Which Are the Best Radiator Air Vents For Steam Heating System?

savageblu

Hi,
I need to replace a number of my radiator air vents, as well as the main pipe vent, and would like some recommendations as to the best brand or brands to purchase.

delcrossv

Mains vents are system dependent but after trying a bunch of different rad vents, I'm pretty happy with Maid-o-mist.

Jamie Hall

I like the big Gortons for main vents.

Waher

Gorton #1 and #2 and (situationally because they had a high rate of leaking in the past) Barnes & Jones' "Big Mouth" main vents.

Gorton, Hoffman, Vent-Rite, Maid O'Mist for radiator vents depending on what venting capacity/ability to adjust you want.

Big Ed_4

If you see the vents use Hoffmans if you don't use Gorton....

The Steam Whisperer

For steam main vents, Gortons ( but they don't work well in very warm environments), Ventrite #1 adjustables for radiators ( very slow vents with good adjustability), Maid o Mist for inexpensive vents but only use up to #6 size. Gortons up to #6. We've used Big Mouths, but they do seem to have a high leakage rate,...they work well in hot environments.

clammy

Gorton the quality of maid o mist is a thing of the past . Customer replaced a bunch everyone stopped working . Upon closer investigation it seems the 1/8 npt thread is longer then the older ones and does not have a slight crook in them making them not drain well and become water log and stop working . This was recent within 2 months and just about every new maid o mist installed worked like poo . Home owner refused to pay for gorton vents years ago and continues to replace maid o mist w another over and over . As much as the quality of everything has been on the down slide I still find gorton failure rate in comparison to there’s acceptable for what it worth not that I’m happy bout eating radiator and main vent failures but that’s bussiness if you charged enough it doesn’t hurt so much to do some things for free and still keep them happy .
I stopped using Hoffmann for adj rad vents over price and the quality is in the can ,stopped using them after high failure rate and general quality seemed poor as for the rest of them never used vent rites and when I’ve come across at a supply house there price was as if they where made of gold ,sticking to gorton .
Peace and good luck
Clammy

savageblu

OK guys. Thanks for all the input. I think I'll stick to Gortons, like many of you suggested. They're expensive but decent quality and are worth paying more for.

SgtMaj

@savageblu mostly each radiator will need to be vented differently depending on the size of the radiator and how fast it needs to heat the room. Here’s a great chart:


Additionally if you’re good at mental gymnastics follow these rules:
https://heatinghelp.com/assets/documents/Balancing-Steam-Systems-Using-a-Vent-Capacity-Chart-1.pdf

STEAM DOCTOR

Distance from boiler is entirely irrelevant if main is properly vented

ethicalpaul

Well not entirely

ChrisJ

All of my radiators are vented differently based on the total distance from the boiler.
There's friction losses and they add up, mains included.

I have radiators very close that are using Gorton 5's meanwhile a similar radiator 30 feet away has a Gorton C. They perform similar.

I've also calculated the total friction losses to each radiator and they correlate to the size vent that ended up being used. The higher the friction losses and the lower the available pressure will be at that radiator, therefore a larger vent is needed.

I do disagree with their "near thermostat" comment though.

ethicalpaul

I wouldn't call it "friction losses", I'd call it "amount of air that has to be vented from the supply line". The friction is in the orifice. A radiator supply pipe provides immeasurably low friction.

ChrisJ

ethicalpaul said:

I wouldn't call it "friction losses", I'd call it "amount of air that has to be vented from the supply line". The friction is in the orifice. A radiator supply pipe provides immeasurably low friction.

It's literally the friction losses of the piping. So....


And this applies to the steam as well as air.