Interesting problem

ChrisJ

I would like to share something that I find interesting.



Back in April we bought our house and it had a few issues besides the rotted boiler which I didn't find out until later on.



It had a leaky steam pipe under the downstairs bathroom which we asked the seller to fix. He didn't until we were living there for 2-3 days but finally his plumber came out and fixed it. Well after that the radiator stopped heating. I didn't think anything of it as I only ran the heat one or two times after the repair and the boiler was undersized anyway.



Well, my new boiler is running and is plenty big for the system and the radiator still won't get hot. This morning I had the system raise the temperature in the house over 10 degrees and that radiator still stayed ice cold. I finally went down the basement, noticed I hadn't built pressure yet so I closed one of the two king valves. The pressure began to climb and when it was around 0.5PSI I went up to the downstairs bathroom and the pipe going to the cold radiator began to, and I quote "bloop, woosh woosh bloop BANG!!! woosh BANG!!".



At this point I knew it was full of water, but why? Why did it work before he fixed it? After an hour of thinking I figured it out. The seller's plumber broke it!! He took the drain out!! (the hole).



So now I wonder, did someone actually drill that hole in the pipe? It was around 1/8" in diameter.... Hmmmm.



Either way I guess now I either have to try and raise the radiator up, or replace the nipple that goes down through the floor with a shorter one.

JStar

RE

A lot of times you see a makeshift drain on radiator run-outs that were installed to compensate for poorly pitched/sized piping. The run-out should drain back to the main. If it doesn't, or can't, then you'll have some more work to do.

Jamie Hall

You really

should post a beverage warning on descriptions like that... !



Thing to do is go back to square one.  If the radiator wasn't moved, and worked once upon a time, then the "repair" work is faulty.  Figure out how the piping was supposed to run -- including pitch -- so that water can drain properly.  If there was a drain once, where did it go?  Put it back as closely as you can... make sure the steam lline is pitched (and sized) properly.



Raising the radiator is a kludge.  You will be much happier, in the long run, if you take wrenches in hand and repipe so it is correct.

ChrisJ

Piping

Sorry,  I'll try to use beverage warnings from now on.



The radiator is piped as it originally was, however that room has settled quite a bit especially on the radiator end.  I wouldn't be surprised if its down a good inch from its original location.

For now I closed the valve on the radiator, hopefully this will keep the steam out the pipe until I have time to fix it.  I'm really not looking forward to going under there.........

ChrisJ

Sigh

Now I'm getting frustrated. I haven't been in the crawl space as I really don't fit down there well.



I tried pulling both sides of the radiator up with blocks of wood, in the process when I tipped it I heard all kinds of water rush out so I realized the radiator was pitched really really bad.



At any rate I put both ends up on blocks of wood to try and pull the pipe up, assuming this is what was filling with water. She got hot and then started making wooshing sounds again so I shut the system down. I then pulled the block of wood out from the end near the pipe and water rushed out of the radiator again. I put a level on it and now its pitched good.



I'm curious, if a radiator is pitched the wrong way would it stop it from heating at all?

I'm also fighting balancing issues at the same time with Hoffman 1As and a lot of large radiators hogging all of the steam. I just backed them all down from #6 to #3 as best I could but I think the issue now is the radiators are all burning hot while the ones which got starved are ice cold. So when I started the system back up the same thing happened again regardless of vent settings.



Do I sound like I'm understanding this or am I way off?

MrDvorak

Slow vented radiators now cold?

Do I understand it correctly that radiators that were "downgraded" from speed 6 to speed 3 are now cold? What happens when set them to 4.5?



Also, the Hoff. 1As can be somehow flimsy to be set properly. I find it best to completely remove the nut at the top and then carefully align the lid with the center hole. You can open/close it more than intended if the lid gets out of alignment.

ChrisJ

Hoffman 1A

No no,



I had most of my big radiators (50+sqft edr) set on #6.  These were heating fine, but would be heated almost all the way across before other radiators even started to heat.  I tried setting the Hoffman 1As in hand according to radiator size before firing the system up.  I know exactly what you mean by flimsy, its a royal pain in the butt to get them set accurately.



I dropped pretty much every radiator down to #3 on the vents but when I fired the system back up 15 minutes after shutting it down, the radiators still operated the same way, ones that were previously hot stayed hot and one or two that didn't get hot, still didn't get hot.  I assume this is because hot radiators will still steal steam faster than cold ones regardless of the vent setting?   I didn't run the system for long as it wasn't very cold out and I needed sleep.  If I run the system long enough all rads do get hot, just not together.

I'm using four Gorton #1s as main vents.  3 on a 29' main and one on a 11' main.  Boiler is an EG-45 150K BTU input and I have 370sqft of radiation.  Currently mains are NOT insulated, I bought all of the insulation just haven't had the time to do it.  Oh,  and I still need to skim the boiler as I just fired it up for the first time Sunday.

Jamie Hall

Smart...

I was thinking about your radiator last night (really -- as though I didn't have other things to do!).  With a crawl space like that, your best bet is to jack that puppy up.  What you need to make sure of, though, is that the radiator itself is pitched properly -- slightly towards the inlet/outlet -- and also that the runout to the radiator is pitched properly so that it can drain.  This -- in an old house -- can take a fair amount of raising and checking.



And yes, it is possible for a radiator pitched the wrong way to have trouble heating, although it should eventually -- but it may gurgle cheerfully to itself the while.



Got to admit that I'm not anything like an expert on one pipe balancing problems and the settings of vents -- there are a lot of other guys on here who have much more experience at it.  That said, if a radiator doesn't get hot it's either because the air can't get out of it or because the steam is blocked somewhere.  A hot radiator, though, won't "steal" steam just because it's hot.  You may need more aggressive main venting, to make sure the steam can get as close as possible to all the radiators in as much the same time as possible.  As well as fiddling with radiator vents.



Do get the insulation on before you go much farther, though.  Oddly, it can make a tremendous difference in the balance of the system.

ChrisJ

main vents

This is whats frustrating.  The radiators at the ends of the mains heat fine.  Its two or 3 in the middle which seem to have trouble.  One of those I'm 99% sure is due to water laying in the pipe and or radiator so that doesn't count.





I just don't understand why ones at the end of the line would heat before ones much closer to the boiler.  I'm trying to think like steam, and I'm losing

If it matters, the few times I have run the system my 3PSI gauge never indicated any pressure in the system other than a slight fluttering, I assume due to the need of a good skim.

The ONLY time I built any pressure was when I closed off one of the two king valves, at this point I started building pressure (.5PSI) and thats when even the radiator with the pitch issue started heating and banging \ wooshing.

MrDvorak

Remove vents

Try to completely remove a vent from one of those ice cold radiators for a few moments while the heat is on until the radiator gets warm (or not). The rad. should either heat fairly quickly, or you have some steam blockage or water pockets in the pipes (hammering and other fun is likely to be enjoyed in such a case). That is what I was told by the pros on this forum and it works quite well to understand what is really happening, you just have to be careful not to let too much steam out. First, the steam can suffocate you or your family, second, it may strip all our wallpaper quite quickly.

ChrisJ

How dangerous is water hammer.

I would like to be able to run this system without worrying about the pipe thats possibly filled with water, at least for now.



How damaging is water hammer usually in a situation where an 1 1/4" runout is pitched the wrong way and full of water?  It doesn't make any noise until I start to build pressure, than it gets quite angry.



Can I just use the system as is without worry and deal with it when I have time,  or should I shut the radiator off and do what I can to keep it from getting any steam?

Mark N

Pressure

ChrisJ



Your boiler is sized quite close to the amount of radiation that you have installed. Under normal operation you might never see much pressure. I have a 10oz. guage on my boiler. Under normal heating I read 0.5oz of pressure. All my rads heat fine without any sounds at all. Also the whole idea behind adequate main venting is to get the steam to the end of the mains before it goes up the riser to the rads and if your rad venting is balanced the rads should heat at about the same rate.

ChrisJ

Good news

I lifted the rad up around 1/2" and it worked for a short time until the pipe started to fill with water and bang.  I guess 1/2" gave it just enough to drain over time but not while running.



The other good news is the 1" riser which connects the radiator to the 1 1/4" iron runout is copper.  A friend is going to come over this weekend who can fit in the crawl space (I'm actually skinny, I just don't practice it..) is going to cut the copper and reconnect it with a coupler.   So this should go much easier than I expected.  Two cuts with a tubing cutter and two solder joints is a LOT easier than swapping in a shorter steel threaded nipple.



 I'll have him put a level on the pipe and make sure it ends up with plenty of pitch.



After that bit of fun we are planning on insulating pipes.