Steam Vents

ammachine390

Hello. Just found this website a few weeks ago when researching about steam heating questions and found a lot of great information. Anyway, I live in the Chicagoland area in a home built in 1928, approximately 1300 square feet with most of the first floor is insulated with the exception of the our kitchen. The second floor is not insulated in the walls, but the attic has been insulated. The house uses a 1 pipe steam system with a natural gas peerless boiler that was installed in 2005 and replaced the original boiler. There are 7 radiators in the whole house, 4 on the first floor and 3 on the 2nd.



So the issue is, on a typical winter night, most of the radiators in the home will get warm, however, the kitchen and first floor bathroom radiators are almost always cold to the touch. Even the pipes that branch off the main steam pipe to each of those radiators is cold. However, when the temperature outside is very cold, like right now it's -10 degrees fahrenheit out, and those radiators are warm to hot. These 2 radiators are the second to last and last radiators on the main steam line of the first floor. This leads me to believe that that the main vent is not operating. The main vent is currently a Dole #4 valve. From what I have read, this seems like it would be inadequate and that the main vent should be a Gorton #2. Does all this seem logical?



If it matters, when we still had the old boiler, the kitchen radiator would almost always get warm, and the radiator vent would puff steam for a good amount of time on very cold nights.



Sorry this is so long, but thanks so much.

EBEBRATT-Ed

venting

you need to check all your air vents for sizing and proper operation.

 you also need to check the firing rate of the boiler against the connected radiation load

since the radiators in the bath and kitchen eventually do get warm when the boiler runs along enough cycle (on a cold day) it shows that you probably have enough input from the boiler. is something interrupting the boiler cycle? is it building pressure and going off on the pressure control? is the water line unsteady causing the boiler to go off on low water?. is your thermostat located near a heat source such as a radiator, lamp, or computer that could be causing the thermostat to become satisfied early? Is the thermostat heat anticipator set correctly?? Any banging in the piping or water level problems??

A lot of questions. You may need a pro to help you sort it out

Bill_110

Radiators not heating

Your old boiler probably had a higher water content than your modern boiler, so it probably made more steam, which might account for those radiators getting warmer.  With the temps so cold and the boiler coming on constantly, the pipes are probably staying steam hot and so not producing much condensate on startup.  I think every system will probably perform better in this condition because the steam will reach out further.  If I'm understanding what I've been reading,  the steam gets wetter as it reaches out to the furthest radiators because of condensation along the way,  - so the less condensate produced (due to hotter piping) the further out your rads will heat up before the steam fags out so to speak.

Steamhead

How long is your steam main

and what pipe size? Do you have more than one main?