Water hammer and water leaking issues - one pipe system

Jon47

My wife and I just bought this house built in 1947. We have been relatively happy with our steam heat radiators so far. But now, one of our radiators in the upstairs bedroom is constantly pounding due to water hammer! It sounds like someone is constantly hitting the radiator with a metal bat. On top of that, this radiator is also constantly hissing out water at a dramatic rate.



We had a technician come in to take a look and he ended up sliding a brick underneath the radiator to pitch it properly so that the water would run out of the radiator. He also recommended that I install an adjustable valve to this radiator so that I could turn it off (since we don't use that bedroom often).



Any ideas why this is happening?? This is the only radiator in the house (out of 5) that does this? I am getting close to just removing this radiator all together and perhaps installing electric heat in that room.



Any help would be greatly appreciated!

nicholas bonham-carter

Pounding baseboard

That slope is too much, so find something which will just raise the vent end 1/4 of an inch over the supply end.

Does the riser to that rad go straight up from the basement, or is there a jog somewhere?

Post some pictures of your boiler and it's piping, so we can see why all of this water is being driven up into the pipes.

Has the boiler been replaced recently?--NBC

steamedchicago

where is the water leaking from?

Where is the water coming from?  the air vent?  the convector's pipe?  The valve? 



Also, that amount of pitch is probably too much, and may break something.  Valves are not designed for for that amount of misalignment. 



I rather suspect the guy who came out to be a knucklehead....

BobC

How fast

is that Ventrite (?) vent set? Convectors condense steam fast so it's important to set the vent rate low, I would turn it down to #2 (#1 is off) and see if that helps.



Check the radiator pipe in the cellar as it goes from the main to the wall cavity it goes up and make sure the whole run has some slope so water can drain back to the boiler - use a level, don't trust your eye.



There may be a short horizontal pipe under the floor that could

also be a problem. Did the noise get louder after he shimmed it way up

on one end? If it did there is a possibility he actually lowered the

other end just a bit and made a bad situation worse. You might have to

shim the other end a little to take a small sag out of the horizontal

piping. Be careful, don't force anything; you don't want to break

anything in the middle of winter.



Bob

Jon47

Re:

Yes that is a ventrite #1 valve. That is where the water drips out of constantly. The noise certainly seemed to have gotten worse since that brick was placed there. I have removed it, and the noise and water issues still exist just not at the same volume (but still quite loud). I have this particular vent set to 1 right now and the noise and water still come through.





I am not familiar with this type of radiator either. This is the only one of its kind installed in the house. The rest are single pipe radiators or the standard cast iron radiators. Could this type of radiator be an issue as well?



Sadly, for the upstairs piping I have no visibility of how the pipe gets to this particular radiator. I have included pictures of my piping and boiler from the basement. If I can provide any other information that you may find as helpful just let me know!

conversiontime

rad sounds obstructed

Based on your description it sounds like there may be a partial block in the rad itself somewhere --water is still probably trapped on the vent side and once steam pressure builds in the rad, it hits the block, starts banging and then pressure forces trapped water out the vent. Since no cut off likely the only way forward is to remove/replace/cap. Note capping could affect balance of the system but depends on whether that rad has always been in place or is a previous "quick fix" to qualify that as heated sf.

Jamie Hall

Was it ever quiet

in your experience?  If it was, and now isn't, what changed?



One definite possibility -- if the inlet valve was ever moved, make sure that it is wide open.  Inlet valves on one pipe steam must be wide open or really tightly closed; there is no in between.  If that valve is even slightly closed, it will trap water and cause just what you are experiencing.



If you need to adjust (or even shut off) the heat, do it with the vent, not the valve.



And the pitch of the radiator is definitely too great now.

Jon47

Re:

There actually is no visible inlet valve on this particular radiator. So we're not sure if it's on or off completely. Thinking about just removing it in favor of electric heat or a new radiator.



So it doesn't look like anything is wrong with the boiler set up though? We figure if there was something up with the boiler or pipes, other radiators would be noisy as well. But it's just the one causing the problems.



Thanks for all the replies.

Unknown

electric heat

Electric heat baseboard replacment are for quitter..

Mark N

Convector

Since the rest of the rads in your house are cast iron, why not replace this convector with a properly sized cast iron rad.