Can you balance a system with no measurable pressure ever?

JUGHNE

You could also inquire to neighboring buildings if they have any heating problems.
They may have vastly oversized boiler or units and not notice an issue if it is low BTU content of the gas.

delcrossv

I've never had a tenant complain about going into their apartment to give them more heat.

Jells

delcrossv said:

I've never had a tenant complain about going into their apartment to give them more heat.

And they're not. I have access, I know all the rads and vents. No one advocating solving this with vent balancing has explained how that works. If there's no overheated room there's no excess heat to divert elsewhere.

Venters, please say what is wrong with this statement:
"a properly functioning and sized boiler, running continuously without losing water will eventually provide steam to every radiator regardless of venting imbalances".

wmgeorge

If the Vent is closed as its defective, the radiator will never fill with steam.

ratio

It doesn't take too many radiators stealing some steam to keep a little radiator from heating. I'm willing to bet that if you could apply a slight negative pressure to the non-heating radiator you'd get steam to it, I just can't think of a way to generate it that doesn't involve like a vacuum cleaner or something that'd be way too much.

ChrisJ

Jells said:

delcrossv said:

I've never had a tenant complain about going into their apartment to give them more heat.

And they're not. I have access, I know all the rads and vents. No one advocating solving this with vent balancing has explained how that works. If there's no overheated room there's no excess heat to divert elsewhere.

Venters, please say what is wrong with this statement:
"a properly functioning and sized boiler, running continuously without losing water will eventually provide steam to every radiator regardless of venting imbalances".

Is this a test, or are you asking for free help for a problem you can't solve?

ethicalpaul

ratio said:

It doesn't take too many radiators stealing some steam to keep a little radiator from heating. I'm willing to bet that if you could apply a slight negative pressure to the non-heating radiator you'd get steam to it, I just can't think of a way to generate it that doesn't involve like a vacuum cleaner or something that'd be way too much.

The only thing I could think of and I may have mentioned it before, forgive me if I have, was to disable (rotate upside down) all the vents that you do have access to and then see if heat gets to the rest of the system.

Jells

ChrisJ said:

Jells said:

delcrossv said:

I've never had a tenant complain about going into their apartment to give them more heat.

And they're not. I have access, I know all the rads and vents. No one advocating solving this with vent balancing has explained how that works. If there's no overheated room there's no excess heat to divert elsewhere.

Venters, please say what is wrong with this statement:
"a properly functioning and sized boiler, running continuously without losing water will eventually provide steam to every radiator regardless of venting imbalances".

Is this a test, or are you asking for free help for a problem you can't solve?

I'm trying to apply my engineering mindset and practices to understanding how this system does and doesn't work. If I don't understand the conditions under which it DOES work, how can I tell what's not working? Do feel free to ignore this thread if my asking basic principle questions bothers you.

UPDATE: My tenant reports this very cold morning that temps in problem rooms are holding at setpoint after my boiler cleaning yesterday. We'll see if it continues, but Lord willing, I've isolated the heat supply problem, and can now work on improving the balance. There's still the issue of why so much soot. I need to find a tech to clean and tune the burner that is apparently making so much soot that it incapacitated the boiler in 2/3 of a heating season since March. I'm also going to take a new flue temp reading.

Someone somewhere commented I should be seeing blue flames in the boiler sight glass. It looks real yellow to me. I took some video, but I doubt it's usefulness.

https://imgur.com/7lUfd9S

wmgeorge

Did you take the flue temperature before or after the draft diverter or damper? Yes that flame looks yellow to me. That combustion chamber seemed to have a soot build up also. You really need to get a professional with a combustion Analyzer to check and adjust as needed... and you have already cleaned the boiler. Bear in mind you may also have other issues.

Jells

wmgeorge said:

Did you take the flue temperature before or after the draft diverter or damper? Yes that flame looks yellow to me. That combustion chamber seemed to have a soot build up also. You really need to get a professional with a combustion Analyzer to check and adjust as needed... and you have already cleaned the boiler. Bear in mind you may also have other issues.

I took it before, because I'm not an idiot. It's now 340, and the index room that was dipping below 65 when the outside temp was 20 like it is now, is holding at the 71 setpoint. I didn't clean the combustion chamber that well, I was afraid my vac would damage the insulation.