New Gorton # 1 Main Vents Having Problems

BrianT1077

I have 4 Gorton # 1 Main Vents installed on an antler for one of my longer mains. Within the past week during each heating cycle they start spitting water and steam and I have to add water to the boiler everyday. I contacted Gorton today concerning this issue and I am waiting for their response. I was talking to Dave0176 last night to setup a possible date & time so that he can examine my entire system and I was telling him about this and he said that he has a few other customers having the same issue with these vents. Now I just purchased these from a local plumbing supply house in October 2015. Is anyone else having these issues with recently purchased Gorton # 1's?

Mark N

I use 6 gorton #1's as my main vents and have experienced no issues with them. My vents are 6 years old. They have been making them the same way for probably 80 years. Steam heat is old. What pressure is your boiler running at? High pressure can cause any vent to leak.

Dave0176

Mark N said:

I use 6 gorton #1's as my main vents and have experienced no issues with them. My vents are 6 years old. They have been making them the same way for probably 80 years. Steam heat is old. What pressure is your boiler running at? High pressure can cause any vent to leak.

Mark I seen it first hand on the last replacement, brand new boiler first fire up 0-3 lb gauge, needle hovering around the 4-5 oz mark,, the No2s were perfect the three No1s I had on a manifold were pissing steam. Replaced them with a No2 and no more problems.

New England SteamWorks

I have recently installed 3 No.2s and 1 No.1 that I have been monitoring closely and all are functioning normally. Obviously if steam is escaping the vent, it is defective. But spitting water? I wouldn't think water should be getting to them, and if it did, I can only imagine that it would effect their performance?

Abracadabra

BrianT1077 said:

Is anyone else having these issues with recently purchased Gorton # 1's?

Yes seen it with #1's and have had #2 stuck shut so they vent nothing and some #2s that don't close fully. This season I've seen more than my fair share. Fortunately my supplier takes them back without any hassle.

EzzyT

I've had issues with both #1 & #2 but mostly on the #1. The issues I've had on the #2 where they would stay stuck and wouldn't open some of them I've been able to fix by opening them up and cleaned the inside which solved the problem

Mark N

Dave my pressure never hits 1 oz. But agree they shouldn't leak at 4 or 5 ozs. I wonder how they get stuck shut. The bimetal should contract when it cools. Thats basic physics.

EzzyT

Ive had little burs of metal on where the bimetal contact cause them to stick

Dave in QCA

Several years ago I bought 4ea G2s. When I took them out of the box and tried to blow through them, three of them were shut tight, and one was normal. The normal one rattled when I shook it and the others did not. I took the constricted ones and banged them real hard on my work bench. That was enough to shake them loose. I don't know why they were stuck, perhaps paint, or wax, or ? After that they all worked fine. Or, I should say, they worked the same as Gorton vents normally work. It took me quite a few months of observations before I realized that other than on a cold start, the Gortons remained closed, or nearly closed, and the venting capacity was near zero. There now setting in a box on the shelf with other junk parts.

BrianT1077

Hello everyone! You all had some interesting input regarding this matter. Gorton has gotten back to me and this was their response:

Brian: They have a warranty up to 2 years. On the back of the current production is an arrow pointing upwards ^. Main vents tend to fail more often than others. Either dirt gets on the seat and they stop closing or they sometimes are not placed high enough from the combustion that takes place on the mains and fail. I just e-mailed Wallington Plbg. the same information. Thanks Ken

I am going to exchange them hopefully Saturday with Wallington Plumbing Supply. Tonight I did take the pressuretrol off and cleaned out the pigtail since I found it was filled with gunk. The problem with the vents is still there however. Although the water level is a little better since I did some more skimming the other night.

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.

Fred

Good for you! I'm not sure what is going on with the number of Gorton issues we are hearing about over the past couple weeks. So many different installation environments. Hard to tell why so many seem to fail???

RomanGK_26986764589

Yes, I've posted the same thing on another thread. All of my new gortons including the main vent #1 leak a bit of steam noticeable when holding a mirror next to it.