Angle for clanking noise

TkNeo

Hi, I have a fourplex with steam radiators and tenants are hearing ton of clanking noise. I have read up quite a bit to learn that it could be from the condensed steam as the radiators are definitely not tilted towards the input valve/pipe. I am going to shim the other end using furniture pads or wood etc but i am not sure what angle is needed ? Somewhere i read that the angle should be 5 degrees. So, for my 3 feet long radiator, I need to use a shim thats around 3 inches. That sounded too much so i thought i will check here to see what others think.



This is a great forum with tons of knowledge and its my first post here ! Thanks in advance.

ChrisJ

Angle

I'm not a pro but I can share my own experiences on my 1 pipe system.



I have quite a few 20+ section radiators and most of them are level, not tilted at all. One of them is tilted away from the pipe as are a few of my smaller ones. To get them right I would need around half inch shims, not too much.



None of them make any noise. I had started shimming them until I realized it probably didn't matter. Water lays in the bottom of the radiator most of the time anyway due to how its made and they are often piped with a bushing on the inlet.



What matters is that water doesn't impede the flow of steam at all. When that happens its very bad. I had a 10 foot runout to a radiator that was not pitched. It banged horribly. I raised it up very little and it works perfectly.



If you have heard the actual radiators hammer, I would try shimming them as much as you can without it looking ridicules or putting a lot of stress on the pipe and see what happens.



If you can provide some pictures just to give an overall idea of things that will help as well.