Help - Large radiator spewing a lot of water out of air vent. Help!

Davidneedshelp

Help – large living room radiator (19 sections) spews water from air vent.



My wife and I bought our apartment in Manhattan (built in 1915) and we are now experiencing our first winter with this building's heating system. Steam heat, single pipe system, 6 radiators throughout the apartment, 2nd floor apartment, boiler in the basement, 13 story building. We have brand new 6 section radiators in the 4 out of 6 rooms (bedrooms/dining room) - where large radiators aren't needed. All seem to work fine.



The Living Room Radiator came with the apartment, and I didn't want to replace it given it's size (and therefore replacement cost). It has 19 sections. It is connected to a different main than all but one other radiator (which also works fine).



Problem:

Radiator starts to heat up, and then I hear a lot of swooshing of water. No real banging/water hammer. About 12 of the sections get hot before water starts coming out of the air vent. To be clear, this isn't a little bit of spitting – this is water gushing out of the air vent. So much for the things I've read about the floats in the air vents closing the vent if water gets in… We get about a quart of water that will come out in the cycle (into my conveniently located bucket to catch it). BTW: the water is completely clear - no gunk in the output.



What we've tried:

- Hoffman No. 40 Air vent

- Gorton No. C

- Varivalve Air Vent (tried with all different openings)

- Danfoss thermostatic control in the air vent



Nothing helped. The supply valve has been checked and appears to be fine. We have it fully open. We have also had the plumber raise up the supply pipe (I.e., raise the radiator slightly with a crowbar and inserted more shims) in an attempt to provide more pitch into the pipe under the floor to the main to encourage more draining. The radiator is definitely pitched (checked with level) back to the supply line.



Keep in mind this is a residential co-op apartment building in manhattan; I don't control the boiler. The boiler also seems to be fine for everyone else. The super tells me no one else is having a problem but he has no suggestions.



I'm running out of ideas… nothing seems to solve the problem. Our next step is to try changing out the radiator? I'm open to any ideas.



Is it possible water is getting trapped in a section at the end of the radiator and we essentially have an issue internally in the radiator?



BTW: I have read a lot these posts, ordered Dan's books, and learned a lot - but this is my first time getting involved in any plumbing challenge... it's all still new to me.



Thanks,

David

icesailor

Pitch:

I'm not a :Steam Pro" but from experience, if rising the radiator like you did didn't solve the problem, I would drop it back to where it was. If the radiator doesn't pitch back to the inlet valve, I would keep thaat pitched. I wouldn't try to fix something under the floor that you can't see. You could be making it worse if what yu did, didn't solve the problem.

Smarter Steamers here will give you more ideas.

JStar

Steam

Sounds like water collecting somewhere in the piping, or not leaving the radiator. Can you find out what pressure the boiler is running at? If all pipe pitches check out okay, I would suspect a system venting problem. I also highly doubt that nobody else has a problem. Your neighbor's vents could be failed closed and not revealing any of the symptoms that you have.

nicholas bonham-carter

Incontinent radiator

As a temporary relief, you could rotate the vent 90 degrees, and it will not function upside down.

Here are a few things to check, with the help of the super.

1.what is the maximum pressure in the system? It should be below 1.5 psi for basic function, and below 8 ounces for economy and comfort. I see multiple pressure. On trolls on the top of the boiler, which would indicate a staged firing burner on the boiler, so is it operating? Keeping the pressure low would be easier if the original intentions of the boiler manufacturers were followed. If you have doubts about the pressure, you could use a tee plus a 0-3 psi gauge (gauge store.com), in line with the vent to check the pressure. Your building if properly maintained, could heat using 1 ounce per floor, with a maximum of 1.5 psi.

2. Can you identify the riser for that radiator, and the other radiators which are served by it? How do those radiators behave? If they spit too, then there could be a Saginaw the horizontal main serving the riser which traps enough water to be blown out into the bucket.

3 with the boiler turned off, unscrew the bonnet of the inlet valve, and make sure the valve disk has not fallen off the stem. The valve should never be closed, even partially, so you can remove a damaged disk.--NBC

Gordo

Is The Packing on the Valve Stem

tight?  If it is not, air could be venting uncontrollably up out of that riser through the valve stem (it doesn't take much).  It might need to be re-packed.



It could be that the speed of the steam rushing into that radiator is slamming the condensate out through your vent.  Varivalves and Gorton "C" s are rather infamous for this phenomenon.



.

neilc

Don't mistake me for a pro but,

Are those 2 different gages ?

look at those pictures guys,

pressure looks high for either one,,,

that all said,

that's a bigger boiler than my piggies are used to,

and OP probably doesn't want to freelance that,

call the super,

neilc

Don't mistake me for a pro but,

Double post !

Charlie from wmass

close up photo of the radiator inlet valve please

I would bet it is a hot water valve not a steam valve.

Davidneedshelp

Re: Is The Packing on the Valve Stem

Thanks for your help and thoughts

Gordo - re: the valve stem packing - are you referring to the supply valve?   We did unscrew this with the super yesterday and looked at the supply valve.   It looked fine and he wrapped more plumbers tape around it when he rescrewed on the big open/close valve.   I think I understand your point here though - i think you're saying that if the supply valve is leaking air - it could be sucking in more steam?   If this would be the case - wouldn't i see a leak around the supply valve?  Everything around the supply valve is dry.

As to your point on the air vents - i agree with your assessment around fast valves - but I can't understand why when I switched back to the Hoffman 40 it spit out just as much - that should have been a very slow vent - yet it still yielded a quart of water out of it.   Not fun as that valve spits out water from the top like the Old Faithful Geyser.

Thanks again 

Davidneedshelp

Re: boiler pressure

Thanks for several people's help on the boiler comments.  Unfortunately I know even less about boilers than I do about the radiators. 

I am going to try and look at the boiler tomorrow with the super again and see if I can understand anything about the setup.

Davidneedshelp

Supply Valve Pic

Interesting thought - how do you tell the difference?  I'm attaching some pics.  I quickly googled the difference and it mentioned one had a hole in the rubber.  Is there something to depict this from the outside I should check for? 

I'm attaching some quick pics.

nicholas bonham-carter

Looking at things with the super

Get a good look at the pressure, and verify it to be less than 2 psi. Higher pressures will kill all the vents in the system, such as your radiator vents.

Find out who has been doing the annual maintenance on the boiler, and is he a "plummmmmer", or a steam professional?

See if the super knows how the air gets out of the system, and at what back-pressure. If the resistance to the escaping air is too high, then extra fuel will have to be burned to force the air out of some constipated little vents, and everyone will pay more. Don't forget to ask about the staged burner pressuretrols on top of the boiler. Has anyone questioned the cost of heating?

Coop apartments should consider every radiator as a part of the whole building, and allow no one to make any changes to any single radiator without permission. The super should have read a copy of Dan's books from here in order to be competent at managing the system.--NBC

JStar

Gauges

The second picture with a gauge appears to be for the fuel line.

Charlie from wmass

The valve needs opened to check

It appears to be a steam valve. Are you sure it is open all the way? The gasket you need to check requires removing the bonnet and that means shutting down the heat for the building to do it safely.

NYCLandlord

where exactly is the water coming from?

Dumb question, but just checking.  Is the water coming from the air vent or from the threads between the vent and radiator?  All my leaky radiators always came from the threads.  When you installed the vents, did you use any kind of thread sealant and obviously, is it tight enough?

Davidneedshelp

Couple of answers and the next thing we're trying

I'm still looking at getting the Super's time tomorrow to look at the boiler again.



other than that - a couple of answers:

- the water is coming out of the air vent hole; not around the threads. We did wrap the threads with teflon tape.



My contractor came in today with a novel air vent I've never seen even mentioned before, we are now trying a Hoffman Specialty Model 508. After draining once, the first heat cycle did not spit any water this from vent. We are going to watch it for a bit, but it would still strike me as odd if this fixed it. The vent is unique looking though... and it looks like it is primarily for water based radiators... i checked the site and it did say it also works for steam radiators.



I'll post what happens next...

NYCLandlord

Probably a really simple soluton

My super from another building received a called in the middle of the night from a tenant living on the 5th floor saying that water is coming out from the air release valve,  It was normal, said my super, no, its alot of water said the tenant.

It turns out that the water feed in the boiler room was stuck and kept feeding water into the boiler.  Basically the entire steam system was filled with water then started to leak from the air vents.

I doubt this is your problem because the pros would have caught it........or did they?

Sounds like you've used every single air valve in the market, its probably not that.  Why are the pros not able to solve this.  This isnt rocket science.  Water is obviously accumulating in the radiator and the pressure is pushing it out.  Too bad they dont make see-thru radiators.

nicholas bonham-carter

Why aren't the pros catching it?

Maybe there have been no steam pros looking at anything in this setup-only the super who was hired not for his steam knowledge, but for some other quality, such as "willing to work for food". as the problems continue with the system, the super is viewed as the only one who really understands the system, and cannot be replaced.

Unfortunately the super then would not want to embarrass himself by showing his lack of knowledge, and having been told not to spend group money on professional help, the problems can continue.

We all have had the experience of over-filling the system, but it is not just one radiator which leaks, but most of them. The other occupants probably did not think it worthwhile to complain.

The fact is that if the radiator vents are doing the lions share of air removal in the whole system, then a lot of water will be carried up the risers into the radiators, and out the vents.

The solution is dry steam from good insulated piping, at low pressure, (1ounce per floor is ideal), and generous main venting.--NBC

NY_Guy

Hoffman Specialty Model 508 -- Not the Answer

I'm having *exactly* the same problem and looked up the Hoffman Specialty Model 508 as a possible solution.  Unfortunately, although it may seem as though the problem s solved, I think you (Davidneedshelp) may be going down the wrong path.

The manufacturer's web site calls this a "Hygroscopic Air Vent", and describes its operation as follows: "The 508 Vent uses the hygroscopic principle, a simple, standard method of automatically bleeding air from heating systems. The principle works on the basis of cellulose fiber discs changing volume between their dry and water soaked state. The discs expand more than 50 percent in volume when they become soaked with water...The expanded discs seal off the air vent passage within a few seconds."

So yes, it would stand to reason that the moment your radiator starts spitting out water, the discs get wet, expand, and close off the valve -- thus shutting off the water escape. But in reality all you're doing is shutting down or closing off the valve -- and in the process, shutting off your heat.  You could get the same result simply by turning off the steam at the supply valve, whihc of course is not the goal you're after.