculated the SQFT of steam we came in just under the IN5, so we went with the IN6 so I know we are not undersized.

Big Ed_4

Seems Under Sized

Should be up on pressure in 20 min. Are your mains insulated. If not it needs to be done.

Gas or oil ? If gas clock the meter to make sure your burning proper BTU input. Oil , check the fire and bring it up a notch if you can.

Boston_2

brad



I removed one of the radiator vents after about 20 min of heating. There was a small puff of air and then barely no movement after that; however, it did seem to speed up the heating a little… shouldn’t there be significant air movement once you take the valve off?

The radiators do get hot; after 35 min of firing the radiators on the first floor are ½ way hot and the second floor radiators are ¼ hot. Is 45 -50 min run time for a 1400 sf house sound right?

Brad White_200

After 35 minutes...

you should be hot all the way across, actually in less time than that in my experience.

With the air vent off, there is nothing between your boiler waterline and the atmosphere but the gentle drag of steam on pipe walls. "Speed it up a little" is faint praise. The open pipe/tapping is an invitation to fast venting. All a vent, even a good one, can do in place is slow that down even more...

I would check for "panting", the in and out flow of air at the vent tapping. A lack of pipe insulation will collapse your steam production, creating a small vacuum and "pull-back" of the vented air.

You can replicate this panting effect using a telephone and certain 900 numbers by the way; I am not sure how I know that though...

If you have (how many/how few?) ounces of pressure in the boiler, even this should get you some venting of air.

That 45-50 minutes run time, is that to get the house raised to comfort from setback? Or run time to pressure shut-down? Regardless, the area of the house is not of much consequence because presumably the steaming rate and heating needs are proportional.

But, an especially small system like that, properly insulated, fired and vented should have the mains warm from the time of steam formation (say ten minutes from a cold start) in about three more minutes and the radiators starting to get hot a few minutes later. This much you have already noted in your initial posting.

If that is the case, hot mains in three minutes, I am suspecting something happening on the way to the radiator, if not venting itself.

Firing a boiler in the basement for no good effect on your living space is your best indicator that something is not at it's best.

Big Ed_4

Sorry to Say

You need more fire ......
Insulate the supplies piping.
Next test clock the meter. Not knowing your boiler. Any unused burners you can add ?

Boston_2

Single pipe Steam

The 45 min runtime was to go from a setback, 66 degrees to 68 degrees, so I am only trying to move the needle 2 degrees. I have insulated 100% of the main piping and about 20% of the sub main piping. All of that seems to get hot very quickly… with in 15 min of the boiler running.

I listened for any “Panting” of the radiator valve and I didn’t detect anything. I called the 900 number you referenced and confirmed there is no panting coming from my radiators.

It appears that all gas burners are firing with a nice clean blue flame, but it doesn’t have a whole lot of umph behind it.

After 45 min of run time, my low pressure gauge shows about .2 -.4 psi.

Tom_116

Sagging main?

if you have any long horizontal runs in the mains see if some of the clamps and hangers have broken off letting the pipe sag. The pipe will fill with water at the sag, and not allow steam to pass. Also check valves for full open at the rads.

World Plumber

Turn the boiler off and look up above the burners. We had that problem with 2 IN boilers there was a piece of insulation across the bottom of the sections. The heat from the flame did not contact the sections thus no steam. when the insulation was moved back in place we got much better preformance. I hope this is of some help to you.

Mark

Big Ed_4

Nice Catch.....

....Mark.

Boston_2

Thanks Mark

I will check this out when i get home... wouldn't the insulation burn if it was removed? Is it there by design, so all IN boilers have it?