Fixed Leaks, Two-Pipe Steam Heat System Goes Haywire

nicholas bonham-carter

i think the pressure is much too high.i believe it should be ounces [maybe only 3!] instead of pounds.
i suggest you get a low pressure gauge from gaugestore.com and have it put on next to the pressuretrol which should be set to its lowest point.
cleanliness is next to godliness especially in a steam system.it does need cleaning which your boilerman can show you how to do after the piping is in place.
when you get this system working as it should, you will be very pleased; especially as it will be due to your own powers of observation!--nbc

niftyc

homeowner trying to love steam heat


I bought an old house two years ago and I am trying to love steam heat. The first year it was great. Low heating bills and cozy warm. However the heating system had a lot of little leaks in it -- and one big one on a return main in the basement. This summer we spent about $3000 and fixed them. (Repairing the main was a big job and involved fabricating a long length of iron pipe.) Now when the cold season started, the system doesn't work as it should.

It is a two-pipe steam system with a beautiful antique plaque in the basement reading "K-M-C Vacuum System 1906". There is a 1991 gas boiler attached to the (mostly) original piping. I installed a new Honeywell electronic thermostat this summer as we are gone during the day. (I set it to one cycle per hour.)

When this heating season started, we started to get some very strange behavior. Some radiators and whole areas of the house stopped heating, but the cold areas keep moving around. Currently the thermostat is set to 70 and the temperature is 65-67. The thermostat reads "HEAT ON" and the steam mains in the basement are very hot, with the boiler continuously cycling on and off every few minutes. I can hear what sounds like boiling (or something) from the boiler when the burner is off. The sight gauge shows 1/4 full of water. The pressure gauge is right between 4 and 5 PSI and it moves only a little bit. The system is not noisy -- a few soft pings but not much.

The hot and cold areas seem to show no rhyme or reason. Sometimes the 2nd floor is warm and the 1st floor is cool, sometimes the reverse. The radiators closest to the first steam distribution main do heat more reliably than the ones on the other side of the system, but even that can't be counted upon.

We've had the service guy out three times for this. His guess was that there was air in the system that could not vent. To test his theory he opened the return pipes at the cold radiators to the air just after the steam traps. A lot of air came out of each one he opened and the system seemed to improve. But then after a week or so we get back to the same situation.

In case it isn't clear already -- I know nothing about this stuff. I live in a small town and I have the best plumbing and heating guy around here (he works on all of the old steam systems, but there aren't many). We are both over our head, I think. I bought the books on heatinghelp.com and I have been trying to figure out what to do, but I'm not even good with my hands.

After doing a lot of reading, the best idea I can come up with is that the mains aren't venting. However after looking around at all of the pipes I can find, I can't find any vents at all. There seems to be no way for any air to leave the system. I looked up some images of vents on the Web and I can't find anything like that in my system. The piping in the basement looks vaguely like this: http://content.managemyhome.com/Images/Heating/Steam_heating/1106_R.GIF but there is nothing where the "main vent" shows on the diagram.

I was hoping some steam heat enthusiasts could give me an opinion as to whether or not I am on the right track.

Thank you so much for any help,
Christian

ttekushan_3

Piping work contaminated the water.

Actually, this is really simple. If the piping was serviced with new threaded pipe installed, and no modifications were made, then the problem is very likely water contamination.

When they thread pipe, a LOT of thread cutting oil winds up inside the pipe and fittings. Since steam boilers are extremely sensitive to surface contamination (which is where the cutting oils, etc wind up), piping repairs often cause bizarre problems everywhere throughout the system. Water is being carried into the piping where the steam is supposed to be. And it may well be different areas every time it fires! Usually, awful noises accompany this situation.

You need to do a boiler skimming, meaning the surface of the boiler water must be cleaned. This may need to be done a number of times since the oil has now been carried everywhere and must be skimmed as it reappears in the boiler.

Not serious, just mysterious and annoying.

EDIT/add

BTW, keep looking for those vents. They may not look traditional... If the system worked great before, and the only thing that changed was piping repair, I stand by my answer. You may be thinking, "what if during the repairs vents were removed?" Its possible, but unvented or poorly vented systems don't make noise, and the poor heat in areas doesn't move around much. Poor venting makes for lousy heat but usually not bizarre heat.

Make sure no one messed with the KMC radiator valves. Replacing KMC valves constitutes a design change to the system since they are calibrated at installation. These systems are not tolerant of poor steam quality (see skimming, above) nor are they tolerant of excessive boiler pressure. If anyone turned up the pressure to compensate for the heating trouble, then your troubles multiply exponentially!

There's good stuff on vapor systems in Dan's books. He has a great story in "the Lost Art of Steam Heating" that involves the very system you have, entitled "Screwdriver Willie" if memory serves. Informative and hilarious.

gerry gill

Not sure if this will help

or not..its Doc Morgan's patent which is the patent used on the K-M-C steam system..maybe you can gleam some insights from it..over the years many things get altered..just beware these systems used mercury.

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niftyc

which KMC radiator valves do you mean?

When you say "make sure no one messed with the KMC radiator valves" ... I'm sure someone has messed with everything at one time or another. The system is not pristine. I am trying to figure it out.

Do you mean the supply valves? Most of the radiator valves look like this:
http://www.hoffmanspecialty.com/pdf/hs900/HS900-180a.pdf

However some of the oldest units don't have any valves at all, and they have no steam traps. I don't understand how they work.

I must admit the system didn't work "great" before ... maybe I was too enthusiastic. There were some cold spots. It had personality. But it did heat the whole house reliably and now it does not.

Christian

Steamhead (in transit)

The Morgan and K.M.C. systems

are shown on pages 265-267 of "The Lost Art of Steam Heating". I don't believe these systems had radiator traps or water seals, which means the radiator valves or inlet connections were orificed. You can still get orificing valves from MEPCO (our favorite so far) Barnes & Jones and maybe some others too. The Hoffman valves you have don't have orificing built in, but you could use orifice disks in the valve unions.

The original air vent on these systems was a mercury pot that could hold a vacuum. If you still have yours, be very careful with it. It's possible the piping to this device was altered so air can't vent thru it. This would explain the high pressures and no steam distribution.

Can you post some pics?



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niftyc

All of the details that I can think of

Thank you so much for the quick replies and the advice (and gerry gill for the PDF). My system does look like that one in the patent (which has steam traps) but some radiators look just like Fig. 161 on this K-M-C system diagram from p. 175 of this 1908 book, which do not have steam traps:

http://books.google.com/books?id=38qEAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA174&dq=k-m-c+system+steam#PPA175,M1

Just for context: It is 32 degrees outside and dropping. I am very worried about all this -- especially because the plumbing/heating contractor does not seem to know what to do either. If I call him again without any new information I think he will open the pipes again. My first priority is to figure out how to get the system to approximate its performance last year. I certainly want to continue to fix it up but today's worry is that I just spent that $3K and it seemed to make the whole thing not work. I have to get this cycling and cold zones to stop. My wife is heating the downstairs with the oven.

Here is everything I can think of writing down. I can take pictures and send them if you tell me what to photograph.

I have 20 radiators on 3 floors.

Inlets: They all have the large inlet pipe at the bottom, as pictured in the urls above. 7 have Hoffman valves that are the same age -- nothing looks new. 4 have very old valves that have been painted over and are hard to identify. 9 have no valve at all on the inlet.

Outlets: 2 have amazingly old tiny stainless steel things stamped "1916 AIR LINE VALVE." 9 have very old-looking Fulton steam traps. 2 have new Hoffman 17C steam traps. 7 have no trap or valve.

I have a 1991 Weil-McLain EG-75-SPN boiler listed for 750 sqft of steam output. There is a new steam gauge pretty much pegged at 5 PSI and an antique 1906 gauge that does not work. Two fairly new looking Honeywell gray pressure control boxes are attached to two different pigtail pipes. One comes out of the top and is set to 4 PSI, one comes out of the side and is set to 5 PSI. The sight glass is 1/4 full of water and it is a little cloudy but not too bad.

I did find the main vent. It looks like all of the accumulator/mercury tank stuff has been removed from the basement long ago. There are a few capped pipes that lead to where that should have been (?). Instead, all I can find is a rusty old thing marked "Dunham AIR ELIMINATOR" where the air lines come together. The top part looks fairly new while the rest looks pretty old. It doesn't appear to be doing anything (but I'm not sure how to tell).

The steam mains are mostly insulated, and it seems to have been done very recently (within a couple of years?).

While I was looking around the entire house at the whole system, I found three more leaks. There is a very faint hissing at one of the radiator inlet valves (a Hoffman), some hissing and a hint of moisture at another one (another Hoffman), and I can detect some noise at place on the steam main downstairs where he replaced the pipe.

So I'm not sure what to do next. I can adjust the pressure setting, I can call the contractor and ask him to skim the boiler because I think his repair filled the system with oil. (He also added some kind of cleaning solution to the system.) I can ask him to replace the valves. But there are a lot of valves! It looks like there are several different options for my next step and I'm not sure how to tell what would be the most useful thing to do next.

Thank you again for your kindness and help.
Christian

P.S.

I have been reading the book excerpts online. I ordered paper copies yesterday but they haven't arrived yet.

Steamhead (in transit)

On top of the Dunham Air Eliminator

there should be a little device that looks like a cap, or it might be a small main vent. That's the actual air vent and it should also contain a small disc that is designed to hold a vacuum. Unscrew this thing and see if the air doesn't start to vent.

This is not a Vapor system per se, but an air-line system where the radiator vent lines are extended to the basement and vented there (also the vacuum device is located there). Otherwise it's basically one-pipe steam. See figure 57 on page 266 of Lost Art. Also forget about using orificing valves as I posted earlier- they don't work on one-pipe systems.

Where are you and this old beauty located?

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ttekushan_3

See how everyone comes through?

OK. Its not so simple. Or maybe it is. I think it may be simple to get back to where you were before the piping was done. I still think the water is contaminated, but note what I said above. These systems are intolerant of high pressure. 4 and 5 lbs is WAY too high for this kind of system, especially for those areas that have the "Air Valve" and the ones that have no apparent valves or traps. The ones with nothing on them are interesting. There may be an orifice on them or the lines feeding them that are not apparent. Or they may not and these get too hot first. The amazingly old parts are original and probably never failed in the first place. High steam pressure blasts steam into the returns causing nothing but headaches.

The other hissing leaks are probably steam pressure related.

So, first turn down the pressure controls to .5 lbs and inside them is a "differential" wheel. Make sure that is as low as it will go which is 1 lb. This shuts the boiler off at 1.5 lbs and back on again at .5. You should install a vaporstat on this system so that pressure can be well controlled and under 1 lb. You might be surprised to know that these systems should be under only a few ounces of pressure, just as n. b-c says below. Too bad they don't make Vacustats anymore.

Next, clean, clean, clean.

That should get you where you were. Then the discussion of how to determine if vents and traps are working and if those places where "stuff" was removed can be utilized for venting, and if the radiator traps should be eliminated and orifices installed at the radiator valves. A photo of the trap and valveless radiators could reveal something of how steam flow was managed.

niftyc

orifices

Okay thanks steamhead and TerryT. Just read about "Willie" and variable orifices guess that means that over the years someone has messed with the system a lot, because many radiators have different traps and valves. I listed them in the post below.

If I understand all this, I'm hoping that the steam traps have been installed where there are no orifices. It looks like some radiators have nothing at all on inlet or outlet, but that must mean there is an orifice disk I can't see in the union? Hope so! Where most of the Hoffmans have been installed there is no trap. Yet these radiators don't heat all the way across and I do not have a noisy system so I wasn't worried about that. Maybe I should! The more I learn about this stuff the more I find to worry about.

niftyc

checking the vent

Okay. Thanks so much for the fast reply. Can I mess with the Dunham cap while the system is operating? As I said, I don't know what I am doing.

If I understand this most recent reply, does that mean all of the steam traps I found are not actually necessary? It is confusing because one historical diagram of the K-M-C system shows it with steam traps and one diagram does not.

If it helps, the returns all start from the middle or middle/top of the radiators while the inlets are at the bottom.

UPDATE:

I am in Champaign, Illinois.

Christian

niftyc

the main vent does not vent anything

Okay per steamhead's post I found the shiny newish cap on top of the air eliminator and unscrewed it and saw the disc. There was no airflow at all even though the gauge near the boiler was still at 5 PSI.

So I think this means I have a closed system with no vents. Aaarggh. How does it work without vents? I can't find any other vents, and this Dunham thing is the main vent and it does not vent. Maybe the system only worked at all because it was so leaky?

Steamhead (in transit)

The leaks were probably venting it

is there a union in the air lines near the Dunham unit that you can disconnect?

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gerry gill

sounds like a once fine system

thats been man-handled over the years..can you post pictures of the different radiators..some sound like they have ''paul'' vents, some radiator traps? thats where i get lost..are the traps in the air vent location or down low?.......bottom line is that as steam leaves the boiler it has to push the air in the pipes out SOMEPLACE..hopefully at the ends of the mains there would be main vents installed..you should have these or get them added..the radiators also need to pass there air out..where? if there are paul vents then the discharge pipe gets vented by something..sounds like your dunham trap does this..that would have been an added item..not a very wise choice either..try unscrewing the entire vent from the top of the dunham trap..

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niftyc

point of clarification: there are no vents

Point of clarification: Some have traps, some don't. But there are no vents. From the diagrams and books I have been reading I think steamhead has it right in the post above. It looks like this beast operates like a one-pipe system but it has air return pipes fitted where the vents would go. If I understand the K-M-C system patent, the pressure difference from the air return pipes makes the system much more responsive and the radiators heat quickly (when it's working right). All venting is supposed to be done centrally in the basement. But I may have that wrong.

On this picture, where there is a vent, my system has no vents. Instead it has a very thin pipe. On some radiators there is a steam trap and on some there isn't. The steam traps are of varying ages.
http://www.rd.com/images/tfhimport/2000/Feb00_Ask_Handyman/20000201_Ask_Handyman_page003img002_size2.jpg

I took the cap all the way off of the "air eliminator" and there is nothing going on there. No air flow.

I am working on taking some pictures.

rich on heat

gerry gill

okay, i think i got you now,

so all the rads are still connected via the air line system i take it..is that correct? and some have the steam trap air vent at the radiator and some you say don't? what did they do? did they hook the air line directly to the radiator?

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ttekushan_3

sorry, the \"trap\" term

made me think this was a two pipe system.

Gerry,
Its a shame how these systems got "modified" over the years. I worked on balancing a single pipe system at an apartment building in cleveland heights and finagled the total venting rate and then proportioned from there. Worked out pretty well. Thanks to your vent rate chart, it was much easier. My point is, if I remember correctly, in looking down at the floor in an uncarpeted unit I noticed a tell-tail hole in the floor that just so happened to line up with the radiator vent. Every radiator in the building has the holes in the floor, but no more pipes:-( I'm sure there weren't any heat distribution problems when that Paul system was working...

-Terry

P.S. I'll contact you offline, but I recall you mentioning that you've serviced a SelecTemp system by Iron Fireman. I have a couple of questions about what you saw. The sales brochure doesn't have enough detail. I have a few ideas I'm working on and my influences are the European/Tudor, the SelecTemp and vapor/vacuum systems of steam heating.

Anyone else worked on a SelecTemp? All I could find, which is not insignificant but not what I'm quite looking for is Swenson's patent on the steam powered heating system. This was the patent for the room heat exchangers with turbine.

niftyc

Pictures! And: contractor removed something from air return?

Okay I ran around the house with the camera. Here is the result:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/niftyc/sets/72157608801023873/

Note my comments in the properties.

All radiators are connected to the air return pipes. Some of them just connect directly to the air returns, some of them have steam traps of varying ages that look like this:

http://www.armstronginternational.com/files/images/en_US/product_solutions/steam_trapping_and_steam_tracing_equip/steam_traps/radiator/images/TS2_TS3_Series1.jpg

There are no vents. The steam traps are sealed and do not vent. The only thing anywhere that looks like a vent is the air eliminator and the three other leaks I found.

The last picture in the set is something of a mystery. It looks like the contractor removed something from the air return on his last visit. I have no idea what it was, but the green stuff looks like fresh work.

The air return pipes are room temperature. Is there any place I should try opening this up? Opening the air eliminator cap there is nothing going on.

gerry gill

try taking off the cap on the pipe

that the contractor did something with on the air line..see if it heats then..you may get some steam out of it since some radiators appear to have nothing to stop the steam from getting into the air line..they all should have a vent valve like that fulton sylphon one.

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niftyc

how do i lower the pressure?

Okay, it sounds like I should lower the pressure. How do I lower the pressure? There are two gray honeywell boxes that look like this: http://i10.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/f3/c3/ceaa_1_sbl.JPG attached to two different pigtails. There only one control on each box and one is set to 4 PSI while the other is set to 5 PSI. Which do I adjust, and why are there two? Is one low and one high?

niftyc

i uncapped the air return and... it vents air

I removed the cap and got some air out, then some very wet steam, then nothing. I noticed that pressure on the boiler gauge dropped to a little above 2 PSI. Right about this time the thermostat temperature reached 70 and the burner shut off. Hooray! But it might have been up near 70 already. I'm not sure if uncapping the pipe caused this. The behavior of the overall system is erratic and I was not watching the thermostat closely. (Sometimes it starts to work almost like it used to, then it goes back to this haywire condition.) I've put the cap back on.

I'm not sure what this tells me except that one of the air return pipes is trying to return air.

I found something in the corner of the basement that it looks like the contractor might have taken off of this capped pipe. It is a very thin pipe, a few inches long, and it narrows until it reaches a lump of corrosion and gunk at the end that implies venting to me. At the very end it has a bright red cap that you can barely see because of the gunk. Is it some sort of vent? The whole thing is pretty small. But if the contractor removed the only working vent that might be an explanation to what is going on.

I will call the contractor in the morning and quiz him about this air pipe. Anything else I should ask him?

Is this progress? It feels a little like progress.

Thanks again for all of your help.

Christian

Steamhead (in transit)

I agree, Gerry

take the cap off the "spur" and I'll bet it heats.

You can still get replacement air-line vents. I believe Hoffman calls theirs the #3.

Edit- looks like Christian followed your advice before I got my post on. Sweeeeet! How do the radiators heat now? You can put a large main vent, like a Gorton #2, on that spur for a permanent solution.

Wonder why that Dunham unit didn't vent any air? And what was the device on the steam main drip- maybe a check valve?

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gerry gill

yup, its progress..

can you post a picture of the device you think he removed..and any info printed on it.

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rich on heat

Christian - Just wanted to cheer you on. It may not seem like it but you are making progress. I knew zero about my steam system other than it wasn't working well and the advice I was getting from the local guy that maintained it, wasn't helping at all. I luckily found this site and got Dan's books and with them and the information from the "steam pros" here, got it my system straightened out. Dan's books are easy reading and crammed full of knowledge and advice.
Basically "venting" is the name of the game. The steam has to push the air out of the mains and radiators to be able to get into the radiators and heat the room. If the air can't escape it stays in place and more steam pressure just compresses the air in the pipes but still blocks the steam from moving into the radiators. Residential steam systems are designed to operate on less than 2 PSI. (Less pressure = more efficiency) The vents allow the air to escape out of the pipes /radiators but keep the steam in. Traps allow the air and water (condensed steam)to pass through but keep the steam in. This may sound a bit silly but if you visualize yourself as a molecule of steam and trace your journey from the boiler through the steam mains, through the radiator,where you give up your heat and condense back to water and then your return to the boiler, it helps you understand your system. You can visualize the problems you might have if the air in front of you isn't able to get out of your way (by venting) and the problems you'd have giving up your heat if the traps don't hold you long enough in the radiator unload your burden of heat.
I might suggest that you take more pictures of your steam system including the boiler and the piping around it as I'm sure they would be of further help in diagnosing your system. You can post them easily on these replys by using the "attachments" button at the bottom.
You have the best of the "steam pros" helping you. With their advice and Dan's books you should soon be fixed up.

Having been in a very similar situation to yours,I can imagine the frustration you are going through and just wanted to let you know there is "light at the end of the tunnel!"

Jamie Hall

At first sight...

but hopefully someone more knowledgeable in controls will chime in -- it looks as though one of those controls is the cut in pressure and the other cut out pressure. The cut out pressure is the pressure at which the burner will stop running; that one should ideally be about 1 psi, but those old units are unreliable at less than about 2... do your best. The other should be labelled 'cut out' and is the pressure at which the burner will restart; set that one as low as it will reliably go -- which may take some fiddling.

Better yet, get your plumber to get a Honeywell Vapourstat and install it with a T off one of the existing pigtails (make sure the pigtails are clear!) and wire it in instead; set it to 1 psi cutout and a differential of 0.5. Can't hurt (although they aren't cheap) and just might help... a lot.

niftyc

more behavior, more pictures, what next?

I capped the pipe again last night when I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, the thermostat was set to 70 and the house temp was 60 -- it was 20 degrees outside. The thermostat said "HEAT ON". The boiler pressure was below 2 PSI, the burner was not firing, but it appeared that the burners had been cycling and there was a boiling noise from the boiler.

I uncapped the pipe and got A LOT of air out. It blew for maybe a minute. Then I got some wet steam and brown water mixture. Maybe 1/2 a cup. Then nothing. Do you want me to leave this uncapped all the time? If so... wouldn't I lose steam out of the pipe as the system tries to heat? As a previous post noted, it looks like there is nothing stopping the steam from going into the air return pipe on some radiators.

The air returns form a loop in the basement. The two ends of the loop come together at the Dunham air eliminator. The pipe I've been opening is some distance down the north half of the loop. All of the radiators that vent to the north side of the loop are working better than all of the radiators that vent to the south side. The steam mains that serve the north side of the loop are noticeably hotter than the ones that serve the south side, even though the south side main is not too much farther from the boiler.

From what I've been reading, it seems like there is no way for the air to escape and that is most of my problems. The leaks were venting the system, as steamhead suggested above. I would say something is probably wrong with the air returns on the south side of the loop. Maybe they are clogged somehow and that is why the Dunham air eliminator is not venting?

I've attached pictures of the thing I found on the floor of the basement. There is no writing or the writing is not readable. It looks like a screwdriver should go in the red part, but that end is all gunked up. It fits the small pipe that has been capped.

I will call the contractor at 9am but I want to understand this system myself as much as I can. I'm sure he will agree with whatever we come up with. He does not know much about these systems.

Edit/add:

Got the pictures on here as an attachment. Thank you all so much for your encouragement and advice.

Actually maybe that noise was the noise of the pilot.

Christian

niftyc

so this has been at the wrong pressure for 17 years?

More description of the controls.

One pigtail rises vertically from the boiler and makes a T with an antique (and not working) gauge on the other side. That Honeywell is set to 4 PSI. Or maybe 3.5 now that I look at it.

The other pigtail sticks out horizontally from the boiler just below the other one. It forms a T with the newer (working) pressure gauge. The pressure gauge reads from 0-5 at different times and the Honeywell is set to 5.

Both Honeywells are labeled "CUT IN" but that is printed on them by the manufacturer.

Baltimore/Maine Doug_2

That looks like the

wand for a garden or bug sprayer.

Steamhead (in transit)

I agree with Baltimore/Maine Doug

That does not look like a steam part. The Dead Men most likely would not have used plastic...

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Steamhead (in transit)

Wrong Pressure

for years?

Yes.

We've discovered time and time again that oz./sq. in. of steam pressure is all that is needed to get the steam to move once the air can get out of the way.

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rich on heat

Holy !@#$ !!!! it works! Better than ever before!

So after I let out that large amount of air from the basement I didn't notice that my electronic thermostat lowered the temp to 60 and shut off the heat (I set it to do that but I forgot). When I turned up the heat again, the ENTIRE SYSTEM WAS MORE RESPONSIVE THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN. Unfortunately I didn't time it but after I turned up the heat it seemed like the radiators heated in only 5 minutes or so. And every radiator in the house heated at the same time (which never happens).

So this is fantastic. If I get the Gorton's #2 and put it on the air return pipe spur is that my salvation? I worry that the spur points down. There is clearly moisture in the air returns. If I put a vent on a spur that points down won't it fill with water and not vent? Perhaps you can tell I know nothing about this at all.

Also I think I don't have to worry about vent sizing right? Even if the vent is oversized and I get a vacuum in the air return pipes that should just make the radiators heat faster if I understand the patent. (Well, I guess that assumes that the steam traps work, which they may not.)

I still don't know what the contractor took off the pipe. Or what that thing in the picture is. Or why the Dunham's doesn't do anything. But this feels like progress.

Steamhead (in transit)

You'd have to turn the elbow to point up

then install the #2.

"Steamhead"

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ttekushan_3

do you suppose

that Dunham Air eliminator slowly filled with sediment and reached a "point of no return?" [hahahahaha] I'm wondering if it should be cleaned or left undisturbed if the other venting effectively solves the problems. I'm thinking "do not disturb." Thoughts?

Michael_37

so I should lower the two pressuretrols to 1 and .5 ?

So I should just lower the pressuretrols... the box that is set lower now to .5 PSI and the other box that is set higher now to 1 PSI?

Christian

Steamhead (in transit)

I think that's entirely possible

either the Dunham unit or the pipes feeding it are clogged.

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Steamhead (in transit)

Make Sure

The air can get out, then lower the pressuretrol.

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