adj. vents for balancing

jimmythegreek

Ive gotten alot of help here, and I got a question on balancing.  Short story is a 4 floor commercial building w 450k btu 1 pipe steam, new main vents, lots of adjustments, and now onto radiatior vents.  I got about 45 rads in the building, and about every type of vent ever made all over the place.  Whats my best approach to balancing this system?  should I start out w 10-20 adj. vents or get a few of each size starting with some Ds for a few rads that I know get super hot real fast and stay that way the whole heat cycle.  Are adj. vents any good or am I better w fixed.  I saw somewhere that gortons (i think) come w diff heads so u can make them whatever size u need.  thanks in advance, this site is a plethora of info....

nicholas bonham-carter

types of vents

concentrate first on the main vents, and put on plenty of them as you can never have too many! if you have a good low pressure gauge, you can see what the back-pressure is as the vents are letting the air out, and the lower the pressure the better, as it shows the least resistance to air escape, which on my 55 rad system is 2 ounces.

next you can put the fastest vents on the top floor, and the slower ones on the lower floors. this will get the steam to the top of the risers quickly, and all at the same time. save your money for the main vents as you probably may need no different radiator vents, unless they are definitely inoperative.--nbc