Hello,
I own a 90 year old home that has 10 one pipe steam cast iron radiators and two radiators that look like a baseboard steam system. I've been adding water to the boiler about every 10 days during the heating season since I've bought the house two years ago; when it's really cold (single digits) I add water every few days. A repair man showed me every radiator in my house has a problem or two; steam is either puffing out the sides of my vents, continuously escaping through the vent, or water is bubbling up where you screw the vent into the radiator. The valves that are leaking are mostly leaking from the nut located below the valve handle though one radiator is leaking from the nut on the horizontal piece going to the radiator. My finished 3rd floor radiator barely warms up. The pipe coming out of the floor gets hot/warm but the room itself is cold and you can comfortably hold the radiator fins. The repair estimate was $1,300. I was shocked enough by the price but even more so once I realized he wasn't repairing anything; he was simply swapping out my old vents and valves for new ones. I don't know if I'm being taken advantage of because I'm a woman or not but I've decided to take on this project myself. I tried boiling a few of the vents in vinegar and though that helped it didn't 100% fix the problem. So my questions are: 1. How do I know which size vents to buy to balance my system? 2. How can you tell the size of the vents when you are buying them? 3. How realistic is it to remove the nuts from 90 year old valves with a rusty pipe wrench and no help? 4. Which vent should I buy for the baseboard? It looks like the vent there is missing because steam pours out of that end. There is a door that you have to lift up to see where the vent should go. Because of the door the normal bullet shaped ones won't fit.
I own a 90 year old home that has 10 one pipe steam cast iron radiators and two radiators that look like a baseboard steam system. I've been adding water to the boiler about every 10 days during the heating season since I've bought the house two years ago; when it's really cold (single digits) I add water every few days. A repair man showed me every radiator in my house has a problem or two; steam is either puffing out the sides of my vents, continuously escaping through the vent, or water is bubbling up where you screw the vent into the radiator. The valves that are leaking are mostly leaking from the nut located below the valve handle though one radiator is leaking from the nut on the horizontal piece going to the radiator. My finished 3rd floor radiator barely warms up. The pipe coming out of the floor gets hot/warm but the room itself is cold and you can comfortably hold the radiator fins. The repair estimate was $1,300. I was shocked enough by the price but even more so once I realized he wasn't repairing anything; he was simply swapping out my old vents and valves for new ones. I don't know if I'm being taken advantage of because I'm a woman or not but I've decided to take on this project myself. I tried boiling a few of the vents in vinegar and though that helped it didn't 100% fix the problem. So my questions are: 1. How do I know which size vents to buy to balance my system? 2. How can you tell the size of the vents when you are buying them? 3. How realistic is it to remove the nuts from 90 year old valves with a rusty pipe wrench and no help? 4. Which vent should I buy for the baseboard? It looks like the vent there is missing because steam pours out of that end. There is a door that you have to lift up to see where the vent should go. Because of the door the normal bullet shaped ones won't fit.
