venting mains?

matt_31

I have a 30's house with single pipe steam heat. There are two circuits of piping which go out connect to 4-5 radiators each and then come back to the boiler. One of the circuits is more compact and heats up quite well and the second which covers a much longer distance takes quite a bit longer to heat. Right near the boiler on the return side there is a section of smaller pipe that goes to a vent which are identical on each of the circuits and are very similar to the ones on the radiators. Are these the mains vents?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Matt

After reading this site I did an experiment and removed the vent from the circuit that was slower to heat and tested it and it seemed to work fine. I then started a heating cycle and left that vent disconnected until steam started to continuously come out of the pipe then I reinstalled the vent. I did notice that the radiators on that circuit heated much more quickly, except for the last radiator on that chain. I then went and removed the vent on that radiator and tested it (fine) and then reinstalled it when steam came out consistantly (radiator heated much more quickly) Should I get a larger/higher air volume vents for that radiator and main(?) on that circuit to evenly heat the house?

Steamhead

That's correct

These are your main vents and they are obviously not sized properly. Have you tried the Find a Professional page of this site to locate someone who can correct this?

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