Single pipe steam gurgling

anthony3

Hi all! New to this.

I have a single pipe steam system that I can't put my finger on what the problem is.

The House was built in 1920, originally a coal-fired furnace (which was replaced) with two 2 inch mains, one going across each side of the house and has a 1 inch? dry return, with an air vent on the ends of the run near the boiler. Orignial air vents were a Dole 1933 on the main returns. The problem I've been having is a gurgling sound on one side of the house, all radiators seem to be filling with water, including upstairs radiators on the end of that line. The last radiator at the end of the other loop makes a "breathing" sound out the air vent, and takes forever for steam to reach it. Almost all radiators were replace with ventrite adjustable vents, and set around 3 to 4. The basements were replaced with ventrite main vents as well. Radiator pitch is good, i just cleaned the pigtail loop on the boiler, flushed the mercy water out, and set the pressertrol to .5 cut in and 2 cutout. Was previously set to 1.5 cut in and 3 cut out. I was assuming too much pressure caused the radiator valves to not vent properly, but the pigtail was totally blocked up before. Any ideas what could be the issue?

neilc

Pictures,

let's see a distant shot of the gurgling pipe, and how it relates to the boiler waterline, new boiler would have a different waterline than did the old coal fire, you may need a false waterline loop, or,

what's the wet return look like? plugged?

and of the Ptrol, I think you set your differential to 0.5, with the cutout at 2, so you would be operating 1.5 ~ 2, you could go lower, or widen the differential, and lower, go lower,

bburd

Gurgling, spitting air vents and slow steam arrival usually mean there is water sitting in a steam pipe, where it should not be. Steam carrying pipes must be pitched for drainage. On the basement pipes you can check this with a spirit level. Buildings settle and pipe hangers can sag over time.