Wall Steam Stain?

tom_54

Been in the house two years. Had my share of steam related problems but this is a first. Along the wall leading to the second floor is what looks like a water stain. Of course behind the wall is the insulated steam pipe. This just appeared today. Is it steam or water? Has anyone seen this before?

tom_54

Here is a picture

Joe_50

You need to open that up...

Being there is a steam line in there you need to open the wall. Chances are likely that there is a 90 turning to get above the ceiling and the threads at that fitting have rotted through.

J.C.A._3

Before opening the wall,

Either check or have someone check for you all the fittings on the radiator first. It isn't unheard of for a union to come loose or a packing nut leak on a valve after a few years.

If all is well there, then and only then, is it time to open the wall. Chris

jackchips_2

I'm with Chris.

Water flows down so you always start at the highest possible location where a leak could begin and follow it down. You may get lucky and it's out of the wall.

Good luck.

Unknown

Its hard to tell

but based on the shape of the stain and that this appears to be an exterior wall, it almost looks like a steam leak at a lower point that is rising up in the partition and expanding in width as it does so. Either way, the wall will really have to be opened up to make the determination. I would think that if it were a leak at the higher point that there would be stain on the ceiling where the pipe offsets in to feed the radiator above and that doesn't appear to be the case. Hope this helps.

Glenn Stanton

Manager of Training

Burnham Hydronics

www.burnham.com

tom_54

Thank you all

for you responses. When we first noticed it we toouched it and it wasn't wet at all. The pipe in the wall when it gets to the second floor does come back in running parallel to the floor to feed the radiator in the bedroom. I crawled around in the space above the porch/wall and I didn't see any signes of leaking water. I will see if it gets any worse over the next couple of days.

I am hesitant to open up the wall because the pipe is insulated with asbestos (as best I can tell). I will keep you all posted.

John Shea

Just respectfully disagreeing.



I certainly don't want to make any bets Glenn, but my take is that the steam would condense almost immediately and run down that thick plaster (looks like) crown. Then, the top part of the plaster being thinner, absorbs most of the condensate.

If it's not at the radiator, I think it would be just above the top plate of the wall. I'd go for the ceiling and try to limit removal to 16" (between joists). If it is plaster, make it easy and try to stay away from that crown. (or even if it's wood for that matter)

I hope this helps as well, tom.

tom_54

Thanks John....

Fortunately it's not plaster. I have no problem removing the sheet rock. I am just nervous about the asbestos insulation. At some point I have to have this riser fixed because at the point after the riser turns and runs parallel to the floor before rising 8 inches to the radiator, it is too high. So high in fact that the end of the radiator closest to the valve does not even touch the floor. It was this way when I bought the house. Though there was a rug before I removed it. The previous owners were very poor stewards of that which kept them warm in the winter.

eileen

very poor stewards indeed

poor stewards of everything in this house, but it is our heating system that gets to my husband every time! he can deal with the bad windows and the lack of insulation in our walls, and the zillions of other things that we shake our head about daily and ask WHY (they spliced two live wires together in our wall w/o a junction box) but that darned furnace and the problems it has drives him crazy. thank you for your advice. i hope we don't have to take the wall down yet, the living room is the only intact room in the house at this moment in time!

and yes, it's not plaster, it's sheetrock, and the moulding is just wood covered in about 200 coats of paint. i love old houses.... it is an outside wall too, but to an encolosed front porch, it's not exposed to the elements.

Unknown

Thanks John

But like I said...its hard to tell. The thing that does stick out is that there is no staining on the ceiling. That pretty well rules out anything in the offset piping from the wall riser to the radiator.

Glenn Stanton

Manager of Training

Burnham Hydronics

www.burnham.com