Steam radiator with identity crisis (noisy, spitting water)

Hi all We came back from a couple of weeks away to find out that a couple of our one-pipe steam radiators are having an identity crisis. They are making a loud sound, almost like a washing machine (water churning). Difficult to pinpoint exactly where it’s coming from within the radiator or pipes. Also, they have “spat” some of the lovely, brown radiator water out of the air vent. We recently had the boiler converted from oil to gas, but can’t see how this would be the cause. Any thoughts? Am I totally wrong on that? Could it be an obstruction stopping the condensate draining? (Is it normal for the water to be brown) Or pitch issues? Something else entirely? Thanks AussieBen

aussieben

in Radiators 10 years and 4 months ago

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ellenlourie | 10 years and 3 months ago

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I will do everything needed for proper boiler installation, and customer who appreciate this, will pay premium for job done right, with no corners cut. This is how I see it.

steam_man | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Well you all can go ahead and include skimming in your price. I don’t see how skimming with just water is going to remove any appreciable oil. So then you will have to dump TSP in the system and deal with the time and effort involved in that. Great.

ellenlourie | 10 years and 3 months ago

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When I say we, I mean myself and team of professionals employed by my company. in the beginning of the video it said Gill and so on. I did not pretend it was my video. Youtube, you know.

Master Plvmber | 10 years and 3 months ago

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When you say “we”, who are you referring to? The video is of that plumber, Gill, that is known for doing his own independent testing on steam traps and air vents and published the results.

ellenlourie | 10 years and 4 months ago

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This is what we accepted as a standard procedure. But we went even further. Quality of the water and steam in the steam heating system is a key factor to the efficiency of heating system. I know for a fact, based on my experience that oil in the water is affecting surging and water properties. When boiler sections are machined at the factory, they are in the bath of oil, mixed with cast iron filings. All of this must be removed.

steam_man | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Gennady, Thanks for that link. I don’t even know what to say about it. Nothing new there and certainly not something I’m going to do in a townhouse basement. I’m not sure what good it did anyway. -S.

ellenlourie | 10 years and 4 months ago

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interesting video about brand new boiler. http://youtu.be/q1tw9rz-pUk

steam_man | 10 years and 4 months ago

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I’m going to stir up some shit right here. I have installed A LOT of tea kettles in people’s homes and I have never skimmed the boiler. So f that. Never had a call back. Pipe it correctly, clean your threads and pipe ends, don’t work like a slob and you’re not going to have “oil in the system”. As for what comes from the factory..I have never had an issue. 9/10 times surging and return issues are caused by improper piping. Go ahead boys, rip me apart.

ellenlourie | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Skimmimg is extremely important and must be done right. It might be extremely time consuming process. Another very important aspect is properly done near boiler piping. Near boiler piping essentially is a steam separator, and provides dry steam. if near boiler piping is done wrong, you will have a lot of carry over water pushed into your system. look up boiler installation manual, there is a page with detailed diagram of near boiler piping with sized and dimensions. It must be implemented to the letter.

Master Plvmber | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Skimming, although a form of cleaning a boiler is time consuming and vastly different from flushing or draining a boiler. It only happens by opening a dedicated “skim port” valve provided by the installer, not the manufacturer, so that oils that lay on top of the water find their way out. Draining the boiler just makes them stick to the sides until refilled. If your installer didn’t provide a full-size skim port valve, you got an incomplete installation. The amount of flushing and draining your boiler requires depends on several factors, an important one is the type of low water cut off device(s) you’ve got. Too much to get into here.

kensny | 10 years and 4 months ago

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The boiler if working correctly should not have too much water in it. You should try to identify the reason why it was too full (or have the installer do that). The boiler should have a sight glass and somewhere it should be marked (or in the manual) what the approx correct level of water will be which will be somewhere within the range of the sight glass. Most (many) but not all boilers have an automatic feeder that adds water when the level gets too low. This should not happen often unless there is a serious leak in the system. The feeder must be working properly. The water level in the boiler will vary somewhat – when the steam is “up” there will be less water but it shouldn’t be low enough at that point to trigger on the auto feeder. If that were to happen repeatedly the result would be too much water and then the problem is one of design, boiler sizing, or setup. Probably what I would do is to watch the boiler water level each day or several times a day to see if somehow it is overfilling. Again the system if set up correctly and working correctly should need very little additional water and should run without attention assuming it has an auto feeder to add small amounts of water when needed. I have steam boiler in a 5 story brownstone and it will run all winter without any particular attention ( I do check it periodically, etc but the point is the system runs without my having to do anything). If you get too much water repeatedly, something is wrong.

aussieben | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Thanks again for all the input to date. as a brief update, drained a few buckets of water (nasty brown) yesterday afternoon, to lower the water level, and have not had overflow from the air vents since. Have the installers coming over Monday afternoon to clean the system (maybe they didn’t when they installed it), and will ask them to double-check the pitch of radiators while they are here. So one key questions is: is cleaning the system the same as “skimming” it that I’ve seen people refer to? And moving forward, what kind of regular maintenance do I need to perform myself to prevent a recurrence of this problem? Just drain a bucket or two of water every month? Few weeks? Or something more complicated? Thanks AB

Master Plvmber | 10 years and 4 months ago

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1-pipe steam radiators won’t drain well at all if sitting level especially if a reducing bushing is used on the valved inlet side. Horizontal bushings hold back water. It is necessary to pitch 1-pipe radiators so that the valved end is lower than the other end, which should have a vent mounted at about its midpoint. Side note: If your steam radiator has a vent screwed into the side of it near the top, you’re not getting the full benefit of that radiator. 2-pipe-system radiators do ok when level because they are pressurized from one side and both steam and condensate move together. Still, a small amount of pitch does a lot of good.

kensny | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Thank you for that correction. My mistake. So the question is, if a radiator is level on top, is that adequate to drain the water (condensed steam) from the radiator, or should the radiator be pitched (sloped) slightly towards the steam pipe ?

slopefarm | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Hey, MP, Glad you’re still around keeping us amateurs in line!

Master Plvmber | 10 years and 4 months ago

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This statement:

> “Note: radiators are constructed with internal pitch in the bottom, so that a radiator the top of which is level is OK”

is completely false. Please don’t repeat that to anybody. If radiators had “internal pitch” then each section would have to be different and made to individual specs. That doesn’t happen. Every section of every specific radiator is the same except for end sections which generally have legs and pipe tappings vs intermediate sections which do not. The top of the radiator directly indicates its internal pitch.

aussieben | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Thanks Eman. Pressuretrol set to 1.5 PSI, which my limited understanding suggests is about right? Entirely possible the guys that did the conversion (it was part of a larger renovation) did not skim. Have them coming over, hopefully early next week, to review level, do a thorough clean of the system (assume this covers the skimming) and will have them double check pitch as part of it. But if that doesn’t solve things, may well look up your details later in the piece. Thanks Ben

kensny | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Another possibility – found on this website: “Newer boilers need to be skimmed to get rid of the oil used in manufacturing that lies on top of the water, which prevents steam from rising and moving toward the pipes and radiators.” (just noticed the previous post mentioned this also. Perhaps he’s even the person I quoted). I’m not a pro.

eman134 | 10 years and 4 months ago

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It sounds like the condensate in your system is not leaving the radiators between steam cycles.Backpitched radiators are a possibility, as are steam radiator valves that are not fully open. You might also check the pressuretrol setting…if set too high it may be pushing wet steam out of your boiler. I am a heating system specialist,if you need a site visit my info is on my profile, but I am way overbooked right now. Did your OTG conversion skim the boiler after installation?