Frequency and Length of Steam Cycles?

crawas

@fred, yes! The vent I found at the back of the house is I’m assuming at the end of the main after the last radiator because right after that main vent that pipe does indeed go down to the floor (from the basement ceiling) and then runs along the back wall of the house then turns along the side wall of the house and comes all the way back to the boiler room until it looks like it goes underground and I’m assuming back to the boiler itself. The only question is the pipe that leads to that found main vent, which pipe is it coming from on the boiler itself. The supply pipe on the right or the supply pipe on the left. Like I mentioned before, the boiler itself all the way to the gorton #1 that I found is about 30 feet. The gorton is too small for that and I should switch to the big mouth (which I ordered).

I thought of another question though, when the boiler runs for 45 minutes or so, ALL the radiators in the house do get hot so if that second main indeed does NOT have a vent, would the radiators that are supplied by that second main get hot at all?

Fred

@crawas , The main with the vent on it is most likely the supply pipe on the right. The one that goes to the left is the one with that dry return in your picture and without a vent on it.

To your second question, yes, after running for 30 or 40 mintes, the radiators on the main without a vent will get hot. All the air is being pushed out through the small radiator vents. You are wasting a lot of fuel while that happens. Get a Big Mouth on that return and you will see all the radiators heat up a lot faster, the house stay warm, your fuel bill drop and the boiler take a lot less time to satisfy the thermostat.

crawas

@Fred , So I believe the pipe coming out of the ground is the return that’s coming from the pipe in the back of the house with the main vent on it already

Fred

@crawas , that would be correct.

crawas

Here is a pic of the dry return and yes it does connect with that second main on the left that we were talking about

crawas

So where exactly would you put the vent on that second main? Can you circle it for me? Here is a pic of the dry return going down

Fred

@crawas , Whoa, that main seems to turn and go through that wall. Is that correct? If so, that "return" we see is just a drip off of the bottom of that pipe. To get the venting that you need for that main, you need to figure out which of your radiators is the last connection on that main and put a vent there. If you can see into the opening where your current vent is, can you see another pipe drop to the floor? If so, that is the drop for that second main and you need to vent that main somewhere before the drop. You may also find the other old vent you are looking for.

crawas

So that’s probably going to require opening walls and ceilings. Oh no! Glad I sent the pic! Which pipe is the riser that it’s connecting to?

Fred

@crawas , see my revised comment above. I don't think it is a riser, just a slight rise and then a turn through that basement wall.

crawas

The opening to my current vent is all the way at back of the house, whereas these pics are in the front by the boiler itself.

crawas

The second main that’s on the left goes in a different direction than the other main that had the vent on it that I am able to change. Sounds like to do any of this, I’ll need to open walls and ceilings. Am I right?

Fred

That second main may go a different direction but it may loop back around, at its far end and drop somewhere near the drop for the first (vented) main and use a common under floor return back to the boiler. Look through your vent opening and see if you see another drop from that other main.

crawas

So the drybreturn we see coming from that second main is not the main return for that second main supply?

crawas

Unfortunately I can’t see much but doesn’t look like there is a second pipe there.

Fred

No, it is just a drip to allow any condensate that builds in that short rise to fall back into the wet return and not be trapped there causing water hammer.

crawas

As you can see, the pipe that’s from the left main comes and goes the short way to the end of this room. The other main where I see the vent is the part that goes the loooong way.

crawas

I’m assuming there is absolutely no way to test which main feeds which radiators in the houses with the walls being closed. I think step 1 is to change the gorton 1 to a big mouth and not touch that second main for now. Would you agree?

Fred

Are you 100% sure you have looked over every inch of that basement, both finished and unfinished to see if there is another access door or open space that may hide the other vent? It's hard for me to believe that someone would have know to vent one main and not the other or to provide access to one vent and not the other, although I guess it happens all the time.

crawas

Yup!

crawas

Maybe the second main doesn’t lead to a radiator or only leads to one radiator? No idea!! Usually any vents are at the ends of the main runs right before the return so I’m trying to think of where this next return would come from but there is no other pipe
Coming out of the floor

crawas

Is it possible that the second main that’s on the left side actually ties into the other Main so there’s only one event?

Fred

It has to lead to at east one radiator, probably more than one, given the size of that pipe. Vents are always at the end of the main or on a dry return, before it drops and becomes a wet return. Are all the radiators on one side of the house fed off of the main with the vent? If so, then that other main probably feeds the radiators on the other side of the house. Figure out which is the furthest radiator on that side of the house and you will find the area where that main becomes a dry return or drops to the floor as a wet return.

crawas

I have no idea because the main runs along the middle of the house but all the radiators are either on the back wall or the sidewall

crawas

What if that second main taps back into the main return that runs underground from the back of the house? And maybe the dry return is just to serve as backup for whatever gets away from the main return that runs to the back? Am I even making sense?

Is there a way to send a video through the forum?

crawas

Why can’t I just put a main vent on that dry return before it becomes wet?

Fred

crawas said:

Why can’t I just put a main vent on that dry return before it becomes wet?

Because it's not a dry return. It is just a drip. If you vent it, that will become the path of least resistance, the first place steam will go and close that vent. It will be like not having a vent on that main because it will close before it can vent any air out of the main.

crawas

Got ya. Understood. The only thing I can really think of that makes sense is that that second mean that goes to the left feed some of the radiators towards the front of the house but when I look in the main room where those pipes leading into that I sent a picture of it looks like the pipe that goes left to right joins with the pipe that goes up and down which leads me to think that they all lead to that same main vent at the back of the house. Is that even possible?

Fred

That is possible but that would mean that they should not have tied both ends into your boiler header. If that is what they did, you have steam going two directions in the same main loop and colliding somewhere in the middle. Not the best situation for even distribution of steam throughout the system. If it is a continuous loop, they should have just tied one end into the header and the other end should have come back to the boiler and dropped into a wet return. That way steam flow in one direction. The other option would have been to break that loop (if that is a loop) somewhere in the middle and dropped each one into a wet return at the floor and each should have been vented.

crawas

Sorry for the silly question but what does it mean when you say “header”?

Fred

crawas said:

Sorry for the silly question but what does it mean when you say “header”?

No question is silly. It is that horizontal pipe, above your boiler that the two mains are attached to, with the riser out of the boiler on one end and the equalizer on the other end. The purpose of that header is to allow water droplets to fall out of the steam before it enters the mains. That water then falls into the equalizer and back into the boiler.

crawas

Ok so I think for now you agree to change the gorton to a big mouth right? It just screws on like a radiator air valve?

crawas

Also I was thinking, there looks to be only one main return coming back to boiler which would lead me to believe that maybe my system only has one main vent?

Fred

crawas said:

Ok so I think for now you agree to change the gorton to a big mouth right? It just screws on like a radiator air valve?

The Big Mouth is a 2 piece vent but yes, it mounts like any other vent. You just screw the base in where your Gorton is screwed in and then you mount the vent head onto the base and tighten the union.
I can't say that you only have one main. The take-offs from the header suggest you have two mains. Until you can verify that there are no other drops into a common buried wet return, anywhere else in the basement, or have visual proof that the one main loops all the way around the basement, I have to assume there are two mains. If that main did actually loop completely around the basement and back to the boiler, that second main would actually be a dry return and drop into a wet return to go into the boiler. It would not tie into the header as a second main.

crawas

So you’re saying based on the piping that’s there, second main needs a vent somewhere. So it looks like I have to break walls

Fred

crawas said:

So you’re saying based on the piping that’s there, second main needs a vent somewhere. So it looks like I have to break walls

The way it is plumbed, there does seem to be two mains and they both need to be vented. I wouldn't haphazardly start to open up walls or ceilings until I thought I had found the area where the end of that main is likely to be. It may make sense to try to find what you think might be the last radiator on that main and drill a 1 inch hole in the wall or ceiling and stick a camera into the hole and see what you can see. Also, if you can figure out which radiator might be the last radiator on that main, you could install a main vent on the supply pipe just before the radiator. It is just impossible for me to give you a definitive answer being hundreds of miles away from your installation.

crawas

I understand