I just need to vent... (no pun intended)

EricinVT

I'll be posting some questions with pics soon. And thank you already for the help available from just reading through these posts.

Today though I need to vent. When my system first fired up earlier this fall I had hissing, banging and steamed up windows. Turns out the boiler water level was so high you couldn't see where it was... I lowered that and everything was quiet. No banging, no gurgling rads. But now that it is colder and the heat stays on longer, I have hissing rads everywhere in the house. Thanks to Dan's books, all I see hear are dollar signs as the rads fill the house with that hissing chorus... I investigated the boiler and noticed that the pressure gage is stuck all the time reading 15psi. So I called my service man to have it looked at. He did a fantastic job working on the system in the past. But he is retiring and his son is taking over.

Today his son shows up, looks at things and tells me "well, it is a steam system. radiators do hiss, it is normal."

My cut-in and cut-out have been hard for me to figure out as they look nothing like any I've seen pics of. I asked him about those. His response "Well, there is no adjusting that. The high pressure should cut-out at 5psi, but they usually are at 3psi."

Grrr, now I need to find another serviceman.

lchmb

recommend

he buy some books on steam heat and have him come back with his Dad....

BobC

Learn how to do it yourself.

First post some pictures of your boiler and the pressuretrol. Take both close up and distant views so we have a good idea of what your system is set up like.



Next order this book from this site - http://www.heatinghelp.com/products/Steam-Heating-Books/25/68/Lost-Art-Of-Steam-Heating  It will save you a fortune and lets face it you will have to do a lot of this work yourself these days. "The Lost Art of Steam Heat" is worth it's weight in gold.



Your system should be running at 2 PSI or LESS - mine runs at 0.75PSI and many run theirs at even less pressure. I do all my own steam work and leave the burner tuneups to the pro's who have the combustion anylizer tools to do it properly.



Bob