Starting at the beginning: Main Vents

Isabella

Hello,



My family and I have moved into my father's house which has a glorious 28 radiators. I grew up with the hissing and hammering and thought nothing of it - it was toasty warm and I didn't have to pay the bill.

Now we are here and responsible for the bills. We spent last winter running all over, turning vents this way and that and have come to the conclusion that it needs help and we need to learn.

So I'm reading We Got Steam Heat, which is a wonderful read, and will start with assessing the venting (since I already know that the insulation is an issue, I will get to that next).

I've gone in the basement and have looked at the system with actual questions, instead of just curiosity and wonder and have come up with the following initial questions:



Is this a main vent?



The pipes radiate in four directions from the boiler. There are three of these that I can locate. Should there be one per 'pipe'? And, the three I can locate, only seem to be attached to two of the pipes. Should they be obviously correlated to the pipes?



I am incredibly grateful to those that take the time to answer. I realize how much of a newcomer I am but I am very excited to be able to try and understand it instead of just being concerned about it.

-Isabella

Rod

Main Vents

Hi- Welcome to "the Wall !"  Yes, the item in the picture is a main vent.To test if it is working, use a foot long strip of newspaper or some similar. Hold one end of the strip in you r hand and the other end of the strip near the top of the vent. (If it's too high up to reach tape the strip to the end of a broom handle)  Movement of the strip when the boiler/burner is operating a first making steam shows the vent is venting . When steam reaches it the vent should close and movement will stop. Quite often you can hear a "Click" when the vent closes.

Do NOT use your bare hand to test the Vent!  Live steam is invisible and can give you a BAD burn!

  The purpose of main vents is to quickly rid the steam mains of air so that steam reaches all the radiators at close to the same time. If the main venting is absent, not working or slow, the steam will slowly make its way toward the end of the main, filling radiators as it comes to them. This means the radiators closest to the boiler heat first and the radiators farthest fro the boiler heat last. If the thermostat is in one of the rooms close to the boiler (which it usually is) this may mean the burner shuts off leaving the radiators /rooms farthest fro the main cold or only partially heated.

With main vents ,the goal is to have enough venting to empty the air from the mains in 3 minutes or less. 

What type of system do you have?

You're approaching things the right way. Steamheating is actually quite simple to learn but at first it can be a bit confusing. Read and ask lots of questions. We'll do our best to answer them.

- Rod

nicholas bonham-carter

28 radiator system

With that many radiators, I am presuming you have a fairly large system. Therefore that old main vent is not big enough, and may have failed by now. I suggest you replace the vents with Gorton #2's, and if 4 steam mains leave the vicinity of the boiler, there should be 4 returns coming back (parallel flow system), each one of which should have a vent. Go to pexsupply.com for these.

While you are dusting off your pipe wrench, install a good low-pressure gauge (0-3 psi gaugestore.com) alongside the required but useless 0-30 psi gauge, making sure to clean the pigtail. Your system should make no noise at all, and if it does, there is a need for some preventive maintenance.

Your fuel bills will be lower as we'll.--NBC

Isabella

Thank you...

Thank you, both, for taking the time to reply.

Now that we know those are main vents, we will test them - but I'm sure they need replacing.

I can only assume it is a parallel system. It is definitely a one pipe system. We have gone back down and looked a bit further. It appears that possibly, at some point, some pipes were replaced and new air vents were not installed on the replaced pipes. We can only find those three air vents and there appear to be four directions coming off the boiler main pipe, then pipes just goes off this way and that.

I have a new question:

1. Is the installation of a new low pressure gauge something that a homeowner can do? I think we can handle the air vents, I'm not sure about the boiler.

Thank you.

Rod

Low Pressure Gauge

Hi- Yes, you should be able to install a low pressure gauge. It would help if we knew more about your system. Perhaps you could post some photos of your boiler and the attached piping as that would help us understand what is need to accompllsh this.

- Rod.

Isabella

Pipes, vents and gauges

I'm adding some photos of the system. Hopefully, these help paint a better picture.

Thanks, again.



Isabella

nicholas bonham-carter

In my house there are many radiators

Can you take some pictures of the exit of the riser on the top of the boiler, not only because it is the dreaded copper, but also because I think it is too small in diameter. Take a strip of paper and wrap it around the pipe and make a mark indicating its circumference. From that and the model number, we can tell if it is the wrong size, which could explain the high heating bills.--NBC

Isabella

More photos

Thank you. The circumference on the pipes is 7".



The model number is SIN8 LN1 LE2. It's a Burnham.



I've added more photos.



Thank you for your advice, this is incredibly helpful.

Isabella

Document

We found this document with the paperwork for the boiler.



Is this helpful?



Thanks again.

nicholas bonham-carter

Piping problem

I think the high gas bills you spoke of are the result of bad piping of the supplies. It looks from your picture that the diameter is too small. As the piping is copper, which is not recommended, there are several reasons to change it. If the piping is not correct, the steam will have more effort in getting to the radiators, and that will waste energy (money).

Several people here have repiped their boilers themselves, and so might you, with our advice. Otherwise, use the find a contractor button at the top here to get someone to help you the result will be less fuel used. NBC