No heat on 3d floor

Julian

Hi,
I rent on the 3d floor of a townhouse that's built about a 100 years ago. I believe that radiators are steam ran on gas. I also think there's two sections - one set of pipes for the front of the house and another for the back (there's 3 radiators - one in the front, one in the living room, one in the bathroom) .I'm not getting heat in the apartment but there is heat on every other floor of the building. I told the landlord who lives downstairs a week ago and a guy came to check it and while he was here there's heat in 2 of the 3 radiators (the bathroom wasn't getting any). After he left i thought it was fixed but then the one in the bathroom came to live (heat came fine) but then after an hour or so they all died down and went back to cold. so i didn't have heat for another two days and keep telling the landlord, she said the guy's gonna come again. Then suddenly last night the heat came back to all radiators, really nice and worm, so i thought the guy came and fixed something while i was away but then this morning there's no heat again and the guy comes to check the radiators (so he didn't come yesterday as i thought). so he comes in and sees there's not heat and says not setting has been changed and the landlord didn't do anything different last night when i got heat for almost all night long. so basically he doesn't know what the difference is and what's going on, said he's gonna replace the vent valves but it doesn't seem this is gonna fix anything. can someone please advice on what can be the issue (it's very unlikely that landlord is willing to get a real professional to fix it). i've attached pictures of the 3 radiators. (1-front room, 2 and 3-back/living room, 3-back/bathroom).
Thanks!

Julian

Isn't there anyone who has a suggestion/idea about this at all?

ethicalpaul

I’ll throw some ideas based on what I’ve done but it's difficult because you may not have access to the boiler and up on the third floor you may not even know when the boiler is firing. So here are some questions and things you might find out:

1. Can you tell when the boiler is firing (due to pounding noises, other sounds, air escaping from your vents, or whatever)?

2. Do the vents emit any air, steam or water at any time that you have seen?

3. If you can get into the boiler area, can you upload pictures of it from a few directions and the piping nearby? Although since you don’t control things down there, this may not be too useful.

If you can hear or feel air escaping from a vent at some point, see if the radiator has heat anywhere from side to side (it should get hot first by the pipe and the heat should spread over to the vent side over time). If it is, how fast is it? Is it whistling? Be careful to not burn yourself.

The vent should let the cool air in the radiator escape to make room for the steam to come up and into your radiator. Then when the steam gets to the vent, the vent should close. So it should not be allowing steam out, or spitting water. If he replaces them, things might get better.

I see the pan under one of the radiators, does it ever have water in it?

Finally, are all the valves fully open (counter-clockwise as far as they will go)?

bob young

SOUNDS LIKE A BAD THERMOSTAT OR HEAT TIMER CONTROL. YOU NEED AN EXPERT HEATING MECHANIC TO DIAGNOSE THE EXACT PROBLEM. NEED ACCESS TO HEATING PLANT & CONTROLS. BOB NYC

nicholas bonham-carter

It does sound like a control problem-the owner’s hand on the thermostat!
There are probably various problems with this system, causing banging, etc. when the landlord hears the 4th bang, the thermostat gets turned down.
Can you find another place to live?—NBC

Julian

Hi, thanks for the replies!
- I can hear some noises sometimes, very faint crackling from time to time, like if they were working i think, never pounding nor banging, just seemingly normal operation noises once in a while, but no heat is coming through.
- the pipes near the close/open switch are cold, so no heat is reaching the floor now at all.
- when the radiators worked for couple of hours (3 days ago) they worked totally fine, meaning there were no loud noise nor banging, temperature was fine.
- i've never heard nor seen steam or water coming out of the vents, no whistling either.
- i can tell there's heat everywhere else because there's a radiator out in the hallway on the first floor where the stairs are in the entrance (a bigger radiator of the same type i have in the apartment) and that one is hot and heating the whole two floors of hallway area.
- it's correct - i don't really have access to the boiler room.
- i have the pan under the vents from a while back (i've been in this apartment for a while now) - at one point they leeked from time to time, but haven't had an issue with that in the last 3-4 years, just in case. certainly not now.
- yes i keep all valves open.

if there's a thermostat issue, what would the issue be (possibly)? she mentioned that there'a an automation of the operation, meaning it fires up when it reaches certain degree i believe, and it clear it works, just not up to my floor.

thanks!

Julian

the guy who came to theoretically fix things said they tuned up the thermostat from 60 something to 74 degrees, although that seems not to be doing anything, don't have any other info on what they/he tried to do.

ethicalpaul

I think what nbc meant was that the landlord is trying to save money by keeping the thermostat low. Or he/she is keeping it low because the lower floors are always hot (like having to open their windows hot like everyone does in NYC), and so being farther from the boiler, your radiators are never getting steam.

So the fixit guy admitted to you that the thermostat was set at 60?? And where is it located, on the first floor? I would say that has is a large part of your problem. You can contact the housing authority or something but I don't know what else you can do if the landlord won't give you heat (they have to hire someone who can competently balance the system to make sure your radiators get heat before the thermostat shuts down the boiler because the first floor is warm and toasty.

I do like that photo with the vent on top of the vertical pipe adjacent to the radiator. Watch this vent closely and see if it ever is venting air, and see if the temperature of that pipe ever rises. That vent is supposed to quickly vent three stories of cool/room temperature air in order to let the steam up to your floor nice and fast. If the vent is broken closed, then you won't get steam. See if you can get the fixit guy to put as large a vent on that pipe as he can get his hands on. Search on this forum for "main vent" to see examples of the biggest ones, such as the "big mouth".

This reminds me of a time when I had a cold corner apartment and the other apartment had the thermostat in their unit. I ran my own thermostat wire down to the basement so that I could ensure that my unit got warm enough. I'm sure it was confusing to the other tenant!

gfrbrookline

I am going out on a limb and saying your landlord turned it back down. Depending on where you are you may be able to get city inspectional services involved. The threat of that in Boston scares the hell out of most landlords.

Julian

Thanks you guys, I'll do a little pressure then to dig up more info and/or keep pushing to get it fixed. Appreciate a lot all your comments and advice.

Julian

and @ethcalpaul - the fixer guy said the thermostat was set to 65 or something like that (don't recall the exact number he said, maybe was 67) and then he said they put it up to 74, but again i did not see any improvement, maybe i can ask them to turn it up even higher, 80 maybe? i don't have a thermostat and if i have to guess on its location i'd think it's on the first floor where the landlord lives, i can definitely believe she would be trying to save money on heating bills if she could. i'll try to look up for a "big mouth" vent for sure. the vent presently there i think was replaced a couple of years ago but not sure if it's still working, how do i find out if it's "broken closed" - if there's no steam coming out of it ever, does that mean it's not working? tnx!

Gordy

Depending on the thermostat location it’s possible whom ever is in its vicinity is smoking hot, and turned it down to their comfort level leaving you cold....

Jamie Hall

While I am quite sure that a qualified steam person could fix the situation -- and probably do it fairly quickly, given full access to the building (unless the boiler is really screwed up), that's not really the point, since it doesn't appear that your landlord will hire such a person, either because they don't know one -- or because the just won't, for some reason.

That said, I seem to recall that in your jurisdiction the landlord has a positive, legal obligation to ensure that there is satisfactory heat in the building. Which clearly isn't happening. I don't recall, however, which of the myriad city offices is charged with enforcing that, but seems to me that you should find out.

ethicalpaul

> @Julian said:
> how do i find out if it's "broken closed" - if there's no steam coming out of it ever, does that mean it's not working? tnx!

It should never let steam out. Watch it to see if it ever blows air. It should blow air (to allow the steam to come up) and then it should shut once steam hits it.

Julian

Thanks - yes the landlord management (or i should say not-management) is terrible, she wouldn't hire competent people since she's afraid of paying more money but the people she trusts charge her more money even and don't know what they're doing. anyhow, appreciate all your comments. thanks.

EBEBRATT-Ed

start recording the temperatures in your apartment, keep a log book. There's lots they can do I would suggest a thermostat with a remote sensor with the sensor in your apartment. They could then put trvs on the radiators on the lower floors to prevent those floors from over heating if they cannot balance the system with air vents

Julian

Thanks! - can someone recommend options for heat specialist repair people in Brooklyn, NY area?

Erin Holohan Haskell

https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/

JohnNY

Julian said:

Thanks! - can someone recommend options for heat specialist repair people in Brooklyn, NY area?

Mine is one of those companies...