Looking for Advice on Venting

mike85k

I've been working on improving my venting, trying to reduce the time to heat the rad's, and be more balanced. But it seems that the adjustments I make aren't really making the impact I had hoped for. Now its even colder upstairs.
I attached a spreadsheet that gives a rough layout of my house, with the locations of the mains, risers, and radiators, this is not to scale. The short main doesn't feed any radiators now, it looks like the kitchen used to be attached to it, but when the kitchen was remodeled it was moved real close to the boiler.
I recently put two big mouths on a tree at the end of the long main. Now it gets warm downstairs, but barely any heat upstairs. I used to have a Varivalve in the master bedroom, but this year it is soo loud I can't keep it there. I purchased a Gorton D, its not as loud when filling, but it never closes? On my layout I show a Gorton 1 on the short main, but its actually currently capped off, when I put the Gorton there is never closes either, here is a video of it Gurgling and spitting https://photos.app.goo.gl/usRLPPrhD9hSxFX43 Why do no Gortons work for me? The video is of a brand new one right out of the bag that they sent me to replace one that was doing the same thing.
There are six radiators downstairs, and only three upstairs, so I am really trying to heat the upstairs faster. My son matthew's room is probably the warmest, which is odd because it is on the far side of the house, and on its own riser, last year I found that a pipe runs into the attic after his room and had a vent on it, I installed a Maid O Mist D on that and a Hoffman 40 on his radiator, which seems to work pretty well.
Any suggestions on what I should be doing differently here? I don't see a way to install a main vent on the riser to the two bedrooms.

Kahooli

You can install a large vent before one of the radiators you want hotter to vent the riser quickly. Remove the valve from the pipe in the floor and add some adapters that will allow you to put a vent there. Should be easy (don't break the pipe getting the valve off)

I saw a takeoff just before your failed vent in that video. Is that what went to the kitchen?

KC_Jones

I don't see a spreadsheet?

mike85k

If forgot to attach the spreadsheet before, here it is.
Kahooli, yes it looks like a takeoff used to come out there and go into the kitchen, now its attached to the same line, but right next to the boiler.
My issue with putting fittings and a vent before the radiator valve is that the previous owner installed laminate flooring, and cut the floor around the radiators, so if the radiator gets shifted at all i need to cut all new holes in the floor. Is there a valve that is like a T?

Fred

What is the Pressuretrol, on the boiler set at? The scale on the front of it should be set at .5PSI and the white wheel inside the Pressuretrol should be set at "1". It may be that the pressure runs high enough that the vents can't stay closed. They are designed to operate at low pressures and can be damaged at anything over 3 PSI.
Also, when was the last time the pigtail (looped pipe) that the Pressuretrol was taken off and cleaned? They get clogged and the pressuretrol can't see the actual boiler pressure.
Post some pictures of the boiler and the near boiler piping.
What vents do you have on the rest of the radiators? They could be the wrong size, too big allowing some radiators to steal all the steam or they could be stuck closed, if pressures are to high, not allowing air to escape so that steam can get into the radiators.
Where is the thermostat relative to the warmest room? If there is a radiator under or very near the thermostat or if that room is the warmest in the house, it is possible the thermostat is satisfied before the rest of the house can get to temp.

acwagner

I second @Fred suggestions. Also, check to see if any of your pipes are sagging. I didn't see any pipe supports in your video. That might explain why some of the main vents don't close.

War story: on my own system, I had a 1.25" dry return that was literally bent from the house settling so much that the pipe was probably 3/4 full of water that couldn't drain. The main vent on that one would never close. I once even took the vent entirely off and had a 3/4" open pipe hole and steam still never reached it by the end of the cycle. Extreme example, but something worth checking.

mike85k

Pressuretool is set at .5 and 1 as you described, I just cleaned out the pressuretool and pigtail about a week or so ago, seems to be working because it does short cycle sometimes.
The spreadsheet shows the location of each radiator and which vent is currently installed. The thermostat is in the dining room, opposite side of the room as the radiator, I have a Hoffman 40 on that radiator to vent it slowly. All radiators heat up during a cycle, so I don't think any Vents are clogged, I have replaced all of them in my year at the house.

mike85k

There are pics of my near boiler piping in a thread I opened last year, https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/160870/return-line-feeding-underground-excessive-water-usage/p1?new=1 I know it's not right but I do get steam pretty quick, and there is no banging. My water loss is effectively zero now as long as I don't use Gorton vents.

Fred

Why is that Pressuretrol sideways? If it is still that way, the pigtail can't hold water to protect the Pressuretrol from steam. It needs to be upright and the Pressuretrol tested to make sure it still works as a safety device.
Pressure is a concern, in my mind. If a radiator vent is so loud that you had to change it out, that's more system pressure than typical.
Has that boiler ever been skimmed? I don't see a skim port on it. If it has a lot of oil on the surface of the water, that prohibits steam bubbles from breaking the surface to make steam to fill the system.
Do you know what the total radiator EDR is and what the steam rating on the boiler is? How closely do those two numbers match?

mike85k

Pressure tool and pigtail are no longer sideways, I just took them off and cleaned them again, didn't see too dirty. I've taken the plug off the front and skimmed it twice, I recently added some 8 way water treatment. I have not calculated the radiator edr, here is a picture of the label on the boiler, I'm guessing 392 is the steam rating?
If I blow into the pressure tool when it's off it clicks, and it has short cycled so I do think it's kicking in, I only have a 30 psi gauge right now, but my dad picked me up a 15 psi that I should be getting from him this week.

Fred

Yes, 392 Sq. Ft net output for radiation. I would be interested to see what the Radiator EDR totals. You have nine radiators, radiators #5, 7, 8 and 9 have some pretty fast vents on them. They are likely stealing the bulk of the steam from the other radiators.

mike85k

I'll work on calculating that this week, 7,8,9 are upstairs, I'm trying to vent them fast since they are furthest from the boiler and that's where it's cold. 5 is the living room which has a pretty long run off of the main and is the largest radiator.

Fred

OK, I also notice you say you have 6 rads on the first floor and only 3 on the second floor. Have some rads been removed from the second floor? Do you see any indication that there were more up there? The whole issue may well be that there just isn't enough radiation on the second floor to meet the heat loss. Is the second floor the same amount of sq. footage as the first floor or is it a 1-1/2 story home. Is there an attic ? Is it well insulated? Is it drafty? Doesn't sound quite right to have six rads on the first floor and only 3 upstairs.
Once you get the EDR calculated, it may also make sense to do a heat loss calculation on the second floor and see how that compares to the radiation. In the mean time, I would slow the venting down some on the radiator in the room with the thermostat (I assume the living room?). That will make the boiler run a little longer for that radiator to satisfy the thermostat and push more steam to the other radiators, during that extended heat cycle.
One additional thought, do you have a programmable thermostat? Is it set for one or two cycles per hour? If programmable, I would make sure it is set for one or two cycles per hour. They come programmed with a factory default of 5 cycles per hour for forced air systems.

mike85k

I don't see any indication that there were additional rads upstairs, there is one on every room except the small half bath. The second floor is slightly smaller due to the way the roof slopes, I'd say 75% ish of the first floor. the thermostat is in the dining room, I have a Hoffman 40 on that radiator. I have a nest thermostat, I don't think I can adjust cycles per hour. I've don't know if I've ever seen it come on my than once in an hour.

mike85k

There is an attic, it's insulated with blown in insulation, there are also two sections of attic on the sides on one bedroom, those are insulated with fiberglass insulation. There are some drafts, I have been filling gaps as I find them and lined some windows with clear film this year.

Fred

Others have had problems using a Nest with steam heat. I don't recall the details but maybe someone will chime in.
Do the EDR calculation. Next good heating cycle, check those radiators with the larger vents on them and see if they only get hot across the top or the bottom. When radiator vents are too large, they let steam race across the top or bottom and close the vent. You only get a fraction of the heat the radiator should put out.

mike85k

I've shuffled around the vents a bit, I've moved the vari-vent back to the master bedroom, and put a maid-o-mist 6 in the living room, this gets steam up into our bedroom quicker, but that vent is loud. Neither the Gorton C or D will ever close there though. . The entire radiator heats up during a long heat cycle.
I attempted to calculate my EDR using Columbia's guide (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjltsb6otXXAhVl9IMKHby3Br0QFggoMAA&url=http://www.columbiaheatingsupply.com/page_images/Sizing%20Cast%20Iron%20Radiator%20Heating%20Capacity%20Guide.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0cuiTCnYB9-HgrRdsiEvPU), I'm coming up with 359, but not sure if I am doing this right.
For these old radiators is this considered 3 or 6 column?

I would call that six, but the chart doesnt go to six, so I called it a 3? And the ones that are four across I called a 2.
And for this new one this is considered three tube right?

That's the only one in the house with that design, and its in the bedroom I can't keep warm enough.
Here's my EDR calculations, tell me if I did something wrong.

Fred

The first question: That's a 6 tube
Second Question: That's a 3 column
It looks like your boiler is a decent size for the connected EDR. Shouldn't be a problem getting steam to all the radiators. The issue has to be either main venting or that Nest Thermostat. How long have you had the Nest? Was there the same heating problem before that was installed? If you have the old thermostat laying around, and it was known to work, it would be interesting to put it back on and see if the problem goes away. Tell me again how much venting you have on each main and how long each main is. Also, what size tapping is on each main that the vents are connected to.
Do you have a Cyclegard LWCO on that boiler or a Safegard or McDonnell Miller? The Cyclegard will stop the boiler every few minutes to check the water level. If you have that, it may be interrupting the flow of steam enough to affect those second floor radiators.
Have you had the gas company out to check your incoming gas pressure? It is also very possible that the gas pressure is not what it should be and the boiler is not firing at it's rated output. We've seem that happen fairly frequently too.

mike85k

So I calculated the EDR right?
I installed the Nest shortly after I moved in last September, we never ran the heat with the old thermostat, and I do not have it anymore.
There's a Safgard LWCO on the boiler.
The primary main is 33 feet long, and has two big-mouths. The short main, which does not feed any radiators has no venting, I wanted to have a Gorton1 on there, but as the video shows it never closes.
To be clear, I can heat the upstairs sufficently with a fast vent like the Gorton6, or varivent, but the vari-vent is loud, and the Gorton's never close.
I am not using big setbacks with the Nest, here is my schedule


I can understand how large setbacks with the nest could screw things up, but if I'm not doing that how could the Nest be causing a problem?

The gas company will come out and do that if I ask them?

Fred

Gas Company will come out and check at no cost to you. Yes you calculated the EDR correctly. If the short main doesn't feed any radiators, why is it there? Were Radiators removed at some time? If there are no radiators on that main, you don't need to vent it. You'd just be heating that pipe for no reason. The No set-backs is a good thing. The only other issue with the Nest is I don't think it allows you to set the number of cycles per hour. Most Thermostats come with a factory default of 5 cycles, for forced air. Steam requires 1 or 2 cycle option. The difference is the temp variance the thermostat allows before it calls for heat. I don't know what the Nest does or doesn't do.

Jamie Hall

Actually your schedule for the Nest is a fairly large setback for steam heat. At least you seem to be doing the recoveries in two steps -- although I'd bet that the boiler is running (or at least the heat is on) for almost the entire time of the one hour steps anyway.

One thing I would check and look at closely: is the Nest calling for heat for the full recovery time? If not, that's a good part of your problem. It takes time for steam to be formed by the boiler, and time for that steam to get to the radiators in the first place. It may just simply not be giving the system enough time -- and there is no way I know of to persuade it otherwise.

In a way it is somewhat unfair to single out the Nest -- many of the fancier "thinking" thermostats are intended for forced air heat, and simply don't work well for steam or radiant -- and not all that well for hot water, either, comes to that.

On the venting. Try putting really slow vents on the downstairs radiators, and leave faster ones on the three upstairs -- if you haven't done that already. And double check your pressures; too high a pressure may be part of the noise from the vents which you mentioned.

Kahooli

make sure you have your nest set for radiant heating.

mike85k

The short main used to be for the kitchen, that radiator was moved at some point, I will leave that main unvented. I'll try reducing the setbacks in my schedule, but not sure that's going to help, it predicts how long it needs to run to reach the scheduled temp and attempts to be at Target at the scheduled time, what usually happens is that it does so and overshoots to the next stepped temp, so my approach staggers the increase while minimzing the overshoots of the real Target temp.
Downstairs already has slow vents, the issue with fast vents upstairs is that they refuse to close once the rad is filled with steam. I'm concerned that with a smaller set back, and therefore smaller run times less steam will make it upstairs.

Fred

If it were me, I'd ditch the Nest and get a good Honeywell Programmable that allows you to set the Cycles per hour from 1 to 5. 1 being for steam but 2 sometimes works as well or better. Steam systems take more time to heat all the pipes and the nest or those types of intelligent thermostats aren't very good at learning a steam system. At least that will eliminate one variable from your diagnostic efforts.

Jamie Hall

If the vents upstairs refuse to close when steam hits them -- that is, you have steam (not air) coming out of them

The Vents Are Defective.

Vents close when the steam hits them. That's the whole idea.

May I make a humble suggestion?

A. Ditch the Nest. If you haven't already thrown away the old reliable mercury T87, reinstall it and set it and forget it. No setbacks. No fiddling. If you've already chucked it, get yourself a Honeywell VisionPro at your local big box and set it and forget it.

B. Get the venting in the system corrected so it heats evenly.

C. Then, and only then, start to fiddle with the fancy gadgets.

You can't run until you can walk, and that is particularly true of heating systems.

mike85k

I made some adjustments to my venting, trying slow down the first floor even more with some maid o mist 4's.
Kitchen Maid o Mist 5
Dining Hoffman 40
Hall Maid o Mist 4
Bath Maid o Mist 4
Living Hoffman 40
4th bed Hoffman 40
Michaels Maid O Mist D
Ours Maid O Mist D
Matthews Hoffman 40 plus maid o Mist D


I think I really need an additional main vent or something at the top of the riser that leads to mine and my sons room. I understand some of the concerns with Nest and smart thermostats, but once its running how is it any different? My real issue is that I need to vent the upstairs fast, and the fast vents are either too loud to sleep with (varivent) or don't close (Hoffman). As far as the Gorton's being defective, that was my first thought too, but now I have 4 different Gorton vents C,D and two 1's, none of which seem to close on my system, so I dont know how those could all be bad, the two 1's were just sent to me as replacements from Gorton. My pressuretool cut out the boiler today during a heating cycle, so it is working, and set to .5-1. Won't the smaller vents downstairs cause the pressure to be higher?
Can I tap into the riser prior to the raditor in the bedroom and add a vent there?

Jamie Hall

Back to square one. First, I'm not suggesting you not use the Nest or any other new age whiz-bang -- once you get the system operating properly at a constant temperature. But you have to do that first. Then -- whatever.

Now on the venting. Are you quite sure that the vents aren't closing? Vents do sometimes fail, it is true, but if the vent is actually failed open, when steam finally gets to it you will have live steam -- not hot air -- coming out of the vent opening. The only reason I can think of for multiple vents failing, which you seem to have said you have, is the system pressure may be much too high. Many vents will fail, very quickly, if they are hit with much over 3 psi. You mention that the vents are loud; that is another symptom of excessive pressure. You might want to check your pressure; the boiler should cut out at 1.5 psi -- no higher than that. Pressuretrols have been known to be misleading. A good 0 to 3 psi gauge might help.

Now -- to speed up the venting on a particular riser, yes you can tap into the riser or use a T instead of convenient 90 and add venting there. That will speed that riser up, sometimes considerably, depending on the vent used.

Fred

We don't know the algorithms used in the Next but we do know they were designed for the majority of the population with Forced air systems and that is a totally different animal. We also know others have had problems trying to use the Nest with Steam. I'm not saying a change out will fix the problem but you need to eliminate as many possibilities as you can.
You also said: I understand some of the concerns with Nest and smart thermostats, but once its running how is it any different?
You can just short the thermostat wires together and make the system "work" but you want a system that works correctly. We are all trying to help you and in order to do that, you have to make some changes, like main venting, a thermostat that is know to work well with steam, etc. If you are resisting any changes, we're not going to be much help and you will spend the rest of the winter switching radiator vents. Varivents are probably one of the worse choices for radiator vents. They vent way too aggressively.
No smaller radiator vents won't make the system pressure higher. Your Pressuretrol will stop the burner at whatever it is set to "Cut-out", which sounds like 1.5PSI.
You are right, all of those vents can't be bad. They won't close until the radiator is hot all the way across and steam hits them to close them. They are noise because the system is trying to push all the air out of the system (radiators and mains)through very small radiator vents when the mains should have it's own large vents to evacuate that air.

mike85k

Thank, I'm not resisting anything, I apologize if my tone came off that way, I'm just trying to understand how the thermostat can impact.
It sounds like what I really need to do is better vent that riser before the radiator. This really started with the addition of the second mega mouth on the primary main, which this riser does not feed off of, so now I'm off balance. I think the best way to do this is to remove the valve and plumb in a tee, but the floor is cut out for the radiator feet, and adding a tee would shift it over, requiring additional holes to be drilled, I'd like to avoid that. There is enough room between the floor and the valve to tap maybe a 1/4 or 3/8 opening, would it be ok to do that and then plumb off of that? Any other suggestions?
As far as those Gorton vents, they never close during a cycle, and they get really hot, I'll swap out that varivent for one of them today.

Fred

I think it's time to step back and re-look at the system, in general. Listening to the air blowing out of that main vent and the fact you say these vents don't close, there should be steam coming out of them. Do they steam? I am also wondering a couple other things:
- Has that boiler ever been skimmed? I don't see a skim port on there (from your other post)
- That Pressuretrol may be fried or, at a minimum the tiny orifice in the bottom of it may be clogged or the Pressuretrol is way out of adjustment. I say fried because it ran for some time sideways and it was not protected from steam with a sideways pigtail. It may be ruined.
- The fact that you have so many vents that don't close, suggests to me that the system pressure may be way higher than you think and those vents typically can't stay closed at pressures above 3 PSI. I hear you when you say the Pressuretrol is working because the boiler short cycles, from time to time but it will do that even if it lets the pressure get to 5, 6, 7 or more PSI.
There's more going on here than just a venting issue. We just can't tell what the unknowns are, at this point. Put a 0-3 PSI pressure gauge in that system and lets see what the pressure actually is.
If the system has never been skimmed, put a skim port on the boiler and skim it, very slowly.

New England SteamWorks

Fred said:

If the system has never been skimmed, put a skim port on the boiler and skim it, very slowly.

An unskimmed boiler can make steam do some really strange things. So I would take Fred's advise and install a skim port and skim. One more thing to rule out as a cause.

mikeg2015

I'll add that the NEST is not well loved by the "professional" HVAC industry... those that know controls. Lots of consumers bells and whistles, but not a lot of substance in terms of system control. It's likely locked into 3 cycles per hour, and probably short cycles a little. Honeywell Visionpro is a better option. Ultimately using setbacks on most properly sized systems doesn't save much energy, even the DOE has admitted that. It does save energy when system are oversized, which probably 90% of systems are, even in new construction...actually it's even worse there because homes are tighter and better insulated. But the solution is properly sizing systems, not occupancy sensors and GPS proximity to optimize and flawed installation.

Case in point, I had a well insulated new construction home (2003) in Michigan. It had the original 100k BTU 80% furnace and 2.5 ton AC. Predictably the duct work was noisy, marginal in size and unbalanced. I replaced them with a 40k 96% and a 2.0 Ton 2 stage Heat Pump. It was quieter, ran longer, had 4 stages of heating and I saved $600 by installing smaller equipment. Rarely ever ran high stage heat even when 6F outside (design temp) and recovered easily from a 4F setback in 2 hours. No problem. House was 2200sqft not including 1/2 the basement finished.


However, that's not a big deal if the house has a lot of mass, and the thermostat is in a good central location away from the radiation. The boiler will in those cases overshoot a little and you'll end up with 1-2 cycles per hour anyway. Then the mass of the hot radiators will take 1 hour to cool down. So in many cases, it doesn't really matter that much.

Paul_11

You can drill and tap on the steam pipe below the radiator valve to install a quick vent, (I would use gorton #2), which is a lot easier than doing that pipe work.

Also you can clock the gas meter yourself and see if your boiler is operating at its BTU capacity.

I also think your temperature settings on you Nest are low. I would set for 70-72.

You may want to install TRV on your second floor radiators to allow the boiler to run longer and only send the steam to the 3rd floor.

mike85k

A couple of updates.
If you looked at my previous thread I had a wet return section that was replaced with a rubber hose, I had this replaced with real pipe, we cleaned a bunch of gunk out of the pipe that stayed. I didnt know if this could be causing any equalization issues.
I added some additional insulation to some of the main, and near boiler piping.
I did a long skim of the boiler a few days after that pipe was replaced, cleared out a lot of nasty water, I wouldn't say that it was oiley but it was dirty. When i refilled the boiler I added 8-way boiler treatment. I also cleaned the pigtail and pressuretool again while doing all of this.
I got a new pressure gauge, its 1-15psi, still not as precise as I would like, but it was free. I cranked the pressuretool all the way down to where the boiler wouldn't fire at all, I slowly turned it up ~1/8 of a trun at a time until I was getting steam to the furthest radiator, per the new gauge it is now cutting out at about 1.3psi. Pressuretool is set to .5 and 1 so it seems like were ok there.

That radiator in our bedroom is still annoying, it has a maid-o-mist D on it, which is the quietest of all the ones I've tried. By taking it off and running the boiler I did find that the noise I am hearing is not steam, but just air, so it shouldn't be closing yet, even running for a long time steam doesn't seem to reach the vent. I might try to take a video of the vent, because it just doesn't sound right, when other ones hiss its a consistent hisss sound, but this radiator (and to a lesser extent the other one on this riser) is more like a puff-puff-puff-puff, almost like it is venting then sucking back and forth.
I still want to try adding a tap and vent to the riser just below the radiator valve, I bound a tap at Harbor Freight, tried it on a spare piece of black pipe in the basement, and it stripped on the first try so that's not going to work, I'll need to get a better tap.

Oh, and there is a new issue now, sometimes I get some banging near the boiler, I'm guessing its from the hartford loop (mines too long), but haven't been able to be right there when it happens, it only seems to happen when the system refires within a short period, like when it was cutoff by the pressure tool and cuts back on. Just strange that I never had this issue before and I wouldn't think any of the adjustments to the system would have impacted that.

BobC

What you describe as puff-puuf is called panting. It's caused by water laying in a horizontal pipe that is being pushed around by steam trying to get by it. Check horizontal pipes to be sure they are sloped towards the boiler and make sure the radiators all have slope.

You mentioned this happening in two radiators so look at any pipes in common wjth the two radiators.

Bob

Fred

What @BobC said.