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October 28, 2009
Those Clanging Pipes
Not a brownstone question, but a familiar problem: clanging pipes in a coop building. How to figure out where the problem lies? I hear a lot of it in my bedroom, even though I never have the heat on there. (enough ambient heat)
It is steam heat, the radiators have those little valves, should I ask management to get all the radiators in that line checked out?
Comments
It's rarely ever a radiator problem. Most often the cause of banging in a steam system is found in the horizontal main piping or by failed steam traps or boiler controls.
Posted by: Master Plvmber at October 27, 2009 11:37 PM
It could be that you should vent the radiators in your bedroom that have never been turned on. Expansion/contraction might've built up air pockets. (But Master P knows a lot more than I do.)
Posted by: Arkady at October 28, 2009 9:36 AM
Get it fixed fast before the clanging bursts a joint and you are drip dripping with water!!
(How's that for an alarmist response?)
Posted by: tybur6 at October 28, 2009 10:17 AM
it is the condensate water leaving the radiators and the steam that is trying to get in that are fighting. are your valves all the way open? if they are not open them....if this doesn't help then your the rust from the radiator has junked up the valve and reduced the opening, thus restricting space there and causing banging (are your radiators getting hot?)
Posted by: Emperium at October 28, 2009 11:03 AM
Google waterhammer
Posted by: jasetheace at October 28, 2009 11:06 AM
I have the problem here in my house with a radiator that I tilted more than enough to drain all the water from. Still, banging. I spoke to a boilerman - a real bolierman - and he asked me if I'd ever disconnected the radiator, which I had. He also asked me if it had banged before I disconnected it (it hadn't). He sumised that the pipe had shifted below the floor and that water had settled in the pipe and can't flow out. He explained that it only takes a very little bit of trapped water to cause banging. Also, the banging in my house is in the pipes, yet sounds like it is coming from the radiator.
Steve
Posted by: thetinkerswagon at October 30, 2009 6:41 PM
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