S.O.S in Nebraska

jim shea

I have been that route all pipes that I can insulate are and have used a boiler cleaner this season for first time since I've owned house 10yrs. No load has changed just venting, seemed fine last year for heat through house. I have programable stat that drops temp to 66 at night then up to 70 at 6am then back to 66 in day til 4pm then to 70.It is located in last radiator and in upstairs room. would rasing ptrol up any help is at .5in and 1diff?

jim shea

Save our Steam

This field of steam is very confusing! Last year took advice from yur panel of steam experts,changed main venting @traps that were a problem. I replaced main vents with 2 #2 Gorton main vents they sat on tee's at the end of mains. I finally got all of the rad's in the house to heat all the way through on firing. System seemed to be working much! better,should have been better left alone. But instead still noticed air panting from main vents on supply side so I made some changes to venting from last season buy adding 2 of the old Hoffman #76 vents that I had replaced on supply and also added another Gorton on return this season which all are on a dog leg off of the end tee's. This heating season my first rad's on main floor heat fine throug but every one upstairs seems to be air bound and won't heat all through, I get steam to the vavles on rad's fairly quick but boiler fires for 45 min to satisfy the stat! that seems to long? Have Pennco 184.5k input 150k output 2 pipe dry return with 80ft of main with some horizontals off of it going to verticals upstairs. Where would one look to fix this if it seems to be wrong. Thank You Jim Shea

Unknown

My first take on it

It sounds like not enough steam; or too much load. It may be dirty boiler, underfired boiler, or some new load, like pipe insulation missing somewhere.

Now that I'm on the stump, speaking...Insulation is a huge factor in sizing the pipes. A pipe that is bare that carries steam to other loads usually must be TWO pipe sizes bigger to carry the same load to the radiation.

In reverse, bare pipe isn't usually big enough to heat all of the radiators. If insulation is removed, the pipes are too small. Balance will be all over the place, autunm to winter; and then to spring.

Noel

Unknown

Is this one pipe steam?

Jim, how long is an on cycle when you do NOT set the thermostat back? The setback cycle lengths have more to do with house insulation and tightness. Those will be tough to change from the heating system.

System timing might go like this.... The thermostat fires the "still hot from last cycle" boiler, then it takes a minute or so to make the header hot. Once the header is hot, the air vents on the mains would get hot in from one to two minutes.

As the main vents close, the radiator valves should all be getting hot together, and the radiators will begin to heat the rooms.

Depending upon heat loss (weather and tightness of the house) the thermostat would satisfy minutes later. Also depending on the load, the thermostat would satisfy until the house and radiators had cooled a little. Then the cycle would repeat, hopefully around three cycles per hour, more or less.

Setting back the thermostat throws off these numbers, so that setback cycle lengths have no real bearing on whether or not the boiler is running properly. I hope this clears this up a little.

If this is two pipe steam, look for a bad trap making the returns steam-hot. That would stop some radiators from venting.

Noel

jim shea

Good therory Noel

Thank you Noel, I'll try a few things that you mentioned see what might happen. May post questions later.