Cold Steam Riser – Top Floor
Hello, I recently moved into a top story (4th floor) railroad apartment. We have steam heat in a single-pipe system. The radiators in most of the rooms put out tons of heat, to the extent that we have to crack windows sometimes (the thermostat is in a ground floor apt. so not affected). The only…
Hello,
I recently moved into a top story (4th floor) railroad apartment. We have steam heat in a single-pipe system.
The radiators in most of the rooms put out tons of heat, to the extent that we have to crack windows sometimes (the thermostat is in a ground floor apt. so not affected). The only room we have no heat in is the bathroom. The bathroom gets freezing.
There is a steam riser in the bathroom with a valve at the top of it (pic attached). The valve is a Gorton D. The riser never gets warm. I can hear gurgling noises from the riser and only a small amount of air seems to be coming up.
I unscrewed the valve and blew through it, it’s not clogged. Reading other posts here, I suspect that condensation has blocked it. Does that sound right?
I can get into the basement to check things out if needed. When I moved in there was a supervisor, but he messed up a ton of stuff so the landlord fired him. There’s no Super now and the landlord lives in Jersey and rarely comes around. If there’s something I can do to even narrow the problem down, it would help get it solved a lot faster!
Please advise, and thank you.
Hannah
If you can get to the basement, try to locate the horizontal steam main piping that leads to that riser. It should slope in a consistent way that allows condensate to return to the boiler. If you see any low points where condensate would get trapped/pool, that could be part of the problem (in addition to the inadequate venting).
You could, with somebody at the boiler control remove the vent and start the boiler. If it is a vent problem the heat should come up pretty quickly. You’ll feel the heat in the riser before much steam escapes the riser through the vent hole. Turn the boiler off at that point unless you want a ready made steam room.
That is a radiator air vent which is not meant to provide a means of escape for the air in a two-inch, 4-story pipe like you have there at all. Steam displaces the air.
Obviously there is a bigger picture to consider, but what you may need is to have that radiator vent replaced with a riser vent. Those are much bigger and kind of expensive. I guess you’ll have to take it up with the landlord.
I should mention that there is no real down side to having vents like you have on the riser, but to make any real difference in how the system performs, you would need to use several of them.
Me:
http://www.GatewayPlumbing.com