Leakage from radiator air vents

ChannaRice

We purchased a new peerless furnace and now we have an issue with water coming out of the air vents attached to the radiators. First we replaced the air vent and the radiator but we still have the leakage from the air vent. Now I have the same problem from another radiator. When we purchased the new furnace we sized down but I did an “heat loss analysis” which seemed to work. Does anyone have any ideas why we have this problem. Thanks 

KC_Jones

What type of a system is this?

Could you please post pictures of the boiler and piping around it (wide shots showing everything) and a picture of the radiation and the vents in question.

ChannaRice

ChannaRice

This is a Peerless Boiler series 63 TM and Seties 64TM. I am so upset because the purchase and installation cost a fortune and now two radiators are leaking through the air vents. One radiator is new. 

pedmec

Way too many piping errors. Open the installation book and you will see the errors

Danny Scully

That’s a very poor installation unfortunately, and likely the cause of the leaking vents. 

ChannaRice

Unfortunately the piping passed the inspection. What does the plumber need to correct so that we can have heating. I am located in Northern NJ. 

neilc

pedmec said:

Way too many piping errors. Open the installation book and you will see the errors

this, ^

installer needs to read the manual

neilc

and skim the boiler,

JUGHNE

Can you show the piping at the floor where the water returns?

The sides of the boiler also.

ethicalpaul

It's not right. If you haven't fully paid for it you can withhold payment until they make it right. If you've already paid for it, don't panic because 100% you can make it work just fine, but the boiler will have to be skimmed to keep the water from boiling out like a percolator (that's probably what's causing your trouble).

But your boiler, even though it's piped wrong, it can provide you with good dry steam, I don't want you to panic too much.

What town are you in? Maybe North Caldwell? I'm in Cedar Grove and my inspector tried to fail me for having better piping than the manufacturer required...these inspectors aren't necessarily steam experts and they are looking for safety issues, not issues that might make your system run less than perfectly.

PS: that's a pretty weird pressure relief valve setup, but that's unrelated to your issues.

ChannaRice

I live in Tenafly 

JUGHNE

I am surprised by the amount of money the installer spent on 2 1/2" and 3" fittings, much of it domestic made, and still jack up the piping arrangement that badly.

Those guys usually do the whole thing in 2" to save money and the result would have been the same with wet steam causing your problem.

If by chance you paid by credit card and not paid the card bill you might be able to protest, some card companies will work in your favor with this.

The fittings have been together only 2 months, makes it easier to redo piping without much more material expense. Look in your book.

Also those additional side pictures would help.

Picture of the name plate showing the size of boiler would help.

Jamie Hall

Th piping is kind of sad. It almost looks as though the installer had some idea as to how to do it right, but just didn't really "get it". On the bright side, most of the more expensive fittings needed to do it right are already there. A few different bits needed, and some rearrangement. What you have is guaranteed to get you nice wet steam -- and maybe some water hammer or other nuisances -- but not, perhaps, weeping vents (although it won't help)

That said, what you don't picture is the pressure control device which has to be on there somewhere. What is it set at? The weeping vents may be due in part to the cutout operating pressure being set too high. Can you get a photo of that?

ethicalpaul

It's not guaranteed to deliver wet steam at all in this configuration @Jamie Hall . The peerless boiler will put dry steam into the supplies, making the header itself somewhat optional and rather unnecessary (sorry, but it's true), but the water has to be decent quality with no oil on it.

What's in this homeowner's favor is the large diameter pipe supplies, and the fact that the installer piped both supplies. The velocity of the steam going into the header is going to be about 1/2 of what it is recommended to be. They should be fine once the oil is skimmed off.

I actually had to go to some length to make my water crappy before I saw any water appear in the supplies...here is this same boiler delivering dry steam immediately above the boiler:

ChannaRice

ChannaRice

Thank you for your insightful comments. Just wondering what should I suggest to my plumber. Should I have him check the pressure device and skim off the oil? We do have quite a bit of banging from the system. 

neilc

the header should be piped -
boiler riser, boiler riser, system main takeoff, system main takeoff, and then the equaliser, in that order, as per any boiler manual,
The header/equaliser should turn down full size, before any size reduction, as per manual.
The way it is now, condensate either needs to build up a half an inch to get to equaliser, or back up back down the risers, and that back up is your Hammering,

and while @ethicalpaul is right, (and with all due respect Paul) in his case, he is also a extremist hobbyist as his video library demonstrates,
He has the time and where-with-all to create his perfect boiler water, or to mess with his system as he sees fit.
You need your installer to provide a better pipe job to allow for less than perfect waters, and time between services, etc.

can we see a better shot of the Ptrol, and of the sightglass,

ethicalpaul

I am an extreme hobbyist, but my boiler (same as this one) blew dry steam immediately after washing it with TSP then skimming, just as described in the manual. This installer did it wrong, and I hope they will stand behind their work, but even if not, this boiler will make good steam.

@ChannaRice the pressure should be set to the lowest setting, and yes the boiler will need to be skimmed. Every newly installed boiler needs to be skimmed, it's in the manual. Your guy might crack one open and have a look

ChannaRice

ChannaRice

Thanks for the insight. I have read and noted all of your comments. Thanks again for all of the assistance. Unfortunately I paid the plumber in full and he has not responded to my texts.