Steam Radiator Air Vent Leaking from Threads

punkzter

Hi,

My wife and I just moved into our new house a month ago. A week ago, we noticed that a good bit of water is leaking from the air vent of the radiator that is in our kitchen.

I've read through some posts on your site. The radiator does have shims on the left side, and the angle is correct. I was thinking that the next step was to either unscrew the old air vent and put some teflon tape on it, or to replace it.

It looks to me like this is the old valve: http://www.homedepot.com/p/1-8-in-IPS-Angled-Adjustable-Steam-Radiator-Valve-A884/202306128?fbtLinkClicked=1458758421752|202246278

But, it has some pretty awful reviews. Still, I read enough on this site about properly tuning a steam system, that I don't want to just replace it with something that will put things out of "whack".

I didn't know if anyone here had a suggestion? Get the same vent? Get a different one that might hold up better?

Thanks!

~Brad

ChrisJ

I only use Gorton vents my self, but there are other good brands, none of which are at Home Depot.

I would carefully chase the threads using an 1/8" NPT pipe tap and then install a new vent with a few wraps of white PTFE tape.

What pressure is your system running?
Can you show us some pictures of your boiler and it's piping?

punkzter

I'm not sure of the pressure. Is there a gauge on the boiler that would show it?

I can take some pictures tonight.

Chris_L

ChrisJ said:

I only use Gorton vents my self, but there are other good brands, none of which are at Home Depot.

I would carefully chase the threads using an 1/8" NPT pipe tap and then install a new vent with a few wraps of white PTFE tape.

What pressure is your system running?
Can you show us some pictures of your boiler and it's piping?

The Home Depots in my area sell Maid O'Mist vents, which i much prefer to Gortons for non-adjustable vents. (You can change the orifices on them to change the venting rate.) Much lower price and better sealing against steam for the ones in my house.

The do sometimes seem to have quality control problems in the manufacture, though. I've see a few that were closed when cold, and others where the threaded part wasn't square to the body of the vent (not sure if has any effect on the operation.) So before you buy, be sure to blow into it or shake it to be sure it is not shut while cold.

punkzter

So, this radiator is in the kitchen, which is directly above the laundry room (where the boiler is). The thermostat is in the the dining room, one room over.

Would the #4 be the correct size to get?

On a related note, and this is sort of a different question, our bedroom, which is on the 2nd floor on the opposite end of the house, is one of the coldest rooms in the house. Would a different air vent, perhaps a "C", be something to try?

Edit:

Would you recommend the Jacobus vents:

http://www.maid-o-mist.com/jacobus.html

Or these:

http://www.maid-o-mist.com/vrsvents.html

?

ChrisJ

Chris_L said:

ChrisJ said:

I only use Gorton vents my self, but there are other good brands, none of which are at Home Depot.

I would carefully chase the threads using an 1/8" NPT pipe tap and then install a new vent with a few wraps of white PTFE tape.

What pressure is your system running?
Can you show us some pictures of your boiler and it's piping?

The Home Depots in my area sell Maid O'Mist vents, which i much prefer to Gortons for non-adjustable vents. (You can change the orifices on them to change the venting rate.) Much lower price and better sealing against steam for the ones in my house.

The do sometimes seem to have quality control problems in the manufacture, though. I've see a few that were closed when cold, and others where the threaded part wasn't square to the body of the vent (not sure if has any effect on the operation.) So before you buy, be sure to blow into it or shake it to be sure it is not shut while cold.

MOM have had many quality issues over the years.
Straight threads instead of NPT I seem to recall being a huge issue.

They have plastic floats as well.

A MOM is sort of like a cheap Gorton knockoff IMO.

punkzter

I can definitely look into the Gorton, I found their website, but not where to buy them.

Chris_L

punkzter said:

So, this radiator is in the kitchen, which is directly above the laundry room (where the boiler is). The thermostat is in the the dining room, one room over.

Would the #4 be the correct size to get?

On a related note, and this is sort of a different question, our bedroom, which is on the 2nd floor on the opposite end of the house, is one of the coldest rooms in the house. Would a different air vent, perhaps a "C", be something to try?

Edit:

Would you recommend the Jacobus vents:

http://www.maid-o-mist.com/jacobus.html

Or these:

http://www.maid-o-mist.com/vrsvents.html

?

I've only used the ones shown in your first link.
Can't be sure about the size. I've never used the #4. I put a #6 on my kitchen radiator and a #D on my living room radiator, which is my largest (50 sq feet) and farthest from the boiler. Bother work fine.

Note that if you have an electric drill, you can always start smaller and drill a larger hole in the orifice if need be. Or just buy the set of orifices and pick the right one.

@Chris j, never had any straight threads on the ones I've bought. I don't have anything against plastic.

You should be able to buy both the Gortons and MoM vents at SupplyHouse.com

Abracadabra

Vent the radiators slow, vent the mains fast. A "D" is way too fast for jsut about any radiator imho. What's the venting situation on your mains? I prefer the MOM's too, since I've built up a very nice collection of orfices to change out.

punkzter

How would I know if I have a mains? I've only seen radiators.

Chris_L

punkzter said:

How would I know if I have a mains? I've only seen radiators.

You want radiator vents not main vents. If you are on the supplyhouse website, just search for "gorton". For some reason what just about everyone else calls a radiator vent, they call an "Angle Vapor Equalizing Valve" with pictures of them upside down for their listing the Gorton vents.

@Abracadabra, the MoM D is equivalent to one of their main vents. My living room radiator is at the end of the main. At the end of the dry return on that main, I have 4 MoM main vents or the equivalent. (I can't see any reason to reduce this radiator vent size.)

Abracadabra

@ChrisL venting a radiator too fast can cause a variety of issues. "D" vent is equivalent to a #1 main vent.

KC_Jones

You need to make sure your main venting is correct before balancing the radiator venting. The "mains" are the large pipes in the basement. There should be vents at the end of those pipes. I wouldn't spend a penny on rad vents until I was 100% sure the main venting was correct.

ChrisJ

I guess I stand corrected.

Seems an awful lot of guys say the MOM vents are fine and I have no reason not to believe them.


@Abracadabra Venting radiators slow causes issues too, it's about balancing it. I only have 1 #4 vent in my house out of 10. I have two #Cs and a few 6 and 5s.

Personally, depending on the size of the boiler and radiators I'd probably start with #6s and go up and down from there.

BobC

The nice thing about the maid o mist 5L is you get 5 orifices with it, that makes finding the right size easy . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Maid-Steam-Angle-Radiator-Valve/dp/B003DV3AGE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458767980&sr=8-1&keywords=maid+o+mist+5l

I've had them on my system for a few years and they work fine for me. The Gorton is probably better made but if you don't know which size to buy it becomes a guessing game. i have an extra #5 on hand that I can drill out if I need to replace one.

Bob

Steamhead

Measure the length and diameter of your steam mains and tell us what, if any, vents are on them. These vents will be located at or near the ends of the mains. We can tell you what you need.

punkzter

Okay, a lot of help here. I believe that I found my mains. It's about 28'-34' of pipe. 34' all the way from the vent to the boiler. I've attached a picture of the vent, but I don't know what type of vent it is.

The circumference of the pipe is 6". So, the diameter is 1.9"

When you recommend a #6, is that for the kitchen radiator? I know that it's a trial and error thing, but this is the closest radiator to the boiler. According to the MoM website, and the Gorton website, I would want something like a 4 or 5.

We didn't run the heat last night, so I wasn't able to see the pressure.

BobC

That main vent is just about worthless, is that a 1/2" pipe it's mounted on? I you try and remove the vent and the strange looking coupler below it and in stall a 90 - a nipple - another 90 - and a Gorton #2 vent on there. The #2 vent needs about 7" so use the horizontal nipple to get it somewhere where there is enough headroom.

Bob

punkzter

So, out of curiosity, how can you tell from a picture that the vent is worthless? What is "bad" about it and what will adding a new vent (say a Gorton #2) to the mains add to my system?

I can try to answer part of that question....you start producing steam, but we need to push cold air out of the system. The steam is going to rush towards the biggest opening. In this case, it should be the mains vent. Once it gets there, it has pushed the cold air out, and then will begin to heat up the valve. Once the valve heats up, it shuts, pushing the steam up to the radiators.

Regarding your suggestion, how long should the nipple be? And should the 90's be in the same orientation as the current ones are in?

KC_Jones

punkzter said:

So, out of curiosity, how can you tell from a picture that the vent is worthless? What is "bad" about it and what will adding a new vent (say a Gorton #2) to the mains add to my system?

In short that vent is too small. This slows the steam down so you essentially burn extra fuel to fill those main pipes up when you don't need to. The slow steam will start going to radiators closer to the boiler before others can get any steam. This causes imbalance in the system. Also there is evidence that vent is failing, steam should not come out of it at all and judging by that joist it is either passing steam or one before it was. With that much main piping you should be able to get steam to the valve on all your radiators in a couple minutes once steam hits the header at the boiler. I doubt if you are doing that now. Also the piping at the boiler on the main is 2" pipe, where did you measure the 6" circumference? That indicates 1 1/2" pipe which is unusual for mains. I suspect if you do have 1 1/2" it is reduced somewhere in the system, I have this situation on my own system. Which model Weil Mclain EG is that?

punkzter

I believe that it is reduced about 6' away from the boiler, but I will have to double check tonight. I measured the pipe near the air valve.

I can check on the model tonight. And I'll also give some more information on the piping.

If I attempt to tackle this myself, let's be blunt. How badly can I mess things up? Is it hopefully as simple as unscrewing some of these pipes? And, worst case scenario, just putting back the old stuff if the new stuff doesn't work?

Do any of you know of a good company for this type of work in the Harrisburg, PA area? It doesn't seem difficult....but it's also not something that I know a lot about.

KC_Jones

I live in Hanover PA and the closest steam expert (that I am aware of) is @Steamhead in Towson, MD. How mechanically inclined are you? Changing vents (to me) isn't a huge deal if you have some mechanical ability. As long as you don't break anything what you say is pretty much true. Worse case you put it back. If you break something it gets a bit more complicated. I wouldn't worry about breaking any mains or anything major, but those smaller pipes on the vent you would need to be a bit careful with. We could make better recommendations if you give us better pictures of how that vent is mounted and how it screws into the main. No matter what I would probably wait a little bit until you know you won't need the heat anymore before tackling anything....just in case. If you mess up in the summer you have plenty of time to fix it.

punkzter

There is a lot that I haven't done. I've rented my whole life. But, I'm pretty confident that I can figure most things out. I'll take some better pictures of the vent tonight. And I'll try to take some pictures that give a better understanding of the layout. And waiting seems like a good idea. (Though, it's a little anti-climatic isn't it...you have to wait a long time to see if the "fix" worked).

Abracadabra

That Dole #4 main vent looks like it's on 3/8" pipe. Would be nice to find that's there's a reducing bushing where it attaches to the main. The Dole doesn't vent nearly enough air fast enough.

BobC

The existing vent will take a long time to expel the air in that main and you are using fuel to expel that air. The air has to be expelled before the steam can fill the pipe. If you don't mind paying for extra fuel to expel the air what you have now is fine.

If you do use an elbow and a horizontal pipe to install a Gorton #2 the horizontal pipe has to be long enough to get to an area where you have 7" of clearance to put the new vent. make sure that horizontal pipe has a little pit of slope so any water can find it's way back to the main. If the existing pipe is 3/8" you will need an adapter to get up to the 1/2" you need to mount the Gorton #2.

Bob

SWEI

Nice steam accelerator there on the riser...

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

Nice steam accelerator there on the riser...

Best I can tell, that boiler is piped to WM's recommendation and the larger section of pipe into the boiler likely performs better than had they installed a bushing in the boiler.

Reducing higher up is less likely to pull water with it.

To be honest, knowing what I do now I'd pipe my boiler similar, though I'd use both risers.


Unless I missed something, the only thing I don't like is there's no skimmer. That should be corrected.

Steamhead

KC_Jones said:

I live in Hanover PA and the closest steam expert (that I am aware of) is @Steamhead in Towson, MD. How mechanically inclined are you? Changing vents (to me) isn't a huge deal if you have some mechanical ability. As long as you don't break anything what you say is pretty much true. Worse case you put it back. If you break something it gets a bit more complicated. I wouldn't worry about breaking any mains or anything major, but those smaller pipes on the vent you would need to be a bit careful with. We could make better recommendations if you give us better pictures of how that vent is mounted and how it screws into the main. No matter what I would probably wait a little bit until you know you won't need the heat anymore before tackling anything....just in case. If you mess up in the summer you have plenty of time to fix it.

Thanks, KC!

Punkzter- I have been known to come that far. Call, e-mail or PM me and we'll talk.

punkzter

I've contacted @Steamhead, thanks for the suggestion @KC_Jones.

In the meantime, I'll answer some questions. The boiler is a Well-McLain Peg-30.

The pipe coming out of the top of the boiler, after the fist junction, has a circumference of 7.5".

Because the pipes are all wrapped, I'm not sure when they are stepped down to 6". But the mains is definitely 6", as are the pipes out to the house's radiators.

I've attached some more pictures of the mains air vent. The pipe is definitely not the prettiest, and I guess it's what worries me the most about attempting this myself.

Would you suggest removing the nipple (is that the correct word) from the mains, or just attaching a new vent to that one. I can't tell if it unscrews or not.

Abracadabra

A better picture of where the vent connects to the main to see if there's a bushing there to remove. If it's the 20160324_174651_25932954852_o.jpg then it looks like someone tapped the main and installed a nipple right on the main. You'll need a bigger tap.

punkzter

Sorry for the picture names...it would have helped if I had renamed them. Do you mean the picture that ends in 140_o (or 644_o)?

It certainly does look like someone just tapped the main.

I'm not sure that I can get a better picture.

Abracadabra

punkzter said:

Sorry for the picture names...it would have helped if I had renamed them. Do you mean the picture that ends in 140_o (or 644_o)?

It certainly does look like someone just tapped the main.

I'm not sure that I can get a better picture.

Yeah.. my bad... bad cut and paste.. 140_o & 644_o are the pics I was refering to.

nicholas bonham-carter

To make a better seal between the air vent and the radiator, I have lightly chased the threads in the radiator, with a tap, and put in a brass close nipple, and coupling, all threads well wrapped with Teflon tape. The threads of the the coupling will be in better condition than those of the radiator, and enable the several changes of vents necessary to balance the system.
Not that over pressure and inadequate main venting can exacerbate the problem, especially if your boiler is throwing too much water up wit the steam.--NBC