Steam Radiators all spraying water up to 6 ft - loud humming noise when system comes on & shakes hse

Fred

If the pigtail is clogged, probably no reasonable pressure will make it through. Do turn the water to the auto feeder off. If you are still draining six gallons of water a day, that boiler is over filling and just doesn't have room to make steam. That can be very noisy and do all kinds of crazy things. When you turn the water to the feeder of, just watch the water level in the boiler sight glass and keep it about half to 2/3'sfull (when the boiler is not running) It will drop some during a heat cycle but should come back up when it is idle.

Jamie Hall

The odds are very good that the gauge is out of whack. They usually are. I seem to remember that you noted that it drops to about 5 when the system is cool, and gets up to about 10 when it shuts off? Then the gauge probably thinks that 5 is zero -- and therefore 10 means more or less 5. Which is still too high...

It is a big decision to play with your heat in cold weather for an amateur. It's not all that much fun for a pro., either. However, if you keep track of what you do, everything you are doing -- or have been asked to do -- can be undone if it doesn't pan out. And, honestly, the last picture above -- of the full face of the pressurestat -- suggests to me that you are almost as far as you can go with one. But not quite. Try running the left hand scale down to a bit below 1 -- maybe the width of the indicator. Move the right hand scale up so that it is right on 1. That should cut your system off at a smidge below 2 psi.

Will the pressure make it through the pigtail if it is clogged? Probably not. But raising the pressure won't help that much, if any, and if it is really clogged it will show up as the system still running up to too high a pressure. However, the fact that the pressure gauge is moving shows that the pigtail is at least partly open, so I wouldn't worry about that just now.

Hang in there!

MilanD

Clogged pigtail pipe will render your pressuretrol useles. If your operating pressures have come down as you dialed them down, pipe is not plugged up.

Are all your radiators getting hot at this lower pressure?

When you say noise is still present, what exactly is noisy? It's somewhat normal to hear some hissing on the vents at cold start of the boiler (after it was off for a while). Given you had very high pressures until 2 days ago, some vents may be damaged by now. But, if they close once radiator is hot and are not spitting hot water, they are functioning as designed. Even new, some vents are just noisier than others. I've used maid-o-mist and one would be quiet while the next one was hissing, both new. There is a variety of vents manufacturers. Not sure what you can get in Canada, or if you can get things shipped from US, but swapping them out is fairly simple and not too expensive. I explained it earlier in the thread.

I still think you should try to guilt the company who "worked" on your system into refunding you, or coming back and fixing things for free.

ShanL

Two of the rads we had turned off on the second story due to the spraying and leaking (and the fact that the top floor got quite hot if the main floor was near comfortable) right after the guy replaced the vents with brand new are working great right now! I turned them on a couple of days ago. The one that was shooting water up 4 feet has not been doing so at all (I dangled a mop about a foot above the vent and it is not even damp) so the system has improved already.

The noise is the copper pipes directly above the boiler vibrating very loudly. I can hear it from the 2nd story clearly and it wakes me up at night when it has kicked in. It lasts for a couple of minutes and then dies down but I do not like being woken up wondering if today is the day the dang thing explodes. The knocking and clanging I don't mind. When it's -20 it is comforting to hear heat kick in.

Can the house water pressure affect the auto feed? It seems to affect other plumbing in the house (although some of the piping is old).

Ironman

A one pipe system should operate at 2 psi or less. The Empire State Building runs at 2 psi.

You're afraid of amateurs, but you're ignoring what the best pros in the world are telling you and trying to leave the pressure up where knuckleheads left it. Turn it down! 2 psi or less.

ShanL

I have turned it down. I think the plate is in the wrong position though. When I turned it down to 2 it seemed to just slip and not move anymore. What happens if it's on 0? No pressure=no heat right? I will talk to my hubby about the pigtail. I do not have the strength to safely disconnect those connecting pipes to get to the pigtail. If I start it maybe he'll finish it. We have no backup heat as our gas fireplace does not work anymore either. Hubby's not so handy.

MilanD

I must have missed what copper pipes you have above the boiler that are vibrating. Is this on one of the main branches that is copper? Is rattling because the pipe is loose - would strapping it to joists fix the rattling? Can you post the picture of that pipe?

In general, copper tube has a thinner wall and expands at a greater rate than iron. That's why any steam supply lines around the boiler, on risers, mains, and radiator risers are all threaded black iron pipes. They are more rigid and expand/contract less, and last longer.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, your lowered pressure still gets all the radiators hot. This is good. Probably getting that pressure even lower with a new pressuretrol will be great. But, that's the battle for another day.

One thought on the spraying vents: if your on/off valve is not turned all the way on and is half-way open or less, you can get a condition, and this has happened to me once, where steam will get into the radiator, condense once it cools, but not flow back to the boiler. I'm not sure how this happens exactly, but it can happen - could be vent stuck closed or not enough hydrostatic pressure to overcome smaller opening on the half-closed vent. Over several heating cycles, more and more condensate remains in the radiator, and finally, when the water level gets to the vent, the next steam cycle will push the water out of the vent, creating a fountain. Vent stays open on water as it's designed to expand on heat (steam reaching it), and not act as a float. Therefore, your spraying vent might have been due to water not draining from the radiator. This also may have happened because there was too much operating pressure pushing that steam and pushing the condensate from some horizontal pipe back into the radiator and out of the vents.

As to water pressure: all feeders should have a pressure reducing valve on them, somewhere up-stream but close to the feeder. If house water pressure is too high, these can fail, damage the auto feeder and push water into the system. If I'm not mistaken, all that equipment is designed to operate on lower water pressures. 10-20 psi. Water coming into the house, depending on where you are, can be upwards of 120psi. That's why there should be a PRV (water pressure reducing valve) close to where water enters your house, usually by water meter. You can easily measure water pressure on your entire house with a gauge that's around $10 and can be purchased at your local big box store (Home Depot or alike). It connects to a hose bib thread (gardening hose thread). All this being said, this will not affect the pressure in your boiler, it will only potentially fill the boiler, or over fill it, if auto feeder has failed and water is pushed into the boiler. Unchecked, this could flood the boiler and push water all the way into your radiators. You would notice this - if you look at your boiler's sight glass and it's completely filled with water, boiler is flooded.

Hope this explains it somewhat.

Glad to hear system seems to be functioning as it should.

MilanD

This screw, if turned too far, can disconnect from the threaded part inside which regulates the lever which presses on the piston in the pressuretrol. IF this happens, you will basically, have no pressure cut-off point, and the system will stay on indefinitely, or rather until the safety pressure control catches it. Given your history, this is probably set even higher than 5 psi, so best not touch it.

If by chance this disconnects (and you'll see/feel that screw be just loosey-goosey in there), you will have to open the pressuretrol housing and screw it back in where it belongs. So, it's best to leave it as low as it will go and not move it more.

MilanD

Your system is 'point plus'. Left dial sets cut in, right cut out. 0+1 will make the pressure rise to 1 psi and then wait for it to go back to 0 to start back up. Given that this is a super-old trol, per my previous suggestion, go down on the left dial as far as it will go without it becoming loose or, maybe hard to turn (screw might start coming out of the housing - that's too far). On the right one, set it to 1. If this gets all your radiators hot, that's all you need pressure wise. Look at the pressure dial gauge, and see what it shows. Someone previously mentioned that your gauge is probably also off, so what ever the gauge is at when system is cold, call that '0', and measure from that.

ShanL

Looks like it rests at 5

ColinFarquhar

Once things warm up a bit (now that the blizzard has passed by), with the boiler off you should be able to replace that pressure gauge. You can pick one up over the counter at AMRE supply in the Route 90/St James area, you'll just need the physical size and pressure range. They're not that expensive.

I'm not in Winnipeg anymore, but can inquire of some engineer friends to see who in town still does residential steam (my background is on the commercial side of things, larger boilers etc).