Should I keep going?

Hap_Hazzard

The room where my wife has been working has a large fin-tube convector with a ¾" supply that never heats all the way, so the room is a couple of degrees colder than the rest of the house, so I tried an experiment. I turned off the radiator in the guest room at the other end of the house to see if I could get more steam to the fin-tube unit. It actually improved it a lot. More of the convector got hot, and the room warmed up to 70° (same as the rest of the house). Surprisingly, the guest room didn't get as cold as I thought it would. Even at night with the door closed, it never gets below 67°.

Even with her work area at 70°, my wife said she still felt cold, so I decided to try turning off the radiator in a room adjacent to the guest room that we don't spend much time in. This time I didn't see much if any improvement in the work area, but again, it didn't make the other room that much colder.

So I can't help wondering if I could put on a sweater and turn off the rest of the radiators.

EBEBRATT-Ed

I would check the EDR of the radiation versus the boiler capacity then clock the gas meter/check the oil firing rate. If that checks out it's probably a venting issue if the boiler water line is stable.

Maybe slowing the venting in the room the thermostat is in will help

Hap_Hazzard

The EDR is way too high for the boiler, but the ¾" supply doesn't allow it to fill anyway. Believe it or not, it doesn't bang. I'm going to replace it this summer with a new radiator from Castrads and upgrade the supply to 1¼". I just wanted to see what would happen if I forced more steam into it, but I don't think there's any way to make it work well.

Fred

What's the outside temp? You may see different results from those rooms that are shut down, in the dead of winter with colder temps.

Hap_Hazzard

It was getting really cold outside, but the room never got below 67. Surprised the heck out of me. The radiator is appropriately sized for the room, and it doesn't get unusually warm with the radiator on, but I was shocked at how little difference it made when I turned it off, especially because it has two outside walls with windows and not the best insulation.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@Hap_Hazzard

Is this one pipe or two pipe? If It's one pipe I am surprised it works at all with 3/4"

Hap_Hazzard

Yes, it's one pipe. You have to see this thing to believe it. It's two 9' pieces of 2" pipe with 4" fins, connected together at both ends, dead level (no pitch) fed by a piece of ¾" copper at one end. The only thing I can figure is that it doesn't get enough steam into it to make enough condensate to create steam hammer. It does get hot, but only a little more than halfway, but it's completely silent. The only way to tell if it's getting steam is by feeling it.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@Hap_Hazzard

If there is a thread on the far end drop it into a wet return or a dry return with a loop seal or a steam trap. Then it will heat all the way across and you will be a hero

Hap_Hazzard

There's no thread, except the 1/8" thread for the vent. Besides I'd have to crawl in the dirt, cobwebs and other gross stuff under the floor to hook it up. It will be easier to upgrade the supply than to run a drip from the far end.

dlampe

When I first met Dan at a lecture in PA I asked him about steam and he demonstrated it with a plastic coke bottle and a red balloon he said when you have a steam system the steam is like the red balloon, as he blew into the balloon it inflated nearly all the way into the bottle, he paused and said but if you have no venting you could turn up the pressure and the balloon made it a bit further into the bottle, he then let his finger off the hole in the bottom of the bottle and the balloon rushed into the space completely filling it.
If you wont make a trip to the crawl space and hook up the vent to the end of the radiator you'll bee waiting a long time to get the steam in.