New House, New Problems- Introduction and seeking help on new to me steam
Hey all! Been lurking for a couple months around here, finally made an account and am now making this post because I am in need of some opinions. Apologies in advance for the length of this post- I'm bad at short form and I'd rather give it to you all up front.
About me:
Long time DIYer, have worked professionally as a mechanic on everything from motorcycles to tractors/ farm equipment, various aspects of construction, lots of weird and crazy alternative energy projects including a makeshift hydronic setup in a tiny house and another project involving a compost-heating-hydronic beast- I know a decent bit about a lot of different things but I am an expert in almost none of it! I'm good at getting in over my head.
About the System:
I have a few rental units, and this one is new to me. Old 1900~ brick 2-story side by side duplex in the Detroit Area, each side has its own steam system, and the unit in question is currently empty. This is my introduction to steam. I'm trying to get better at not doing EVERYTHING myself(this is hard for me, I have trust issues with contractors), so before I fired this system for the first time a couple months ago I hired a family friend HVAC professional to come "inspect" the system. I heard things like "Everything looks good" and "these boilers last forever" and "there's not much to them".
After paying for that wonderful insight, the temps dropped and I fired her for the first time under my own supervision. I went next door to do some work in the other unit and after about an hour and a half, I come back over and before I open the door I hear what sounds like rushing water. I enter and my glasses immediately steam up, I run to the thermostat and turn it off. All three rads on the first floor are POURING out steam. The one in the living room melted the paint/ deformed the plaster. Another one had a pool of water under it. Some inspection in the boiler room led me to see that the sight glass valves were both closed. I crack them both open and murky water shoots out of the top of the broken glass. I closed the valves. Time to call in the REAL pros.
I do some research and find a company that "specializes in steam". After a week they send a tech and his apprentice out. I warmed the system up before they arrived, and as they walked in the steam shower had just begun. After 2 minutes, the tech says "these vents are all bad". I try to reason by explaining it seems like this is a symptom to a bigger problem- the system shouldn't have this much pressure in it- to which he responds "no, no the boiler has features built in to manage that". So after installing new no-name vents on the 1st floor rads, he makes his way to the boiler room, measures the sight glass and says he will be back when the new glass comes in. Oh, the loud hissing coming out of those new vents? that's normal. 10 minutes after he puts a company sticker on the side of the boiler and leaves, another steam shower on the first floor. I called and ripped the owner up a bit, cancelled the sight glass install, still unsure if I am gonna pay that bill. Decided to take things into my own hands after trying to hand it over to 2 "pros".
I got the book, been peeling through that and so many threads on here (bless this forum, bless you all), I also wasted no time peeling that companies sticker off my sweet Dunkirk. Its getting very cold up here, time to get to work.
Here is what I got so far:
Boiler is a Lennox (Dunkirk) GSB8-112E
1- 2.5" pipe roughly 90' around basement, The single main is roughly 58' to last rad run, dry return roughly 32' from there to boiler. No main vents(or signs there ever was one).
6 rads, 3 on 1st floor, 3 on 2nd floor. One was removed from 1st floor kitchen, and pipe was capped a couple feet off main in basement. 2 rads upstairs were removed, one capped above floor, one in bathroom still has valve. All 6 rads have valves full open, good pitch. Before the 1st floor vents were replaced, all 6 rads had random mismatched vents.
The stock 0-30psi gauge sits at about 5psi all the time, off or on.
Pressuretrol was set to cut-in at 7-8 psi. Ouch. Turned it all the way down, changed nothing. Removed it and the pigtail, pigtail was completely filled with sludge. Cleaned it and the pressuretrol, and flushed as much sludge out of every valve that opens off the boiler. Still no change in operation.
Replaced Gauge glass and valves. Water is decently clean and the level stays pretty consistent. Very light movement during firing. No change in issues upstairs.
I got a cheap gauge and put it parallel and discovered the pressuretrol is doing nothing. The switch works, but not without me helping it along. I tried tweaking with it and still cannot get it to switch on it's own. More interestingly though…
The vents in all 6 rads lightly hiss on startup and then close, and the rads heat up completely-valve side to vent side- before the gauge shows any pressure. They sit like this for a bit, probably 45 minutes if it was a very cold start . Like clockwork, as soon as pressure starts to build, the vents on the 1st floor rads open and get louder and louder as pressure builds. I shut it down manually at 2psi every time, but even at that point the 1st floor rad vents are rattling, pouring out steam and dribbling some water. I'm not exactly sure what water hammer sounds like, but I don't think I hear any. 2nd floor vents are definitely letting out steam, but not at all like the 1st floor. All rads get hot in my opinion pretty quickly. I feather the system on and off manually when I am in the unit to keep it from getting to cold in there, it's a lot of fun.
I know I am really stress testing this system because when I get there in the morning, it can be down to the low 40's F at the thermostat so it has a lot to make up. I'm sure it runs more smoothly when it is maintaining, but I'm not satisfied with that. I want this thing running as reliably, efficiently and SAFELY as possible before I stick a tenant in there.
I don't think I have a header or a hartford loop. Not sure if this is an issue because when velocity is at it's highest at the boiler outlet at startup, I never have issues. The pipe that used to run to the kitchen rad is about 2 feet off the main. There is only one existing rad past this point. This bare pipe is the easiest spot to put a main vent, though I know this isn't ideal. Alternatively, there is an old run to a disconnected radiator on the 2nd floor that is the last run off of the main. This pipe is unfortunately covered in asbestos. From that point on, the entire dry return was replaced at some point with what seems like copper? all the way to the boiler. Cutting that last asbestos covered rad run and venting there seems easier to me than cutting into the copper? main/ dry return. I'm not a pipe fitter and I am trying to avoid drilling/ tapping/ threading if possible.
I ordered:
-Honeywell L408J1017 Vaporstat 0-4psi. I chose this over the 0-16oz because I wasn't sure the optimal pressure for the system and liked the wider range.
-New 0-5psi Bluefin gauge, I thought 2 different cheap gauges were better than one
-Gorton #2
-15psi relief valve, the old one was stuck
-Hoffman 40's for all 6 rads, this seemed like a good place to start
I will update as I start adding the new parts, little by little, cycling the system between the changes to try and get a better feel for what is going on.
I'm attaching pictures of all piping in the basement, I will make another post of a fun little drawing of the system with labels.
What do you all think of the main vent? Am I better leaving it alone? If not, what is my best option for placement?
Where is a good starting point for cut in - out on the new vaporstat?
Am I on the right track here with my diagnosis?
Any and all comment is welcome and very much appreciated. Apologies for the long winded introductory post. If I get no responses, the very writing of this has helped me better understand my situation.
wwrenchh
Comments
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you potentially have a lot of issues but the first one is to get your pressure regulation working which it sounds like you are on track.
I’d set like cut-out at 1psi and cut-in at .25 to .5 if you can with that vaporstat
You already know more than your contractor, as you found
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el1 -
If your nice new vapourstat (good for you, by the way!) doesn't shut off the boiler when you think it should, it is possible that it is miswired. It — and the low water cutoff — should both stop; the boiler when they are activated, but it is possible — since there seem to be one or two other things which are peculiar — that something else is wired in parallel with it instead of in series…
See if you can trace the wiring out to see what is connected to what and how.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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the receptacle behind the gas pipe is a nice touch
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steam is likely to want to take this path as well as along the main depending on the water level and pressure
there are lots of things wrong with the near boiler piping but this is the biggest.
you can put the main vent at an old runnout after the last radiator or anywhere in the dry return. It likely will get closed by the steam through the return before the main finishes venting.
the vaporstat settign will be a compromise between the lowest you can set it and keeping the cycle length reasonably long. It sounds like the boiler is likely significantly oversized or the radiators can't vent properly.
Which tapping are the vents in in the radiators?
It is possible that the cheapest vents the contractor could find never sealed right.
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Thank you all for the responses!
I haven't traced any of the wiring yet(though I do plan to and clean it all up a bit) but everything seems in order there. The pressuretrol doesn't switch under any amount of pressure on it's own so far regardless of where the screw is set, but if put a small flathead and gently pry up, it immediately kills the cycle and shuts the exhaust vent. As soon as I let it go, it starts up again. Leads across the terminals on the microswitch show OL when the I do this as well.
I have tested the low water cutoff by draining the system level after start up and it cuts out every time. It won't fire until the auto feed brings it up to the fill line marked on the side of the boiler unit.
"lots of things wrong" yeah lol that's what I was thinking. I am going to wait to install the main vent at the last old runout until I get the new vents on the rads and the vapourstat set up and see where we are at. I was thinking the boiler might be too big especially seeing that 3 rads have been removed, 2 of them being the farthest in the system. Already thinking of taking out the electric baseboard nightmare in the 2nd floor bathroom and installing a small radiator where the old valve is, but this is a problem for down the road.
I just can't understand how the previous owners/tenants were running this system as is without major issues.
The radiator vent tappings are 1/8th inch. The weird thing about the new cheap vents is that they hiss until steam hits them and they close. For a while too, and eventually when pressure starts to build the open again with steam coming out.
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If your vapourstat shuts the system off when you trip it manually, it and its wiring is fine — but something else is wrong, like it isn't able to sense boiler pressure. Clogged pigtail. Clogged opening into boiler. Something…
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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the hissing until they see steam is because you have no main vents, all the air is trying to get out of the radiator vents.
it actually sounds like it is working better than i would expect given the amount of knuckleheading. if the radiators are all heating and getting to a point where the vents close it is working kinda ok. you're wasting a ton of fuel trying to vent it through the radiators and it likely won't heat evenly because the steam will get to the first radiator long before it gets to the last.
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The previous tenants probably kept it at a constant temperature avoiding a lot of the issues you are witnessing trying to bring temperature up from 40f. As others have stated you are doing the right things by 1) installing main venting, 2) reading and reacting to a correct pressure with a clean pigtail and a working Vaporstat
What is the total sqft of connected radiators you have on the system? Would like to know how the actual size of the boiler matches. Frankly you are best off avoiding the situation where all your radiators are 100% full of steam and boiler keeps running because then you are building pressure and wasting money. Doesn't mean you won't be able to do some minor setbacks and recoveries but very few steam systems will efficiently bring you from 40f to near 70f without some intervention to avoid pressure build. Don't operate the same as furnaces or even hot water systems.
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You don't need Hartford loop on your system as your dry return becomes wet for only 8 inches or so so your water will never escape from your boiler through that pipe. Your dry return become an "inverted" Hartford loop.
As was pointed out, the steam might want to take the path of your dry return but i suspect the water level prevents that (i presume it's around the top black take in your photo). Yes, ideally your return pipping would return water at the bottom of the boiler.
A well working system doesn't need to build up any pressure.
Your main gauge stuck at 5psi is simply broken. Just replace it.
Your pressuretroll is either not getting any steam (clogged pig tail), or is set wrong from factory and will never work correctly unless you adjust it yourself. Look up Silent Steam Heat channel on YT. He has numerous high quality videos on how to fix it - very easy if you are handy. If you confirm your pressuretrol is working, then it might be wiring issue.
Your air vents are hissing because you don't have main vents so ALL air has to be pushed through those vents. Install generous main vents Gorton 2 or 1 (ideally two of those) and most of your problems will go away.
Steam is insanely simple system. A giant tea kettle with some pipes connecting it to a radiator with vents. That's it.
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That 5psi gauge that is T'eed off at the pressuretrol…what does it read? You have new piping there so I'd expect the gauge to read whatever the pressuretrol is seeing.
If it isn't reading pressure than the pigtail or site glass pipe is clogged.
If it does read pressure but the pressuretrol doesn't turn off the system….you might have a defective or out-of-calibration pressuretrol.
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@wwrenchh Im in the Detroit area if you are looking for someone to go over your system and need help.
Owner of Grunaire Climate Solutions. Check us out under the locate a contractor section. Located in Detroit area.
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" each side has its own steam system " So the other side works good ? If it is similar maybe you can use it as a reference if needed.
Removing radiators doesn't help. If the boiler was correctly sized before it may be oversized now.
With the boiler running if you disconnect one wire from the pressuretrol or the Honeywell L408J1017 Vaporstat 0-4psi switch does it shut the burner down ?
The 0-30 PSI gauge should be maintained it is a safety code thing. Any low pressure gauges should be installed in addition to the 0-30 PSI gauge.
I suspect the vents leaking steam when the pressure becomes excessive is simply that the vents are not designed to stop excessive pressure so the steam escapes out.
National - U.S. Gas Boiler 45+ Years Old
Steam 300 SQ. FT. - EDR 347
One Pipe System1 -
The pressuretrol currently on the system will not trip under system pressure after much tweaking. Pigtail and pressuretrol and all connecting pipes are clean. I believe the 0-5psi gauge pictured above to be working reading close to system pressure at this point.
I agree. Surprisingly, the heating amongst the radiators was fairly even before I replaced the rad vents (more on this below)
I installed that piping. This pressure gauge WAS sitting at 0psi while the system heated up and climbs to about 1.5 - 2 psi when I would should it down because steam was pouring out of the rads. Pigtail/pipes are clean. Pressuretrol is no good, waiting on vapourstat to come in(today?)
Bless you, I will be reaching out!
The other side I haven't spent as much time with because it is occupied. I haven't heard anything from the tenant, but at this point I'm afraid to look to closely right now based on the condition of this unit I'm posting about. I will try to disconnect the Pressuretrol lead today and see if it kills the burner.
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An update:
I installed the new Bluefin 0-5psi gauge which seems to be working and reading just as the other cheapo I put on last week. I installed Hoffman 40's on all 6 radiators which has totally changed the situation. The steam is no longer pouring out of any radiator as the system cycles, but now a host of other issues-
The pressure now builds as soon as the burner fires up. On start up, everything seems fine, the new vents quietly hiss and eventually snap closed. But now, all the rads are heating up at different rates, which I figure is because now that there isn't wide open venting at the rads, the air has no where to go but through the tiny new vents.
1 radiator in particular, 2nd Floor Bedroom 2(the smallest radiator in the system), gurgles like crazy. Sounds like boiling water in the wall and at the radiator itself. This starts once it heats up. The last rad in the system, 1st floor entry, eventually does the same thing but it takes a bit longer. Working on installing the Gorton #2 and hopefully that will alleviate this problem.
New Vapourstat should arrive today, I will update when that is installed.
I am attaching a drawing of the layout of the system in the basement, including measurements of the pipe, and the measurements in the circles are the distances from the bottom of the main/return to the water level for the points where they are labeled(I achieved this with a laser level), The shaded runouts no longer have radiators attached.
These are measurements of the nearpiping in relation to the water level with system off, the up arrows are above the water level, the down arrow is below.
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Another bit of info I got about the system last night
Radiator sizes, in the order they are attached to the main starting withe the closest:
All are 3 Column, 9" deep x 38" tall, EDR calculations based on 5 per section
1st Floor Living Room, 9 Section, 21 - 1/2" wide, EDR 45
2nd Floor Bedroom 1, 9 Section, 21 - 1/2" wide, EDR 45
2nd Floor Bedroom 2, 5 Section, 11 - 1/2" wide, EDR 25
1st Floor Dining Room, 10 Section, 24" wide, EDR 50
2nd Floor Bedroom 3, 6 Section, 14" wide, EDR 30
1st Floor Entry, 7 Section, 16 - 1/2" wide, EDR 35
Total EDR 230
Attached is Manufacturer Specs- not sure which BTUH value to use in calculating how properly sized the boiler is for the load
Model is GSB8-112E
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1 radiator in particular, 2nd Floor Bedroom 2(the smallest radiator in the system), gurgles like crazy. Sounds like boiling water in the wall and at the radiator itself. This starts once it heats up. The last rad in the system, 1st floor entry, eventually does the same thing but it takes a bit longer. Working on installing the Gorton #2 and hopefully that will alleviate this problem.
It probably won't help. You likely have a sagging steam supply pipe leading to that radiator that is holding some condensate after the heating cycle ends. Ideally, all the pipes are pitched in a way that all the condensate drains back to the boiler. When the next call for heat starts, the steam has to heat up all this sitting water and will cause knocking, or gurgling, or both.
The numbers at the bottom of this image below are your "net square feet of steam" which is equivalent to EDR, which is the total square feet of exposed radiator surface in your home. The short answer is your home is tiny and you should have used the 75k boiler because its "sq ft of steam" value more closely matches your actual radiation of 230. Unfortunately it's very very common to have an oversized boiler. Yours is a lot less oversized than some we see around here. It will work, it just may so-called "short cycle" a little more than you'd like. You can minimize it by not turning down your thermostat at night or when you are away from the house for less than a day.
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el1 -
Do you have anything for main vents in the basement?
post a picture of that gurgling rad, show the pipe and valve into it, is it fairly level?
the piping at the boiler is bad, steam leaving the boiler has no way to shed water and is carrying it up into the system,
known to beat dead horses0 -
There is a picture of it above. It isn't great. The problem really is that there is no place for any carryover to go other than back in to the outlet of the boiler to give they exiting steam another chance at throwing it up in to the main. there is no header but there is a fairly tall riser so it will separate there but the lack of a header means it goes back in to the outlet of the boiler instead of in to the equalizer and in to the return. That actually is probably why it was ok with terrible venting, the pressure was slowing the steam down but now that it is open it can pull water with it.
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you see venting? main venting?
yeah I saw the boiler piping, bad,
known to beat dead horses0 -
The old runout that used to go to the 1st floor kitchen was cut to about 2 feet and capped. There is one radiator runout after this. This is the only easy spot to thread a vent on, so I threw my new Gorton #2 to see what happens. It takes about 6 minutes from when it first starts passing air to close, and didn't really affect anything as far as I could tell. The ideal place for it seems to be above the boiler, which is copper pipe.
The gurgling rad was just barely pitched, I added some quarters underneath and it seems like it has a proper pitch now but it still gurgles. The valve seems pretty standard.
The other rad that gurgles(1st floor entry, last in the series) has this piping artistry:
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I'm no steam expert, but wouldn't that narrow stub pipe next to the elbow create some steam / condensate issues?
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That coupling needs to be replaced with an Eccentric Reducer. The outlet is lower.
Cast Iron, 2 in x 1 in Fitting Pipe Size, Eccentric Reducer Coupling - 4KVZ3|0300154804 - Grainger
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Agree pretty much with @ethicalpaul . You are about 12% oversized which is not good but is not bad relatively speaking. I'm over 30% oversized but am managing fine. Get the Gorton #2 main vent on, fix the piping to that entryway radiator and either avoid doing setbacks and recoveries, or, if your thermostat programming will allow it break up the recovery into something like 30 minute on off increments. You could also wire in a delay timer which you can find information on in other threads. You want to avoid building the pressure and if you do most of your issues will subside.
Note your main vent isn't going to change alot from a full cold start. It improves time to get steam to the radiators significantly when the system is already warm. Cold, most of the time is eaten up heating the main pipes and condensing steam along the way (steam isn't just going to rush through a cold pipe all the way to the main)
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Possibly not. If it's a 1" supply line, you are going to have to reduce the outlet from the radiator one way or another regardless. And for the small radiators that are typically attached to 1" supplies, the steam and condensate seem to pass by each other well as long as there are no pitch issues in the supply line.
I have found that all radiators hold some amount of water regardless of the connection used.
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el1 -
Kind of wondering if that valve is open all the way.
National - U.S. Gas Boiler 45+ Years Old
Steam 300 SQ. FT. - EDR 347
One Pipe System0 -
@109A_5 beat me to it,
are the 2 rads with gurgles, are their valves all the way open? they need to be, and then it may be worth a look inside to see that the washer/disc hasn't detached and is holding condensate back from draining,
are the vents too fast on the rads and the rush of steam is holding back condensate? does the gurgle start and stop with venting? or last thru a whole cycle?
known to beat dead horses1 -
All rad valves are all the way open.
Are you saying to take the valves apart?
All vents are currently Hoffman 40's that I put on, the original valves would not close. It is worth noting before I put these on, system pressure took a lot longer to build and gurgling was not an issue anywhere in the system. I find this a bit confusing because with lower pressure, velocity should be higher pulling more water up into the main.
The gurgling is so bad, now the water level is dropping before a cycle can complete, auto feed kicking in and flooding system once the boiler cuts out.
The Hoffman 40 seems a good size for 2 of the smaller radiators, but the larger ones are taking a lot longer to heat up (this makes sense because before they were wide open). I might experiment with some different vents I have laying around and see if that helps.
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Had you tried lifting the gurgling radiators? Take a 2x4 and gently lift/lever them up and slide maybe 1/2" spacers under the legs.
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I find this a bit confusing because with lower pressure, velocity should be higher pulling more water up into the main.
Steam production won’t pull water into the main regardless of pressure, unless your water quality is bad.
Your description sounds like you have a couple things going on and you may be combining them in your head.
- Is your boiler surging?
- Does your piping have pitch issues?
Find out and fix these separately
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el0 -
@ethicalpaul did you look at the near boiler Pipes above?
not good, needs redo,
known to beat dead horses1 -
I didn’t look closely enough and have to retract what I said. This boiler piping is insane. Thanks
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el0
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