New Home - New to Steam

camsplace19

Just moved into an 80 ish year old row home in Baltimore. Steam boiler and radiators. Boiler is only 2 years old and works great(had it checked). Radiators are hit or miss. Some heat fine, others are partial to none. I've read these forums and am confused. I can find no air vents on mine, even the working ones. And based on other pics they may be old hot water radiators that are now used with steam. Is this ok? Single pipe system. Attaching some pics in next post.

thanks for any info or help

camsplace19

Ba



throom radiator seems to heat fine

camsplace19

One bedroom seems ok too

camsplace19

this ones hard to see. Behind a cover. This one does not heat well. These pics are the opposite side of the inlet valve

Hap_Hazzard

I'm confused too. How are you getting any heat at all without any vents?

I took screen shots of your first two radiators showing the location where the vents should be. I couldn't see it in the third radiator because there's not enough detail in the images, but it should be in about the same place as the other two.




You'll notice what looks like a slotted screw head in the center of each picture. These are plugs that need to be removed in order to install the vents.

camsplace19

Thanks. The bronze one. Top part has a bleed valve that is partially open. Did these used to be hot water units? That might explain this one hearing.

camsplace19

Is there any way to know what size vent I should use?

Mark N

If you have a 1 pipe steam radiator and it looks like you don't have any vents, you may have In-Air-Rid Vents. They are installed in the upper bushing of the radiator. The dot above the i in the word rid is actually the vent hole. Sometimes they get painted over. Clean out with a paperclip.

camsplace19

Thank you. I'll check. Do these fail? Saw an article about an internal spring loaded function. Are they replaceable or if bad you just move to standard vents?

STEVEusaPA

Luckily for you there is a steam expert on here right in your back yard (maybe your front yard).
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/all-steamed-up-inc

KC_Jones

@Steamhead seen any other in Baltimore like this?

Hap_Hazzard

camsplace19 said:

Thanks. The bronze one. Top part has a bleed valve that is partially open. Did these used to be hot water units?

Yup. That's allowing the air to escape so the steam can enter. Unfortunately, it doesn't know to close when the raidiator is full of steam, so it's allowing steam to escape.

You could replace it with a steam radiator vent, but in that position it may onlyy allow the radiator to partially fill, but given how short the radiator is, it might not make that much difference. I'd say give it a shot. If you're happy with the way it works, don't buy trouble trying to get those plugs out. It's not going to be a piece of cake.

Hap_Hazzard

STEVEusaPA said:

Luckily for you there is a steam expert on here right in your back yard (maybe your front yard).
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/all-steamed-up-inc

Yeah, I can't believe I forgot to mention that. These guys are the best!

Mark N

All air vents eventually fail. The In- Airid's are no longer made. You's have to remove them and plug the upper bushing and install regular vents.

Steamhead

KC_Jones said:

@Steamhead seen any other in Baltimore like this?

Yes I have, and I'm sure those are In-Air-Rids. If you look at the first two pics @camsplace19 posted, the outline of the hex surfaces of the plugs in the top radiator tappings are different. That tells me one of each pair is an In-Air-Rid. I've seen rowhouses with these in the Hampden neighborhood.

And the "Oriole" radiators could only have been made in Baltimore. Republic Radiator Co. sold them- and they perform a whole lot better than their baseball namesake has in decades.....

@camsplace19 , give us a call and we'll fix you up.