Uneven steam heat in 6 unit Apartment house

Michael DiMenna

The 6 apartment building each unit with aprox 1700 Sq Ft. the building has a central staircase with the thermostat on the third floor and the hall radiartor on the first. The thermostat gets satisfied before the apts get warm. The first and second floor apts. seem to get warm slower. The third floor get warm faster. The pressure trol was set at Two lbs. but was at 5 lbs. It seems that the hall radiator is too big and heats up the hall too fast. We used 800 gallons of oil in Baltimore in December and ran out. I did notice a great volume of white smoke out the chimney. What do you think. I do know the piping on the boiler is not factoty spec and the boiler is blown off when not running. The Oil guy set the presure back to 5lbs because the two floors were coller that the third. HELP>

Dale

Great mental image

I really liked the colder equals more pressure logic. I think Dan once said that the empire state bld in manhattan has a 5 pound steam system. If the white smoke means you're adding alot of water the first thing to do is to check that the low water cut off works and will shut the burner off on low water. Next have someone overfill the off warm boiler to see if there's a leak at the water line, if so you get new and hopefully like the picture near boiler piping with the new boiler. If boiler is OK do your mains run up then down or just up? When you have that discovered the working main vent issue can be explored. If life is really good you can get a stat control rad vent for the hall to keep the output down and that will be all you need.

Long Beach Ed

Books are written...

They write books about this stuff. I'm a landlord with similar buildings that you describe. Heating systems need attention and service. Unfortunately, few plumbers venture out of the boiler room to service and balance steam systems. Then even the boiler piping is often hopelessly messed up which gives more problems. It all results in higher oil bills.

Unless you care to find a plumber who is very well versed in steam hear and is willing to venture out of the boiler room, buy some books and begin learning yourself.

If you work at it, you can get fine hear from that system and low bills...

Long Beach Ed

Steamhead

Mike, I'm in Baltimore

and have dealt with similar situations. Call our office at (410) 821-3997, or the house (The Lovely Naoko doesn't mind) at (410) 466-8116, or e-mail at steam.head@verizon.net . We can help you.

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