Water Hammer

Trace

Hi Dan,

I’ve been ‘lurking’ on your site for about 18 months now trying to find an answer to my water hammer problem. Of course, I was less interested in the summer when the pipes weren’t clanging and banging at 2:00 a.m.!

Here’s my story – hope you can help. I have a one pipe system – in a 1904 house -- converted from coal, I think. Bought the house 10 years ago and always heard a thud in the basement when the heat came on… knew that it was probably water hammer, but I only heard it once when the heat first came on -- it was just once and not that annoying -- kind of comforting actually -- meant the house would soon be warm.

Then, last summer I renovated a room on the 2nd floor (turned a 10x10 room into a closet (yahoo) and removed the radiator to paint the floor. Had a bit of trouble getting the radiator reinstalled and when I turned the heat on last fall realized water was leaking out around the fitting… finally got it hooked up correctly and tight. However, the next time the heat came on it sounded like there was a chain gang running through the entire house!

Then, renovated another room – removed the radiator too – but put it back in with no trouble. Water hammer still there.

Now, I’m on my third room and everything seems to be okay… but, the water hammer is still horrible!

I’ve checked the pitch on the pipes and paid for a service call from my oil heating company (they scratched their heads alot and said the radiators should be bled... when I told them I'd read lots of stuff that said single pipe systems don't get bled, they intalled a few new vents on the side of the radiator – that hasn’t helped.)

Can you help? Any suggestions will be really appreciated… I'm getting woken up at least twice a night and it's only November.

Signed, sleepless in New Hampshire... :)

Unknown

Here's a starting point

http://www.heatinghelp.com/steam_problems.cfm

What area in NH?

Noel

Trace

Dovah...

Unknown

Ovah in Dovah

I grew up west of Concord.

If nothing else changed during the work, I'll bet some mud moved around within the piping, and is holding a small amount of water in the piping to make noise. Finding the location of the noises might confirm this, if they stay in the same place.

Oily boiler water can do this, too. This might be the case if anything got in while the work was being done.

Or something we haven't talked about yet.... There's ALWAYS one more thing to check.

Noel

Trace

Hey Noel... is there anything West of Concord? Thanks for the info... next question - if it is oily water or dirt in the pipes, how do I rectify this? Do you know of any competent plumbers/heating technicians in this area I could hire? My oil company folks knew less than I did... and, I'm 'just a girl!'

Unknown

Nothing west of Concord

That's the BEAUTY of it!

I don't know any contractors there, myself.

Anybody on the Wall doing steam in the Portsmouth/Durham/Dover area?

The cleaning instructions vary from boiler to boiler.

How does the water behave in the glass while it is making steam?

Noel

Trace

It's a little rusty looking and seems to move up and down a bit... I used the find a pro section here to contact someone in Dover.. hopefully he'll be able to take a peek.

In the meantime, thanks for your help...

al leone

The first thing you need to do is to check the pitch of the radiator/s in question , with a level, you should shim the back legs with plastic checkers or somthing simmular. this will assure that any water in the radiator flows back towards the service vales and back to the boiler.
You cant have water hanging around in the pipes after the steam cools down back into water, if so the steam on the next cycle will pick it up and slam it into a fitting or the inside of the rad itselt.

There are several good steam boiler cleaners out there, the one I use is made by a company called Silver-King. Its called SCQUIK. Its really good for cleaning rust and scale from the inside of the syst. It can solve a lot of problems, you can get it a Plumbing supply store.

The old-timers used lemon juice or apple vineager to clean steam sys. Dirty steam can plug up airvent as well.
_al Leone Plumbing Corp. Peabody Ma.

Unknown

sort of

The vinegar was used to lower the pH after using a cleaner that raised the pH to the point that it foamed.

The acids stopped the foaming.

Noel