Time to Tear Into Things - Need Advice

drewbert41

@mattmia2 The 1st main is around 120' and the second main is around 90'. This is just what is in the basement. I did not measure what goes up. They have roughly the same amount of pipes going up to the 2nd story.

drewbert41

More air coming from radiators than before. Looks like maybe I need to install the mig mouths I bought.

drewbert41

The pipes that go up on that second main remain cold after about 45 min.

They are very hot now hour around 90 min

neilc

insulation ?
Insulate

drewbert41

Will be insulating now that it is all back together. I am thinking this radiator that is not getting hot is probably because the vent on it never closes. I will replace it and see how it goes.

mattmia2

If it is never closing and not getting hot it isn't getting steam. The vent could be clogged but is more likely something like water trapped in a sagging pipe or radiator or valve that isn't open all the way.

drewbert41

Update:

So I installed a Varivalve 925005 this morning and there was no real change. Tonight when it got colder and the boiler was running more often, the radiator started spewing water out of the Varivalve. It filled up half of a standard office trash can. So maybe 2 gallons total. Crazy

Was not sure how I was going to ever get that water out. Radiator is warming up already.

mattmia2

Is the water line stable in the boiler? did you skim it?

Hap_Hazzard

The varivalve vents don't have floats, so they can't close on water. Assuming the previous valve had a float, it was probably closing against the water and keeping the radiator from getting hot. The water might be left over from before you corrected the near-boiler piping, and now that it's been pushed out, the radiator might work better now, but there's got to be something wrong with how that radiator is pitched for it to retain that much water, and it probably won't be 100% until you get all the water out.

drewbert41

@mattmia2 I don't have a real user friendly skim port. I have my annual checkup\cleaning scheduled for the end of this week. They ordered some chemicals for it.

drewbert41

Hap_Hazzard said:

The varivalve vents don't have floats, so they can't close on water. Assuming the previous valve had a float, it was probably closing against the water and keeping the radiator from getting hot. The water might be left over from before you corrected the near-boiler piping, and now that it's been pushed out, the radiator might work better now, but there's got to be something wrong with how that radiator is pitched for it to retain that much water, and it probably won't be 100% until you get all the water out.

Yes, the way it was piped before we had tons of water. I will check the pitch tomorrow. Eyeball looks right, but.

mattmia2

drewbert41 said:

@mattmia2 I don't have a real user friendly skim port. I have my annual checkup\cleaning scheduled for the end of this week. They ordered some chemicals for it.

With all that new piping you will probably have to skim the boiler a couple times to get all the oil from the piping out of it and to keep it from surging and throwing water up in to the mains.