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Large radiator

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fabaze12
fabaze12 Member Posts: 25
in Strictly Steam
I have a large radiator in my living room. The bottom third is often cold. The top never gets as hot as the others around the house. What's interesting is that it has 2 steam vents on it. An adjustable vent-rite about half of the way up and what looks like a straight vent right at the top of the radiator. Is this set up correctly?

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  • gfrbrookline
    gfrbrookline Member Posts: 753
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    No, the top vent is for hot water systems to bleed the air out. Does it let steam out of the radiator or is it turned off? If it is turned off you can leave it alone, if not remove it and plug the hole.

    What is the vent-rite set to?
  • fabaze12
    fabaze12 Member Posts: 25
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    @gfrbrookline, I'm not sure If it is off. Right after we moved in, whenever the boiler ran, we noticed a haze in our living room. We thought it was the paint burning off the radiators. They were just painted recently. I wonder if it was steam.

    Why would someone put that straight vent there. Strange....


    I believe we have the vent-rite set to 8. We tried a few different settings with the same results.

    We have a smaller one in our dining that never really gets hot unless we crank the TStat to 72.
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,286
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    Just remember that the question isn't "does the radiator get hot", it's "is the room comfortable".
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    ksd99
  • Alan (California Radiant) Forbes
    Alan (California Radiant) Forbes Member Posts: 4,002
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    My guess is that that radiator was once on a hot water system and after it moved to your house, no one bothered to remove the manual air vent. Your house is at least 100 years old, no? Lots can happen in that time.
    8.33 lbs./gal. x 60 min./hr. x 20°ΔT = 10,000 BTU's/hour

    Two btu per sq ft for degree difference for a slab

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