Steam Radiators now working and Video of system

itzasean

OK so I have a gas steam boiler that is a Burnham Independence . (At one time there was oil and before that coal). I am having trouble with certain radiators not heating up. I also had a radiator work fine but all of a sudden it was cold. I shut off the valves on the other rads and it heated up. Does this mean the Main Vent is bad, The LBS aren't set high enough etc? I did notice when I went to take this video I put the heat way up (76 degrees) and when I got back upstairs the radiators that normally dont heat up fully were just about all heated up due to the fact that the Thermostat wasnt shutting down when that room got to 68. Also note that there is no water hammer in the system surprisingly. If anyone could look at my video and shoot out any suggestions? Also in the video I forgot to mention that you will see a copper pipe thats a run up to a new bathroom on the 3rd floor. That works fine and I know it shouldn't be copper but thats another day.... Also The Internal Syphon gauge is about 2.5 lbs . See video

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuRiMVF50d0&feature=youtu.be">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuRiMVF50d0&feature=youtu.be</a>

Hap_Hazzard

I bet your basement is nice and toasty.

One problem I see in the video is that your pipes aren't all insulated. This means they're effectively radiators, and they get their steam before anybody else. On a small system, this makes a big difference when it gets colder outside. There's just not enough steam to go around. Insulating those pipes will make the steam stay steam longer, so it will give up its heat in the parts of the house you live in.



Beyond that I think you just need to work on balance. You don't need to turn the pressure up; you need to tune your system to offer minimal resistance to allow the steam to get where it's needed.



Make sure your main vents are working and that steam fills all branches at the same time. This means you need more venting on the longest branches because there is more air to let out. You can check a vent by holding a candle next to the orifice while the steam is rising. The flame should flutter if not blow out.



Next make sure your radiators are filling. If they're filling too slowly you may need a bigger vent, or you may need to slow down the venting on that big radiator in the room where the thermostat is. If that radiator heats up too quickly it will turn off the thermostat before the rest get any steam.



I like the Maid-o-Mist vents. Their design is very similar to the Gortons, but they have a removable orifice. That allows you to experiment with balancing by swapping the orifices instead of moving vents around. You can buy a MoM vent with a full set of orifices, sometimes available at Amazon. If you get one of these and enough vents of varying sizes for the rest of your radiators you should have everything you need. Later, if any of these vents fail, you can replace it with a Gorton of the same size.

itzasean

RE: Thanks

Thanks for all the info. You mentioned to make sure the mains vents are working properly. I only have one thats at the end of the return right before it gets to the boiler. Should there be more added? Also do you know the proper size I should use on the Main Vent?