Customer complaint

Dave Stroman

Typical steam boiler that is not trapped or vented correctly. Basement hotter than heck. Little heat at the radiators. After our work, the basement is too cold. Never mind that the rest of the house is comfortable.

Steamhead

Three Words:

hot water loop!

Dave Stroman

Hi Steamhead

I used this story to sort of open up a thread on how bad some steam installs can be and how some systems are a hundred years old and still have all the original radiator traps and steam vents.

I was removing a 2 pipe steam radiator one day and was getting as much pressure from the return line as I had from the supply line.  Well, it is no wonder why they have over $1,000.00 a month fuel bills.  A trip around the basement and I could see there was nowhere for the air to get out.  The old boiler was piped correctly, so I did my usual, rebuild every radiator trap, there was 29 of them, change the cross over traps to Gorton #2's, install a vapor stat.  Should work great.

I do have a question for you, Steamhead.  You mentioned in an earlier thread about leaving the old return traps and air traps.  It was my understanding that when you operate a system between 8 and 16 oz these devises were no longer needed. 

Steamhead

Technically

with pressures kept that low the return trap will never kick in, so by that standard you don't need it. But if it's working, there's no harm in leaving it there. That's a belt-and-suspenders approach, which would get you around something like a plugged Vaporstat pigtail.



The air trap, however, is essential. That's usually the only air vent in the system. If you must remove it, you need some sort of vent to take its place. If the air can't get out, the steam can't get in.