Question on Dan's Books

Brian_78

There are a couple mentions in Mr. Holohan's books where he talks about how some steam heat owners have trouble during the fall and spring seasons. The outside temperatures are so mild that the boiler only runs for a few short minutes and the radiators on the second story never warm up. To try and fix this the owner will move the thermostat upstairs in a cold room in order to force the boiler to run longer. Dan only talks about this scenario briefly and never clarifies if this is a correct thing to do or not.



I seem to be having the same problem at my house. Majority of the upstairs radiators stay cold until the outside temperature drops below 20* Fahrenheit. Does moving the thermostat upstairs make sense or is there another more practical solution? The system was originally a coal burning boiler so the dead men never had to rely on thermostats to control the boiler. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated.

FJL

Same Problem

I have the same problem in my apt bldg.  I get more heat when the temp drops below freezing than when the temp is in the upper 30's.  The result is that on those "mild" days, my apt feels colder.  The heat doesn't run as much or for as long.

David Nadle

Try balancing first.

If you have single pipe steam, put faster vents on the upstairs radiators and slower vents on the downstairs. Especially put a slow vent in the room with the thermostat. Maybe get a box of Heat-Timer Varivents.

If you have two pipe steam, maybe there's a problem with your traps.

jpf321

this is why

this is why a well balanced system is so important .. so that all steam gets to the rads and fills the rads at about the same time...Dan has an article off-wall regarding balancing: http://www.heatinghelp.com/article/11/Hot-Tech-Tips/138/Balancing-One-Pipe-Steam-Systems



there are also good hardcopy resources for balancing..see my post here for the recommended books:

http://www.heatinghelp.com/forum-thread/129085/Uneven-Heating

nicholas bonham-carter

upstairs chilly during warmer temps

leave the radiator vents alone as the first step in balancing the system. the place to start is with the mains. make sure all the main vents are working, and if there is any doubt about their capacity, add bigger ones, as you can never have too much venting. the main vents will go longer without replacement, if they are not being asked to do too much work. velocity of the exiting air will be lower, and less detritus will be introduced into the vent itself. don't slow things down with high pressure.

when you are certain that steam is filling the mains as quickly as possible, at low pressure; then check the radiators for "simultaneous steam arrival". some radiators on higher floors may need more venting capacity, simply because of the height of the riser. the dead men were pretty good at sizing the radiators to the rooms, so if steam hits them all at the same time, the temperature should be quite even.

finally, check your thermostat for anticipation, or in the case of a modern digital, menu settings for steam heating. the honeywell visionpro has the remote sensor option if you need to feel the temperature of some colder upstairs room. in my situation, i have the sensor in a cold area, but leave the desired temperature set lower, to compensate. this helps the system respond quicker to falling temperatures.--nbc

Brian_78

Should have mentioned

My system is a two pipe vapor system. So I have no way of balancing individual radiators. Have any other ideas?

Jamie Hall

Ah but you do,

Brian: vapour systems don't mind having the radiator valves partly closed (in fact, there are several systems where, effectively, the valves are partly closed all the time).  If you have a few radiators which consistently get more steam than you want them to, just close the valve part way.  Play with it until you like it...

Unknown

Thermostats -Upstairs /Downstairs

Hi Brian- I'd think that once you got your trap situation straightened out you could just throttle down the necessary radiators.



Thermostats upstairs and down stairs -  You should be able to  make adjustments to your temperature situation by just using the inlet valves to "balance" the individual radiators.

If you thought having a thermostat in different location would help I have seen a situation where they had a thermostat upstairs and another one downstairs and used a double throw switch to select which one they wanted the boiler to use.

 You might also want to take a look at "wireless" thermostats as I've read that you can have dual sensors and then use a remore control to switch between them. I believe there is also a type of portable wireless thermostat that you can move where you want. You'd need  to check and see if these thermostats were suitable for steam with a programmable cycle per hour setting. Try Googling "wireless thermostats" and see what you get and I'll look around too

- Rod