Some Radiators Not Heating and Some Overheating....

BrianT1077

I had the house somewhat balanced and heating nicely in just about every room over the past few weeks. Now I have a new issue that popped up the other day and I have been trying to fix it with no success, I have rooms overheating on the rear main and radiators barely heating on the front main. On the 2nd floor, my bedroom is like a sauna and so is my daughter's room, my 2 son's room barely heats and that room I believe is on the front main. Now the kitchen radiator (1st floor) is heating all the way across real fast which is always been the last to heat and has been an issue. Also when I go to the boiler I now have water and wet steam spitting from 2 of my vents on the antler for the rear main (Vent's seem to be ok though), front main is still hot though. Water level in the glass is steady at about 1-2 inches above bottom of glass but seems lower than usual. I do have fairly new Vent-Rite #1 adjustable vents on the larger radiators in the rooms (8 Vent-Rites). Breakdown of rooms, front room on the 1st floor, rad is dead cold, 2 rads in living room 1st floor 1 dead cold 1 barely heating, dining room 1st floor overheating, bathroom and hallway 1st floor overheating and vents are noisy, kitchen 1st floor heating all the way (Unusual). Master bedroom 2nd floor overheating, daughter's room 2nd floor overheating, boy's room 2nd floor dead cold sometimes barely heating, bathroom 2nd floor never heats as usual. I have a total of 11 rads in the house, 8 are larger (rooms), 3 are smaller (bathrooms and hallway). Any help would be great, please let me know if you need any more info and I will get it to you. All help is appreciated!

nicholas bonham-carter

Our mantra here is "vent the mains quickly, and the radiators slowly" your present radiator vents are probably too aggressive. I would suggest some Gorton #2's on the mains, and Hoffman 40's on the radiators.
How is your pressure, when verified by a 0-3 psi gauge?
Are you using temperature setbacks of more than 2 degrees?
What sort of thermostat have you, and has it been setup for steam?--NBC

Bio

Are your mains well vented?
1-2" bouncing should be reduced to about 1/2" it's probably why you see water on the valves, so more skimming is needed
What kind of vents do you have on the other 4 radiators

BrianT1077

@nicholas bonham-carter, I have 4 Gorton #1's on my rear main on an antler and I have 1 Gorton #1 on my front main (short main). I have been venting the rads slowly which seemed to work up until the other day. I do not yet have a 0-3 psi gauge on the system. I have a Honeywell RTH230B thermostat on the system set to steam.

New England SteamWorks

Strange that it was working well, and suddenly it is not. You seem to be saying that all the radiators off the rear main are hotter than normal, and all the radiators off the front main are not heating. You need to verify if this is correct. Is the thermostat in a room that is not heating well (i.e off the front main?). You've got water spitting out of your rear main vents, and a lower water level than normal. If the problem is isolated to the one main, we might have a blocked up return, but then water should be spitting from the front main vents, not the rear (which is heating well). After a reasonable period after shut down does the water level return to normal?

BrianT1077

@Bio, my mains seem to be vented well, when I view the water level glass when the system runs, now it is about 1-2 inches above the bottom of the glass. I have been skimming the boiler a lot over the past few weeks. The 3 other smaller rads have a Gorton # 5 & 6 and also a Maid O Mist adjustable. All others have Vent-Rite #1 adjustable.

BrianT1077

@RI_SteamWorks, yes the rear main is overheating the rads and the front main is barely heating the rads. The thermostat is in the living room which is not heating well now. When the system finally shuts down, the water level in the glass will return to the normal water line.

nicholas bonham-carter

Unless you have very short mains, only a few feet long, I would say your mains are under vented. The rule of thumb here would be one Gorton #2 for each 20 feet of 2 inch main.
The important thing here is to have a very low resistance to the escaping air from the mains, with a higher resistance in the rad venting system. In that way the mains will fill completely with steam before the steam begins to rise up to all the radiators. This will permit all the radiators to get steam at the same time.
If there is a high resistance in the mains, and low in the rad vents, then it is likely that the risers from the main to the rads which are closest to the boiler will heat first, and those at the end of the line to heat last, making for an unbalanced system.
Don't think of the main vents as an expense, but rather as an investment. Every minute longer it takes for the air to escape from some constipated, undersized vent is more fuel burned than need be.
A low pressure gauge will show you the back-pressure of resistance during the venting phase, (2 ounces or so is acceptable).--NBC

Bio

BrianT1077 said:

@Bio, my mains seem to be vented well, when I view the water level glass when the system runs, now it is about 1-2 inches above the bottom of the glass. I have been skimming the boiler a lot over the past few weeks. The 3 other smaller rads have a Gorton # 5 & 6 and also a Maid O Mist adjustable. All others have Vent-Rite #1 adjustable.

Gorton 5 vents faster then the ventrite1 at the highest setting, so you are over venting with 5&6 , you need to slow them with a MOM #4 ( or get all V1s) and start the V1s at 2, if you need to increase the venting do it by 1/2 number where needed
You could try Scout to get rid of the oils, it increase ph levels and keeps the water crystal clear, I've use it with great results

New England SteamWorks

I agree that main venting would be a normal place to look, except that in this case Brian has indicated that his mains are vented and more importantly, that things were working pretty good just a little while ago. Brian, can we see a picture of your returns to the boiler? Check to see if the front return pipe is hot all the way to the boiler, or if the heat stops suddenly before getting to the boiler (which would indicate a return blockage). Are you sure it's not the front main vents spitting?

Paul48

@RI_SteamWorks

Your theory about a blockage seems to fit the symptoms.

Paul48

@BrianT1077

Did you post recently, and show pictures, that we told you that the near-boiler piping was wrong?

Dave in QCA

Has anything else changed in the last few weeks? Is your weather colder? I the off time between steam cycles shorter than before?

The reason I ask is because it sounds as if your radiators may be vented aggressively. This sometimes will work, as you indicate that it did a few weeks ago, as long as the mains are vented very fast. However, the Gorton vents have a problem of no reopening when the mains are still warm. So, if the off cycles are shorter now than they were when the system was in balance, it could be because the main vents are not opening. The Gorton main vents will be closed, according to the experts, at around 130 F. If your mains do not cool to a temperature lower than that, they won't open, and then your balancing is out the window. I am assuming your mains are insulated. If you have a probe thermometer, insert it through the insulation in a sideways angled manner. This should be on the main in an area near where the main vent is located. Leave it there and observe the reading right at the point the boiler restarts.

I also agree with Nicholas' recommendation of using Hoffman #40 throughout. They seem to greatly assist in balancing a system because they are nice and slow and keep some radiator from getting greedy and stealing all of the steam.

Fred

Also make sure the pressure is set correctly on the Pressuretrol. I don't know if you have a 0 -3 PSI pressure gauge on your system but pressure could also be the issue. Take the Pressuretrol off and clean out the pigtail (looped pipe) that it is mounted on. They get clogged and the Pressuretrol can't see the actual system pressure and without a low pressure gauge, you can't either.

BrianT1077

Update: I have a short front main with 1 Gorton # 1, and a long rear main with 4 Gorton # 1's on it. I would like to get a low pressure gauge put on the system. Tonight I did play with the balancing as recommended by Bio. I actually now have all the radiators heating even the one in the upstairs bathroom which never heats at all. I did have the radiators vented too aggressively, so I turned them back to 2 and adjusted based on .5 increments. I need to get 3 more Vent-Rite #1's for the too aggressive smaller radiators. I will do some more skimming when I can, but tonight it is 15F outside. All returns are hot all the way back to the boiler. The rear main vents are the ones spitting (2 out of 4). The front main vent is fine. I do now have the smaller 1st floor radiator for the bathroom and hallway hissing, I am being told they are oversized vents, see comments above. The near boiler piping was wrong due to the pitch of the header but that was recently fixed in order to pass inspection. The weather has been colder, 75F on Christmas and 15F tonight, and the time off between cycles are shorter now. The thermostat is set up for steam. My mains do need some insulation, there are bare sections. Right now all rads are getting heat (Miracles do exist, house is toasty on this 15F night) but I am still getting spitting main vents and some rad vents and also the water level in the sight glass is 1-2 inches from the bottom. As soon as the boiler shuts down it rises up to normal water level. I will post some pics of the boiler, however I do have pics posted on my other discussion about Square Feet of Steam.

nicholas bonham-carter

When firing, the water in the boiler is being pushed out 1.75 inches per ounce of pressure into the wet returns, and that is why the water level is low when firing, and normal when at rest. If there is a horizontal pipe in the return just above the height of the normal water line, the boiler water could hide there, while firing.
What is your pressure in ounces?--NBC

BrianT1077

Pictures:

24461f391e20b7336331d5789078af53.r23.cf1.rackcdn.com/heatinghelp.vanillaforums.com/editor/s5/4m76xm9si6of.jpg" alt="" />

BrianT1077

@nicholas bonham-carter, unfortunately I do not have a low pressure gauge installed yet.

BrianT1077

Thank you everyone so far for your input, I have nice toasty heat in my house tonight at 13F degrees now outside! Even though I feel it is not running correctly.

Dave in QCA

Often times when a boiler is foaming, it will suppress the water line in the gauge. From the color of the water in your sight glass, it looks like you may need to skim your boiler some more.

Paul48

I see a potential issue with that copper dry return(beyond it being copper). How did they transition to that smaller copper pipe, at the end of the main?

Paul48

OK....I'll put this out there. The steam pros can yell at me. From his diagram on another post, he has incorporated what should be his dry returns (lengths equal to mains) into his mains, by placing his vents at the ends of the returns. He also has insulated his dry returns. Doesn't that kill his condensate capacity? And, is that creating his low water line?

Bio

BrianT1077 said:

Update: I have a short front main with 1 Gorton # 1, and a long rear main with 4 Gorton # 1's on it. I would like to get a low pressure gauge put on the system. Tonight I did play with the balancing as recommended by Bio. I actually now have all the radiators heating even the one in the upstairs bathroom which never heats at all. I did have the radiators vented too aggressively, so I turned them back to 2 and adjusted based on .5 increments. I need to get 3 more Vent-Rite #1's for the too aggressive smaller radiators. I will do some more skimming when I can, but tonight it is 15F outside. All returns are hot all the way back to the boiler. The rear main vents are the ones spitting (2 out of 4). The front main vent is fine. I do now have the smaller 1st floor radiator for the bathroom and hallway hissing, I am being told they are oversized vents, see comments above. The near boiler piping was wrong due to the pitch of the header but that was recently fixed in order to pass inspection. The weather has been colder, 75F on Christmas and 15F tonight, and the time off between cycles are shorter now. The thermostat is set up for steam. My mains do need some insulation, there are bare sections. Right now all rads are getting heat (Miracles do exist, house is toasty on this 15F night) but I am still getting spitting main vents and some rad vents and also the water level in the sight glass is 1-2 inches from the bottom. As soon as the boiler shuts down it rises up to normal water level. I will post some pics of the boiler, however I do have pics posted on my other discussion about Square Feet of Steam.

I'm glad it work out good for you, as you already know more skimming is needed, the fact that the water level in the sight glass is lower than the LWCO indicates that there is foaming going on inside and is keeping the LWCO from shutting down the boiler, luckily you have the cyclegard to do a self test every so often for you

BrianT1077

On Saturday I was able to exchange out all 4 Gorton # 1's for new ones. I installed them and now 1 out of the new 4 still spits steam and water. So I took if off and plugged it for now (They are part of an antler). I am going to contact the plumbing supply house today and let them know what happened. I did a lot more skimming over the weekend and the water in the sight glass is a lot more stable now. Also since the main vent change out I haven't needed to add any make up water.

BurntFingers

Try soaking some of those vents in vinegar for a few minutes each and then rinse with fresh water. skim your boiler and use the clean-out once a week or so during the heating season. Do not put cold clean water at a quick rate into the boiler (go slow) and always fire the boiler after adding water to burn off some of the Oxygen in the new water. Clean, clean, clean.
then due all what NBC and others say..
good luck-