steam, long cycling?

Mark_71

I have an old house, two story, 9 iron radiators, 150k-200k? btu gas boiler. It seems to fire for a long time, say 30 min continuous. The quick vents worked, the pipes in the basement all got hot in about 10-15min, and gradually, the radiators heated. It did not reach 2psi, and some radiators were only halfway hot and letting out cool air, when i gave up on testing it after about 20-30 min, and shut it down. Does this sound ok, efficient? Should I set the heat anticipator on the thermostat to kill the flame after like 15-20 min? Seems like this might save me money, yes, no? change anything else? Maybe this is normal.

Jamie Hall

Something's not right

I'm not an expert -- building super, which means I don't know much about a lot of stuff and have banged up knuckles. However, unless those radiators are huge (like really really huge) you should have more than enough boiler capacity to heat them all up nice and toasty in about 15 minutes.

Not sure where I'd start. Sounds like a regular steam system (not vapour). Pressure's OK. Are all the steam lines insulated? Are you sure you're getting that BTU output out of the burner? (Call a qualified tech on that)

The experts will figure it out for you...