Need help with uneven heating

cchhat01

Hi all,



I'm new here and am hoping someone can help me figure out my problems with my house's uneven heating. I'll describe the house, heating system, etc so that it helps.



The house is a 2-storey plus basement wood based private house located in new york. the burner/heating system is located in the center of the basement (maybe a tad bit closer to the north of the center but still center). The burner is a oil heat burner. The heating system is single pipe steam heat radiators.

The furnace supplies no heat to the basement. Access to the burner is through the bathroom in the basement (which is relatively warm because of the burner).



First floor north to south: Kitchen -> Dining Room -> Living Room -> main entrance.

Immediately above the burner is the Dining Room, which contains 1 radiator and the thermostat is placed in the opposite location in this room. This room stays fairly warm probably because the burner is right underneath.

The kitchen (its a large kitchen) on the north is somewhat warm, it contains the largest radiator in the house. The radiator gets warm however it doesn't warm the kitchen well enough (there is a rear exit through the kitchen on the first floor which keeps the room much colder).

The living room contains 2 radiators located on opposite ends. The one on the inner side (closer to the middle of the house) stays warmer. The 2nd radiator (closer to the southern end), stays cool.

Finally, there is a separate entrance area which also contains a radiator however it never turns on. This radiator is shorter but wider and is enclosed within a wooden covering with metallic see through casing.



2nd floor: north to south: north bedroom (mine) -> bathroom -> middle bedroom -> south bedroom (main).

On this floor, the north bedroom (mine) is above the kitchen however it doesn't share the same piping for the radiator connected to it. This room stays warm, sometimes too warm. The bathroom is above the dining room and barely gets warm. The bathroom contains the narrowest (smallest) radiator and has a hoffman no. 40 air vent. I opened the airvent in the radiator and found water in it. (there is a problem with condensate in this radiator).

The middle bedroom had a radiator but is now removed because it always got very hot. The valve is now shut off and radiator removed. The southern most bedroom almost never heats up (above the living room). Its piping is an extension of the piping used in the 2nd (sourthern most) radiator in the living room which also doesn't warm up.



I've attached pics of the radiators and given an accurate description of the radiators and the house. I need help in picking/selecting proper air vents (which gorton's vents? 4-5-6 or C-D?) so that the warming is evenly distributed.



Please let me know if there is anything that needs clarification and I will be more than happy to provide.



Please help!!!



Thanks,

Chirag

nicholas bonham-carter

Imbalance

What is the pressure on your system? If your gauge is non-functional or difficult to read, you should get a 0-3 psi gauge from gauge store.com. This will enable you to adjust your pressuretrol to keep the pressure below 1.5 psi.

What sort of main vents are on the main steam pipes? The main vents should allow the air to escape with no resistance (2ounces on the new gauge) as steam is starting to be made. The radiator vents will have a slightly higher resistance, as they are only releasing air from the radiator and it's riser. Hoffman 40's are a good choice at first, eventhough some radiators will need a slightly faster vent later.The end result should be steam arriving at every radiator at the same time.

Post some pictures of your boiler and it's piping, as you seem to have excessive wet steam in some of the radiators.a plan of the layout of the radiators, risers, and main pipes would be helpful as well. Check all radiators for pitch with a level so you are sure they are draining towards the valve.--NBC

ChrisJ

Balancing

Glad to see you are planning on going with Gorton vents, they are the best in my opinion.



I highly recommend buying a copy of  Balancing Steam Systems Using a Vent-Capacity Chart, by Gerry Gill and Steve Pajek  



It can be found at this URL :

http://www.heatinghelp.com/products/Steam-Heating-Books/25/146/Balancing-Steam-Systems-Using-a-Vent-Capacity-Chart-by-Gerry-Gill-and-Steve-Pajek



This will help you evaluate your system and determine which vents to use where.  I would be lost without it!



  Its delivered pretty fast via PDF format which is nice.



I also recommend you make a drawing of your radiators as well as the piping layout, it makes things easier while trying to figure out venting.  One of my biggest mistakes was ignoring the fact 5 of my radiators had long runouts which needed much larger vents on the radiators.  As an example, I needed Gorton 6s and Cs where I would have assumed I needed 5s just going by radiator size just because of extra piping.

cchhat01

More details

Here are some more details.

Boiler is American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Ideal No. 7 Boiler.

Burner is R.W. Beckett.

The gauge on the boiler is useless, its been dead for quite some time now according to my dad. Also, there seems to be only one main vent located very close to the piping of the boiler. Unfortunately, the air vent on the boiler main is old and I can't really make out what it is. Maybe some of the experts might be able to recognize it with the just the picture of it...



I'll provide a diagram sometime later today with the piping and distance from the boilers of each of the radiators. From the gist of it, im assuming that radiators that do warm up are in good shape and the ones that don't warm up seem to be tilted towards the valve.



Here are some pics of the boiler and the vents.



Thanks so much for helping so far and I hope you guys can help me further with this problem...

Also the pressuretrol reading is indicating 2lb value on both sides cut-in and pressure increase differential (i have no idea what that means)...



regards,

Chirag

ChrisJ

LWCO

PLEASE be sure to drain and test that float type LWCO once a week.  This means running the burner when you dump the water to ensure the burner shuts off.

I only mention this because it seems a lot of people don't realize testing it to ensure the burner shuts off is just as important is dumping the water / sediment and this is a very important safety device..



As for the main vents I don't know what they are but I would recommend swapping them out for new Gorton's either #1s or #2s depending on how big the steam mains are.  If you include that info in the drawing we can help with that.  I also wouldn't assume the radiators that get hot now are fine as changing a single radiator vent can effect the whole system.  The vents on your radiators look like USAV brand, but I might be wrong.  If they are USAV I would recommend changing all of them when you dive into this.

Burnerboy2

lwco

Chris,

 I have to applaud you in saying to flush out your LWCO at least once a week..Excellent commit I see 90% of folks have no idea about flushing out that black "thingy" on the side of the boiler..until it's toooo late.water all over floor...

I try to tell all my customers how to do it....

Burnerboy

Ronnie

Charlie from wmass

Cut in should be as low as you can go on the Pressuretrol

the other side adjusted to 1 pound. If the pigtail or pipe nipple under the pressuretrol is clogged either the boiler will not run at the lower setting or it will not shut off on pressure. Either is bad.

Steamhead

Those main vents look rather small

they were probably sized for a coal-burning boiler. Measure the length and diameter of your steam mains and we can tell you what vents you need. With good main vents the system will balance much more easily.



Click on our company name at the bottom of this posting to see what a difference main vents can make.

Pughie1

uneven heating

Any chance That "old girl" is underfired? Is the piping insulated?

Pughie1

uneven heating

Any chance That "old girl" is underfired? Is the piping insulated?