Steam heat - boiler pressure settings

peteglider

first winter in this house - 2 year old crown boiler,207k BTUs. 3 story 90 year old Tudor.

The steam pipes in the basement were uninsulated, last week I added about 120 feet of 1" Fiberglas insulation to riser and return steam pipes in the basement. This has drastically reduced the absurdly high temp in the basement, and has totally evened out temps between first to third floors (before only basement and first floor were warm, while upstairs was 5-8 degrees colder )

last week some banging in steam pipes when System starts up, this morning leaking at 2 rads on the 2nd floor into ceilings on 1st floor

Had a realization - bet the pressure is too high - and yes, boiler gage was at almost 9 psi

Found a few postings by @mastvrplumber suggesting high 2 psi with a differential of 1 psi. My boiler set to 5-6 with differential of 2. So I'm pretty sure it's way too high

Am I on the right track - pressurtrol settings way too high?

Perhaps the huge loss of BTUs in the basement before insulating somehow kept pressure lower - and this upset the balance (as imperfect as it was)?

Comments and ideas appreciated !

Thx / p

Abracadabra

Yes... you really shouldn't need more than 1-1.5psi and your system should be able to work with even less.