Upper floors unheated

Boston91

We had a new steam boiler installed last March by a contractor I no longer trust. They specialize in such systems and had been caring for our system for many years prior to our buying the him. The prior boiler heated the entire brownstone adequately and fairly evenly. There has been only one thermostat/zone in the home for many years. The new boiler does not heat the 4th floor at all any more and the third barely at all. To get even a little heat on the third floor we need to raise the thermostat to nearly unbearably high on the first and second floors. The tap water coming out is now very warm even when just cold is run due to the amount of work the boiler is doing in the basement. When I asked the contractor, I was told the home needs more thermostats /zones installed to resolve the problem. This strikes me as illogical given the years of trouble free service we had previously. I am not fluent in heating systems or terminology but any guidance would be appreciated.

Jamie Hall

If this is steam, zoning isn't going to help you one little bit. How was the new boiler sized? For steam, you must size based on the radiation, not the heat loss.

Also, how was the new boiler piped? Perhaps some pictures showing the new boiler and the piping near it?

delta T

Not sure how would would want to the zone a steam system....

Give us some pictures of your new boiler including the near boiler piping, a couple of different angles.

Did your contractor measure all the radiators to size the boiler?
Was any insulation removed during the installation?
Is this a one or two pipe system? (do your radiators have two pipes connected or just one?

Fred

Do you have any main vents on this system? Did they remove any main vents when they installed the new boiler because they were bad and then just plugged the vent openings instead of adding proper venting to the Mains?
Are the radiators for the third and forth floors on a single main or after the radiators for the first and second floors?
Do you know if they properly skimmed the boiler after the installation? Do you hear any banging/hammer in any of the pipes?
These are all clues that will help diagnose the problem, not to mention the need for near boiler/piping pictures, as has been said.

Boston91

There was no work done on the radiators themselves, just the boiler which was the same size/btu as the one that had failed. They did a significant amount of new pipes, I bet I can find the work order if that will help. So if I understand what a vent is, they shouldn’t have changed anything. I don’t know if there is a “main vent”. There are multiple pipes coming up from the basement heating both the front and back of the building. The wasn’t and isn’t any banging or knocking coming from the pipes or radiators. I’m not sure what skimming means so not sure if that was done or done properly. I did not skimp when I hired, they were not the cheapest quote I received and had been caring for the old system so I thought they knew what they were doing. Shame on me.



ng or kno

BobC

They should have used both boiler ports to feed the header on a boiler that size and a drop header would have been nice. It looks like they did a quick cut and paste job and that was it.

Did they skim the boiler after installing it? Does the water in the sight glass bounce up and down much when it's making steam?

Bob

Fred

Well, some of it isn't your conventional piping but in general it looks like it should work. As @BobC said, on a boiler that size, they should have used both riser tappings into the header. Instead they used only one and the other they used to create a manifold for the controls.
- Having said that, the first things that you should consider is another good long skim (They did put a skim port on there, which is a good thing and probably means they may have done an initial skim but a new boiler will need several good skims).
- Determine if you have any Main vents or what kind they are, if you do find some. Each Main needs to be well vented to allow steam to move through the mains quickly and then into the radiator run-outs to the radiators.
- You really need to have all of those steam pipes insulated. leaving them uninsulated just causes much of the steam to condense before it can get to the radiators. You are heating an unfinished basement and wasting fuel/money.
- Make sure the Pressuretrol is set correctly (Main scale set to 1.5 PSI and the Differential set to 1 PSI. That is a subtractive Pressuretrol so that will give you a Cut-in of .5 PSI and a Cut-out pressure of 1.5 PSI. The manual reset Pressuretrol (should have a red reset button on it) should be set higher, Maybe Main at 3 PSI and Differential at 2 PSI)

EBEBRATT-Ed

Can you post the information on the boiler rating plate on the side of the boiler? In the picture it is too small to read.

The piping installed looks text book to me, depending on the rating of the boiler we will be able to tell if the boiler requires 2 risers or not.

Based on what I see the contractor did nothing wrong on the installation (subject to the riser information) It looks like he knew what he was doing.

Venting is another issue. The gage glass looks clean but that doesn't mean the boiler doesn't need additional skimming. Did he measure the radiators when he sized the boiler?

If the boiler is the correct size, if the venting is correct and skimming has been done you should have no problem.

We need more information to determine this

Neild5

This will not affect te performance but there is no down pipe on the TPR valve. It should be within 6 inches of the floor and not have threads on the bottom.

Boston91

Where is the main vent? Or main vents that should be considered? Do you mean the vents on the individual radiators? (Sorry if this is obvious but I don’t know anything about this stuff). Which one is the boiler rating plate and I’ll be happy to post closeup photo.

I watched the water level in the sight glass (I think) and it did move up and down about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch but not in a violent manner.

Where is the skim port and how do I perform a skim?

And thank you to everyone who has responded.

Fred

Boston91 said:

Where is the main vent? Or main vents that should be considered? Do you mean the vents on the individual radiators? (Sorry if this is obvious but I don’t know anything about this stuff). Which one is the boiler rating plate and I’ll be happy to post closeup photo.

I watched the water level in the sight glass (I think) and it did move up and down about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch but not in a violent manner.

Where is the skim port and how do I perform a skim?

And thank you to everyone who has responded.

-Main vents are installed at the end of the large pipe that leaves your boiler and all of the supply pipes to the radiators branch off of it.- The boiler rating plate should be mounted on the front or side of the boiler and it should have info on it like BTU Input, DOE Rating, Sq. Ft. of steam, boiler model #, Boiler serial #, etc.
- 1/2" to 3/4" bounce in the sight glass water is an acceptable amount of bounce. Boiler probably does not need to be skimmed.
- The skim port is that pipe just to the right of your sight glass that has a valve on it and drops downward. Do not open that valve when the boiler is steaming! It should have a plug or cap on the end of it for safety. I can't see if it does or not.

Grallert

That water line looks pretty cruddy to me. I'd agree that it should be skimmed. If you follow the pipes from the boiler out into the cellar you should find your vents at or near the point where those pipes turn around and head back to the boiler. They'll stand out as something that looks out of place to an untrained eye.

Dave0176

Looks like an EG-55, truth is the piping don’t look that bad at all he followed the manual, even though all of us would’ve used both risers and I’ve used a 4” header on the same boiler, the piping is up to Weil-Mclain minimum specifications.