Steam Bolier- Burner comes on every 5 mins

Syr

I recently read through the "We've got steam heat" book and I found it very informational. I even went down in the basement and lowered my pressure down to .5# and the internal dial up to 1# from what I would assume to be .5
I found in odd that the internal dial would be under 1 but following the book I raised it up to 1.

Anyway, the one thing I have noticed is that the gas burner seems to kick in every 5 minutes for less than a minute. It's almost 5 minutes on the dot actually. The temperature seemes to be at the chosen temp 71 but yet it kept firing every 5 minutes. Is this normal?

Mind you this is a old boiler circa 1930 1 pipe system.

As a side note I had called a local service company to come take a look at it (before I got the book) and sure enough all he did was check my radiator vents (because some weren't getting hot) and then he ended up raising my pressure (knucklehead) to around 2-3 pounds without changing anything on the internal dial on the pressuretrol. He also opened the blow down valve to clean out the system and he cleaned my water glass.. Ohj yah and some of my radiators still don't seem to get warm all the time (if at all) and I am noticing a tiny bit of water collecting in the vents on the radiators that do get heat.


Anyway please let me know what you folks think... This is my first house so I'm really interested in learning everything I can about getting the heat working. Especially since I live in Central NY.
Thanks.

Syr

By the way

It's a natural gas burner.

Dale

No not normal

The boiler seems to be making steam that not getting to the rads, probably a main vent problem in the short run but the rest of the pipe needs to be checked and perhaps cleaned and repitched. You need a service individual that understands the SYSTEM. The air is not getting out and the solution is to find out why. If you like wrenches loosen up the main vent with the system off, loosely put in a full port ball valve in the open position and start the boiler, after steaming starts if the air rushes out the ball valve followed by steam close it and check the rads, if all are hot buy a large new main vent, put anti seize on the threads.

John@Reliable_5

Also, where is the steam going?

Yes, indeed you need someone who really understands steam, that said, the steam is going somewhere. Do you add water often? Often is more than weekly, if so check the chimney for white smoke(steam) while system is running and if you see it you will know where it's going. An 70 year old system has done it's job and it's time to let it rest. John@Reliable

[Deleted User]

check out this previous thread,

noel has some really good info here that may also help you- http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&Thread_ID=10926&mc=11

Scott Toenniessen_2

Check the thermostat

I've had owned a house with single pipe steam for three years now and followed all to the recommendations on this site to get a nicely running and balanced system.

Last month I noticed my boiler was doing the same thing you describe. After some investigation I remembered my kids had been playing with the traditional gold, round, Honeywell thermostat that controls this thing. Inside (just under the front cover that pulls off) I discovered a sliding adjustment to set temp change that triggers it on and off. The kids managed to set this to the most sensitive setting (.1 degree I think) and this was causing the short cycling.

Hope this helps - never saw this tip before here as eveyone immediately thinks of pressuretrol settings and venting since they are common problems.

David Efflandt

anticipator or cycles per hour

What Scott is talking about is the anticipator, which is an adjustment that acts like a heater to make a mechanical thermostat shut off early to minimize overshoot. If that is set to heat too fast, it may be tripping off early (which could give you problems in colder weather).

Electronic thermostats (like my Honeywell) have a setting for maximum cycles per hour, which for 1-pipe steam is set for 1 (I think called gravity/steam). But my thermostat never needs to run the boiler that often. In the coldest weather the thermostat might cycle on every 90 minutes, or this time of year only several times per night (and not much during daylight due to solor gain). But my boiler is oversize, so the pressuretrol will cycle it if it runs long enough, but at that point the radiators are heating all the way across.

It could also be a low water cutout if the system is surging or not piped properly or something plugged. So it should be checked out by a professional who really knows steam before colder weather.