Mystery open valve

Heated

I hope someone can help--because the plumber doesn't seem to have a clue what's going on with our radiator, and as renters newly moved in, we don't have many options when it comes to repair.

I'm attaching two photos of our radiator. I believe it's one-pipe steam. It's loud as hell, mainly at 5 am when it kicks on, since that's when it stays on longest. Aside from the rattling near the pipe (it's been shimmied up, but didn't seem to help), squirrel chatter from the air vent (which the plumber replaced but didn't seem to help) and occasional knocking and knife-sharpening sounds, the worst is the sound coming from a mystery open pipe behind the radiator, adjacent to the source pipe (see photo).

As you can see, the mystery "extra" valve has an on-off handle, and it is supposedly turned off, per the plumber. When I told him that this open pipe to nowhere comes alive--about 15 minutes after the radiator wakes up in the morning--and spews steam, as well as dribbles a little bit of hot water, he said that wasn't possible, since it's turned off. The noise it makes is something like if you turned your TV to white noise and then cranked the volume up as loud as it could go. Or, like a million frying pans sizzling. It's so loud we can hear it from the other side of the apartment, 50 feet and three rooms away. It runs for about an hour like this, with an occasional sharp sputter/cut, then falls silent when the radiator begins cooling. It is in our bedroom, next to our bed, and we are sleepless wrecks.

Plumber at first thought he should cap it; then he thought he should attach it to the radiator to apparently create a two-pipe system. He is basically guessing. He's now gone AWOL, perhaps because he has no idea how to fix it, and I'm imploring the building manager to help get this resolved, hopefully without annoying him enough to incur major rent increases next year.

Any suggestions/clues? Could this have once been a two-pipe air vent system that someone attempted to convert but didn't do a thorough job with? Can I just cap that pipe and go back to sleep without an explosion in our home?

JStar

What do the other radiators look like?

Abracadabra

Do you have pics of the piping underneath? Looks like the current valve that's hooked up has a copper adapter into it? Kind of hard to tell from the picture.

nicholas bonham-carter

This is a system wide problem, and is not just this one misbehaving radiator. Noise should be minimal in a steam system, if it is in proper maintenance. This system is probably burning much more fuel than it should.
Your next tech will have to trace that extra pipe down to see what it is connected to, and to look at the boiler to see what what is out of adjustment, or may need to be cleaned down there. It sounds like an over-pressure/main venting problem.
What is your location, so we may be able to advise a more expert steam pro to look at this. Ask the other residents if they have similar noise problems with the system. If there are others, then they to can put some pressure on the management to rectify these faults.--NBC

Robert O'Connor_12

It would appear that someone ran a new pipe up to a new radiator and abandoned the old valve in place that doesn't shut off completely. first thing would be to remove old radiator valve and cap the pipe. second thing I'd do is install air valve in the lower tapping of new radiator instead of where it's currently mounted. Third thing is to get someone out there that knows something about steam to help with the wet steam/banging problem and have expert look over piping & boiler set up.

icesailor

The uncapped radiator valve is not a positive shut-off valve. It should be capped.

Look to see other radiators in the house and measure the centerline of the pipe/valve into the radiator to the baseboard, and the same with the unused valve with the blue plate. If the blue plate distance matches other radiators installed, they did something to get more height of the pipes because they raised the floor heights. Is this radiator on the first floor and you can see what is going on under the floor?

Looks like third world piping gone awry.

KC_Jones

A couple of observations and "guesses". First that radiator doesn't appear to be original to the system OR has been modified. All the plugs and bushings look newer than the radiator. The air vent is not in a normal location for steam, it would normally be lower down. On that radiator you can clearly see the boss down lower on the end where it should be installed. I agree with previous posters, what do the other rads look like? One pipe? Two pipe? Obviously that valve is hooked into the system as it leaks. The problem you are having is possibly not even related to the radiator it could be a system issue, bad piping bad pitch etc. What does the landlord say about this situation? When these systems aren't running correctly they cost the owner a bunch of fuel and that might be a way to approach the landlord about it.

Heated

Wow--thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments. I don't feel so alone anymore! I'll approach our building manager with this ideas--as a renter I'm not at liberty to hire a plumber directly, since it's their jurisdiction. To answer the questions I can, our only other radiator looks exactly the same (except for the weird second pipe)--one-pipe with a bullet vent at top right, and it's blissfully silent except for an occasional gentle squeaking from the vent. Not even pitched. We're on the second floor of our building, and I definitely don't think I can weasel into the floorboards or below to sniff out the configurations. But you guys have given me a lot to go on! Will follow your advice. I really appreciate it.

ChrisJ

I like that,

He says it's not possible because it's not like the valve could be bad or anything, right?

Please be careful. Not only is it obviously possible because it's happening, but that steam is good and hot and can burn you almost instantly. The good news for now is it's a good humidifier and you don't have to worry about replacing the boiler when it rotts out from excessive makeup water.

Fred

If you can cap that open pipe off, that will block the air from escaping and prevent steam from getting up there. I'm wondering if that pipe may also feed a radiator in a the first floor apartment and that valve is now acting like a riser vent. The Landlord needs to get his system functioning properly. The pressure sounds like it may be way to high, probably to try and compensate for other issues on the cheap.

nicholas bonham-carter

what would happen if the radiator vents were switched between the quiet radiator, and the noisy one? this would have to be done at night, when the system was off, since you have no control over the boiler.--NBC

Fred

Probably nothing would change. That radiator vent needs to be moved to the side, opposite the speam pipe and down to where that little round bump-out/plug is for proper venting. I bet that radiator only gets hot across the top, wasting all the potential radiation that radiator could provide.