our house is leaking and flooding because of the radiator system

Michelle Pham

Hi,

My roommates and I are college students renting out an old house (built in the 1920s). We believe our landlord does very little with maintenance with the house and the past few weeks, we have begun seeing major problems. First, a pipe burst in one person's room, soaking her bed and forcing her to move out. Just today, various radiators in the house have begun squirting water and leaking down into the rooms below. We have several rooms with leaks, puddles, and flooding, and we are having major problems with our landlord being helpful.

Our maintenance man came and looked at everything and told us the problem was that the radiators had not been bled in years, and air built up in the system was causing problems. He said there shouldn't be air in the system. He said the problems were beyond him and that a lot of the pipes in the house had to be replaced so he had our landlord call the oil/heating company to come take a look. The guy from the heating company just came and after looking at the system said it was a steam system and the problem was that there was too much water in the system. He said there is no need to replace any pipes.

What's going on? We have just been told two opposite things and we don't want our landlord to get out of fixing the real problems because he wants to just go after what is easiset and cheapest for him. We don't want a temporary solution that might lead to larger problems along the way. Two of our beds have become soaked with water, next time it could happen onto expensive computer or music systems which could not be salvaged by water damage. How do you tell between a hydronic raidator system and a steam system?

Help! Thank you so much.

Steamhead

That's easy

If there is only one pipe connected to each radiator (which usually includes a shutoff valve), and a vent (which may be round or bullet-shaped) about halfway up the other end, it's steam.

If there are two pipes connected to each radiator, and there is a vent at the very top of one end that is operated by a small key, it's hot water.

If there are two pipes and no vent at all, or a vent (which may be round or bullet-shaped) about halfway up one end, it's steam.

If you're still not sure, take some pics of a couple of radiators and the boiler in the basement, and post them here. We can identify them.

From your posting, I think the oil man might be right. Steam is a great system when it's running properly, but you have to know what you're doing to make it run properly. You might try the Find a Professional page of this site to locate a good steam man near you. If you're in the Baltimore area, contact me.



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