Help with Wet Steam

Dooverdixon

So Im thinking maybe some of my loud vent issues may be the result of wet steam. I did some reading on the forum today and decided to try the test were you pull the plug from the bottom of the glass and shut the bottom valve. I couldn't find the fancy petcock (in attached photo, found in an old post here) at the hardware store but i realized it works pretty good just removing the plug. At any rate, it produced lots of steam and a bit of dripping water (not sure how much is ok, but it was a steady drip).

2 days ago i did a 5 hour skim, drained the return, and did a full blowdown until the water was "pretty clean" definitely not "clean", no floor drain so its all buckets, but i ran through probably 50 gallons of water. The lady i bought the house from probably never did this in 15 years.

Anyway, Any thoughts out there on wet steam that yall might share? I've attached a photo of my setup and where the water line while it was running and warm (its 8 degrees here tonight).

Obviously I need to do another blow down (as you can see from my sight glass). What other things should i look for?

What made me think that i may have wet steam is my rad vents sounding loud, hissy, and gurgley. When i remove them they defiantly have water inside them.

Another thing worth mentioning is that there is a cold combustible air intake in my boiler room, so the temp in the boiler room is usually kind of cold. Should there be some sort of insulation on all that piping in the photo? As you can see the actual main runs have some insulation, but not a ton, and not the whole line we use some of the line to heat the basement.

nicholas bonham-carter

Clean the sightglass, so you can see the water quality better.
Check the boiler installation manual online to see if the supply piping is correct in size, and number of risers, from the boiler, and insulate with fiberglass.
Are you using temperature setbacks, which may cause the boiler to race to catch up in the recovery period? setting a constant temperature, is better for comfort and economy.—NBC

Dooverdixon

I did clean the sight glass, lol it was spotless haha.  I am using setbacks of 2 degrees at night.  I'll stop that if you think itll be more effective. 

I'll get some pipe insulation, I'm assuming everything above waterline should be insulated except returns??

Jamie Hall

I can't really see in the picture, but is that riser really 2 1/2 inches? If not, that's part of the problem. The other thing to remember is that with a side outlet boiler, if you are using only one of the outlets, you must be careful of the water level. You don't want it too low, of course. But, with that geometry, you also don't want it too high. Too high -- even an inch too high, above the recommended water level -- will almost guarantee wet steam.

Dooverdixon

Is this the pipe that needs to be 2.5"?  I'll measure it tonight.

@Jamie Hall Regarding water level...(potential dumb question).  My sight glass sticker say "water level" and "lowest permissible water level"  how do you determine the optimal water level. And how do you adjust it.  And lastly is that measured hot or cold.

mferrer

Uncovered steam lines condense 5X more than covered lines. Insulate the piping with good 1 1/2" fiberglass insulation, especially because you have cool draft in the boiler room.

Also, I think the piping may be off. Not an easy fix but you should probably have two tees on the header instead on one tee that quickly feeds two branches/risers. All of that initial start-up condensate is dropping into the one tee in the header. The elbow looking down (equalizer) has bushings (instead of reducers or reducing 90) causing a bit of a clogged drain effect.

As I stated, repiping it is a bit of work but the proper thing to do. I would concentrate on insulation and check the pitch on the radiators. If you're getting noise and condensate back up in the rads, it may be due to the rads not properly pitching back towards the rad valves. Chock up the legs on the opposite end and make sure the condensate can flow back down the pipe the steam came in from.

Jamie Hall

see @mferrer 's remarks -- but yes, that pipe you circled must be 2 1/2 inch. And the optimum water level -- boiler off -- will be at or just below the sticker saying "water level" -- not above.