Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Basic switching main vent question

nybigapple
nybigapple Member Posts: 61
edited December 2016 in Strictly Steam
Can I just pull off these three main vents and throw big mouths on? Do you guys see any issues? I have very little plumbing experience. Will I just need two wrenches to counter and pull?

First main right before a long courtyard run to rear building. At start of rear building is another main vent. After it loops around the rear building, it has a courtyard run back to the front building. Last vent is on the wet return right as it re-enters the building shortly before it goes back to boiler.




Comments

  • Fred
    Fred Member Posts: 8,542
    That first picture, you will need to take the vent, nipple and that first bushing off so that you have a 3/4" tapping to mount your bigmouth to. The second and third pictures are 3/4" so you should be ok. It would be much better if the tappings were on the horizontal pipe but as long as those Tee locations are well above the water line, they should be OK.
  • Sailah
    Sailah Member Posts: 826
    Be very careful with that copper and putting a bunch of torque on it. Make sure you support the pipe in the opposite direction by grabbing the hex of the copper pipe while you twist the valve off.
    Peter Owens
    SteamIQ
    BobC
  • gerry gill
    gerry gill Member Posts: 3,078
    whats going on that caused all that rust on the last picture?
    gwgillplumbingandheating.com
    Serving Cleveland's eastern suburbs from Cleveland Heights down to Cuyahoga Falls.

  • BobC
    BobC Member Posts: 5,495
    I agree with @Sailah about torquing that copper, get too rough with it you will break it.

    The BigMouth's would work but you have to balance the mains, if one main is twice the length of the other it should be vented at twice the rate so steam gets to the radiators at the same time.

    Tell us how long each of the mains are and we can tell what vents should work.

    Bob
    Smith G8-3 with EZ Gas @ 90,000 BTU, Single pipe steam
    Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
    3PSI gauge
  • Abracadabra
    Abracadabra Member Posts: 1,948
    gerry gill said:

    whats going on that caused all that rust on the last picture?

    My guess is this:

    In one of his other posts, that dry return has been reduced with copper to repair a pipe that went thru a wall. Instead of replacing the pipe, the used the old pipe as a sleeve for copper pipe. They didn't use an eccentric reducer, now condensate is backing up before it hits the copper generating some hammer and blasting it out that vent.
  • nybigapple
    nybigapple Member Posts: 61
    edited December 2016
    So that's what happened... I thought that sleeve was meant to be there for insulation protection. So you're saying the pipe in the wall was the original pipe that they reused after a half **** re-pipe. That makes sense.

    What's the deal with copper? Is copper and steam bad?

    It seems like switching it to an eccentric reducer(just learned what that was) would be a pretty simple job for a plumber. Why even reduce the diameter at all though? Wouldn't that be a bottleneck in itself? It comes out the other side as 1.5" as expected.

    The rusted vent sputters water with steam So you may be spot on.

Categories