Any info on steam air valve is much appreciated

hotfoot1981

How how can you tell when your steam air valve is going bad, besides hissing or spitting? I have a valve that makes a lot of noise which I replaced is that another sign of a valve being bad.
See picture what is the difference between the different brands / types of air steam valves cheap ones $5 versus maid-o-mist $20, Gordon $40, Hoffman $50? They all seem to work the same, and if a cheap one goes bad I can get 4 to 10 of them compared to the others. I used the cheap ones at my mom's house which is on the market and they seem to work fine. I have mostly maid O mist at my house.

PS you can see from the picture I waited too long to replace the steam air valve before it caused damage to the wall. This is why I am trying to learn about the valves.

Jamie Hall

The differences really are in longevity and resistance to damage and to a certain extent, consistency. You are right -- you can buy a boxful of big box vents for the cost of a Gorton or a Maid-O-Mist. If your labour rate is zero, you make out like a bandit. If your labour rate is four or five times minimum wage, plus mileage, then... maybe not so much.

Hap_Hazzard

It's not easy to tell if a valve is working correctly, but a quick & dirty test you can use is to blow through the valve to see if it's clogged, and if you can blow through it, and it's a float type valve, like all of yours are, turn it upside-down and try to blow through it. If you can, even if only a little air leaks through, the valve isn't seating well. If it seals completely when turned upside-down, the valve is okay, but you still can't tell if it closes on steam. For that you really need to see if it stops passing air when steam gets to the radiator. It's not always easy to see when air is coming out. I usually hold a lighter next to the vent port to see if the flame wavers. It's easier to tell if steam is leaking, because you'll see some water spitting out. If you see that, the vent's no good.

ethicalpaul

If it's letting steam out, it's bad. If it's not letting air out, it's bad.

I like Maid O Mist, but others won't use them. There is no data to show us the failure rates of any brand, only anecdotal evidence.

Even my liking of Maid O Mist is completely anecdotal, I have a very small sample size as a homeowner. I like Gorton too. Hoffman is fine if you are independently wealthy on the buying side, or trying to send kids to Yale on the selling side.

But any no-name vent from a big box store or Amazon is to be avoided at all costs.