Noisey Radiater

Kevin_40

I know nothing of radiator heating systems. Please help me!! My girlfriend and I have a 2 bedroom apt. In the living room there is a pipe running from the floor throuh the ceiling. We are on the second floor of the bldg. Next to that pipe is radiator. Both the radiator and the pipe get hot. This is not sufficient to heat the living room and kitchen area at all. Also, in each bedroom there are two pipes running from floor to ceiling as well...one pipe gets hot on doesn't in each room. The hot pipe in the back bedroom made horribly loud banging sounds upon beginning to heat up. We had radiators put in the bedrooms. The guys attatched the radiators to the hot pipes in each room. This has improved the heating however, the back bedroom's radiator is unbelievably loud. The pipe itself makes strikingly loud bangs only a few times...but then the radiator rattles real loud for a long time. We can't get any sleep because of this. Can anyone help me with this. The maintenance people don't seem to think it's a problem..I do obviously.

Len_8

Noisey Radiater

Just recently bought all new Gorton radiator vents for my one pipe system. Been hereing all the talk that they are the best out on the market. I had maid o mist on them. had really no noise what to speak of. But when i put these gortons on and their was hissing going on when the boiler ran, when it shut down their would be one big whoosh of air out of one rad. I put the maid o mist back on a couple of radiater and they were quit again. I left 2 gortons in my bedroom their is 2 radiators in there. One radiator is quit ,the other will hiss the hole time the boiler is running and even awhile after the boiler shuts off. I have my main vented in the basement and all pipes are insulated. I feel like i wasted my money on whats supposed to be the cadillac of radiator vents. any thoughts. thanks

EF

Similar question

Here's a question that may be related: on our single-pipe system, there are noisy vents too. The mains are well vented and the system is set to cut in at 0.5 psi and max of 2 psi. It seems the radiator vents quietly vent the radiator which becomes hot and _then_ start hissing. I expected to see the system up around 2 psi at this point but the gauge showed it was just barely coming off of 0.5 psi. So my basic question is about vents that start hissing after they seem to have done their job and seem to have closed (i think I hear one click shut...is that possible?). Some of these vents are vari-vents that are a year or two old.

Steve Garson_2

I'm going to bring this to the top of the list, since I have been faced with the same noisy vent problem. I've noticed that I only hear the whistling when the radiator is hot. Does this mean the vents (1 year old Gortons) are bad? Shouldn't they close when they get steam? I've been spending lots of time skimming my boiler in hope of stopping this problem and I wonder if the vents have been damaged from the new boiler.

Steamhead (in transit)

Jimmy, my first question

would be- are your steam mains vented properly? Measure their length and diameter and tell us what vent is on each one- we can advise you.

To all three of you, Jimmy, EF and Steve- if your boilers are sized properly they might (still) be dirty.

I recently went to look over a boiler I'd installed several years ago with my old company. The pigtail and sight glass were plugged with sludge- good thing it has a probe LWCO! I ended up literally hosing that boiler out and then skimming it for three hours to get all the sludge and oil out. What a mess! We'd put several 2-inch plugs on it for just this reason. I was getting tennis-ball-sized globs of sludge that wouldn't have come out any other way. Note: this really is a job for a pro. If you hose out a hot boiler you can crack it.

All of this goo was out in the system when the boiler was installed. As the new boiler steamed, the mess was washed back thru the returns and ended up in the boiler.

When I finally restarted the boiler, the water level in the glass was much steadier and it steamed much more quickly. The system was dead-quiet, but I'm not sure if it was hissing before or how badly.

If you have a hissing vent problem, the cause is usually somewhere else in the system. Keep looking, you'll find it.

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viccipe

Vapor Stat for air problem

Gentleman,

I am thinking instead of working system at 1/2 psi why not work it at onces per sq. inch?

this will substantial reduce velocity of steam travel but also reduce enrgy cost....while dare i say increase comfort levels.

A vaporstat is not that expensive and it will allow your one pipe system to work more effectively.

In addition I recommend large open air valve on top floor and smaller openings on bottom.

Make sure radiator is pitched towards one pipe feed.

EF_2

vents

Steamhead- thanks for the info. The mains are well vented- Hoffman #75.
As steam starts up, they silently vent. I feel the mains warm up as the steam rapidly comes to the #75 which then closes. (I obstruct the #75 with my thumb to get it to make a little sound so I can tell when it's open/closed).

I'm not understanding how the dirty boiler would relate to our problem. The key thing is that the radiator valves seem to close but then start hissing a little while later. If they were always hissing I could understand they might have crud in them. Ahhhh. Is that your point? Are you thinking there's a little crud in them so they close well enough to hold off half a pound but not, say, 1 pound and then start hissing?

EF_2

Viccipe- thanks. Is replacing a presurtrol with a vapor stat something i homeowner could expect to do?

We vent pretty much as you describe but you've reminded me of something I forgot to mention. One of the hissing radiators is the biggest radiator in the house AND the monster sits at the end of about 95 miles of plumbing. There's a long runout from the main and then two storeys of riser. I'll bet there's as much air there as in the mains, yet it all has to get shoved out of the radiator vent. I've read about putting two vents on a radiator, but I keep wondering if even that would do it and am curious if anyone ever cobbles a mains vent onto a radiator that is sitting at the end of so much pipe. I know it would be sitting on a small nipple which will cripple it to some extent, but it also doesn't have to be so fast as the mains either (?).