Stationary engineer here and the proud owner of a steam system. Thanks for bridging some of the gaps I had between industrial and residential steam. After watching this I will be setting my vents to get the furthest radiator a little warmer rather than raising my pressure hahah. Thanks Gordon.
Funny I was thinking the same thing. I never see pressure on my gauge, but I never hear steam leaking anywhere and I’ve walked down the system many times. Brand new boiler, last one had a failed heat exchanger
Just watch your “why no pressure” video and it all makes sense haha. From my industry experience running equipment is set to run at 12 o clock on the gauge for the accuracy you mentioned. I was not considering that 12 o clock on my residential gauge makes it a high pressure boiler in my state and my boiler would never come close to it. I was not familiar with residential operating pressures and expected to see SOMETHING on my gauge but I suppose you’re right, at such low psi with a gauge that’s comparatively high you wouldn’t necessarily see any pressure. Thanks. Now I’m off to find your video on main vents haha
@@gordonschweizer5154 hey here's an update. My instructor is using your videos for instruction at the General Society of Mechanics and tradesmen. That's quite the honor. Everyone was amazed when I started telling them about your Baltimore district steam work. They think only nyc has district steam. Well anyways I hope you're flattered.
@@Monaco_mechanical Thanks! I hope those videos don't put them to sleep 😆! I'm half serious. 50% of my watchers have clicked away within the first 2 minutes on most of my videos. Keeps me honest and humble. But thank you very much for that update. I really do appreciate it and I strive to be better and make more useful videos.
You're an artist. I wish I could've been your apprentice. Im going to try to start making my own videos of work. I don't some really fun big jobs in NYC. Maybe you'll see me in your suggestions one day 😉
Hard to see the pig tail from the camera angle. My mistake. Anyway, your videos are very good, and I look forward to watching more. Thanks, Christopher
Gordon. My pressurestrol is turned down all the way and shuts off at 3.5 psi. It was running over 10 psi can you believe it? I don't know how long the previous owner let it ran at over 10 psi. I bought a vaporstat and it's labeled in Ounce and kPa. You mentioned 1 pound.what should my vaporstat Diff and Main setting be to get 1 pound?
The "gray box" PA4040 pressuretrol is a fairly precise control, but not very accurate. The settings on that control are the "cut-in" , that's the scale in front, which, as you know, should be all the way to the bottom and the differential wheel on the inside, which should be set to the number "1", so the control is "additive". Vaporstats are set up differently. The scale on the right, set by the larger of the two screws on top, sets the high limit. and the differential scale on the left is *subtractive*, so, in theory, if you set the high limit to max - 16 oz/in2 - and the differential to 6 oz/in2, it should reset and fire the boiler when the pressure drops below 16 minus 6 = 10 oz/in2.
Since I turned the pressure low, the fire hasn't kicked in. The steam heater is supposed to support the second floor, but I turned it down because the water kept evaporating without any visible leaks.
First, is your "pigtail" clear of blockage? Next, sometimes the p'trol will not reset if turned down too low. Turn up the pressure just a bit to see if it will fire.
Should I increase my different ? Not to forget that the reason I turned it all down was because the water kept drying up and the water feeder kept flashing
Hi Gordon, I had my old oil burner replaced with a slant Fin gxha 120 and since then I have been learning a on about steam heating and I am about to pick up the "art of steam " and start reading that. I do believe these cheap pressuretrols are not accurate, I had to kick up my honeywell by a 1 or 1.5lb. Others recommend replacing it with the upgraded honeywell units like L404F1367. Much thanks and I enjoy your videos.
Thank you for your kind words! The PA404 that comes with steam boilers does have issues, don't get me wrong, but I would say, for the price point, its not all *that* bad. The L404F1367 certainly looks more impressive, it is more expensive(?), but is it "better" than the more humble 404? I'm not convinced and reserve judgement on that issue. The reason I made this video was because I had just recently seen local police photos of a person who died partly due to high steam pressure from a residential boiler. I will not go into details, but I will say what has been seen cannot be unseen. Watch the video again with that in mind and "hear" what I don't say.
@@gordonschweizer5154 that's always the scary stuff with pressure related stuff. My pressuretrol does nothing at the .5. I let the system completely cool down and had it off for some time. Turned it on and slowly adjusted the pressuretrol untill it kicked on. The issue I am seeing with my system is that it runs for 10-15 mins and then turns off for 5 or so minuets. I didn't have this issue when I had my oil furnace, that thing would stay on until it hit temperature or I turned it off. Unfortunately the oil tank took up too much space in my basement and the furnace sounded like an airplane when it was on.
@@gordonschweizer5154 so, I have 2 different types of rads. 1 is brand new cast iron and the other 3 are the aluminum fin style ones. The cast iron is very quiet and since I moved the air vent to the center and put a vent rite adjustable one , it now heats evenly with no cold spots. The 3 upstairs are the aluminum fin ones and I believe they heat up evenly, the 1 in my bedroom might need a new air vent since I seen some water come out of it. Over all no water hammers (THANK GOD). Actually, I did hear some water noise in my bedroom rad, I just pitched it up a tad bit more. 2nd floor. My room has a gorton D, the back room has hoffman 43 and the center room does not have markings, though looks like the hoffman. Oh and my main is a gorton 1, Im not consumed by the steam boiler world and am reading up on everything, crawling heatinghelp.com
It might help if you figured out your load (post your sizes and shapes on heatinghelp) and see if your boiler is oversized? If so, you might be able to get a tech out to downfire (slightly) your gas boiler? Do you have good main steam vents on your system? Those convector style heaters (aluminum fin) tend to heat up quickly, generate a fair amount of condensate, and cool off quickly relative to the cast iron type. Sometimes, if the riser can be vented (if accessible), then the convectors can be vented with slower vents. Gorton D is a really large vent to put on any radiator, it gets the steam in, for sure, but the condensate has to get past it to get back to the boiler. It also sounds like your p-trol is failing at the low end, an unusual failure, but not unheard of. Maybe teak the cut-in another half a turn to increase the run time without upping the pressure too much.
We found out a bit later that this pressuretrol was off by about one psi even after adjusting it as shown in the video. (Still better than leaving it at 8 psi, methinks) Thank you for checking and reporting on your pressuretrol. Good on you, sir!
@@gordonschweizer5154 After installing a 3psi gauge I saw that it was off too (higher than .5psi). I was able to tinker a little with the adjustment indicator in the pressuretrol so it bottoms out lower.
Hi. very new to residential steam over here but I have operated large boilers in the past. Our was set to 7psi with a 5 differential. I noticed when we moved in that the burner seemed to run abnormality long and wasn't cutting off at all untill thermostat was satisfied. I tried lowering to 0.5-2 psi with a differential at 1, then 2. The boiler now cycles on for 1.5 minutes and off for 1 minute. I read that my boiler could be oversized, but untill replacement, should I just increase differential untill cycle is a little longer?
Are you firing with oil? You may try to have it down-fired. Residential steam heating systems were designed around the "2 psi standard". Other steam heating systems only need 1/2 psi. 7 + 5 psi is crab steamer pressure!
It is oil fired. Slant Fin LD 40 with a Riello 40 burner. Mechanical return system with a condensate tank/pump. Convection style Finn rads built into the walls. The boiler is for 592 sqft of steam. 3000sqft house with a total of 12 radiators medium sized rads in Atlantic Canada. I currently have things set to 2psi cut it and 3 diff. This is at least keeoing the cycling down to 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off. The total call heating time with cycles included(Nest) is 3-4 hours a day, currently with daytime high around 40f and nighttime lows of 22f. It's gets a bit colder in January/feb but not to much. So acual burner time would just be slightly over half this time with the 3 minutes on, 2 off..... About 2-2.25 hours I would say. Boiler is quite old I believe.
I feel like with the age and condition of the boiler, I may be wise to have it replaced soon. It's a 87 year old house but with efficiency changes over the years, windows, insulation, draft control... The old girl might be way over sized.
With the high pressures you seem to be operating at, it does seem the unit was over-sized. That is all too common, and often occurred when transitioning from coal to oil. The old coal-fired boiler had to be huge to hold the big pile of burning rocks, and a properly sized oil boiler would look too small and "wrong" to the installer and the customer of the day! Also, boilers were sized to handle the domestic hot water load sometimes, too! Do all your radiators heat evenly and quietly?
Yes pretty even. I know when we bought the place and first started the heat up, a couple rads were hissing. I think there are 2 very small leaks around the inlet side of the union/threads. I don't here it now that it runs between 0.5-3.5psi. there is also less pipe noise. Just one area I suspect has a sticky trap (Hoffman 17C). I'm looking into replacement, maybe rebuild with tunnsel capsule.
Hi Jim again, I found your video as you suggested to set pressure control as low as possible. I found after dumped some more water, now pressure is 1.0 psi . Good enough?
@@gordonschweizer5154 happy new year GORDON！ do you have a video how to reduce pipe banging or noise when hot water heating (not steam heating) is on ? Thank you so much
@@jimwu1182 You're most welcome! Sorry to say that hot water heating pipes banging is a very unusual issue that we've seldom run into it. The only thing that I can think of would be pipes running through a wall or ceiling penetration through a bound or very tight space being heated very quickly from cool to hot and the pipes expanding in length.
@@jimwu1182 I'd shut down the boiler. Let it cool down. Make sure there is enough water in the system, the system properly pressurized & the expansion tank is not waterlogged.
I have 2 cut in pressure controllers right next to each other, is it like a refrigeration system where one is the cut in and one is cut out? They both are identical and say cut in
As to your question of two pressuretrols right next to each other, I think they are acting in series. That is to say, if one fails to control the pressure, the other one takes over. The problem is, most of the time when wired that way, they are also mounted on one pigtail! Once that pigtail is clogged, its game over.
Stationary engineer here and the proud owner of a steam system. Thanks for bridging some of the gaps I had between industrial and residential steam. After watching this I will be setting my vents to get the furthest radiator a little warmer rather than raising my pressure hahah. Thanks Gordon.
Great! Thanks!
Also, check to make sure your steam main venting is up to snuff.
Funny I was thinking the same thing. I never see pressure on my gauge, but I never hear steam leaking anywhere and I’ve walked down the system many times. Brand new boiler, last one had a failed heat exchanger
Just watch your “why no pressure” video and it all makes sense haha. From my industry experience running equipment is set to run at 12 o clock on the gauge for the accuracy you mentioned. I was not considering that 12 o clock on my residential gauge makes it a high pressure boiler in my state and my boiler would never come close to it. I was not familiar with residential operating pressures and expected to see SOMETHING on my gauge but I suppose you’re right, at such low psi with a gauge that’s comparatively high you wouldn’t necessarily see any pressure. Thanks. Now I’m off to find your video on main vents haha
I adjusted it almost as you say without knowing, now that I saw your video I am already sure about the correct pressure. Thank you.
I love your videos they always help me on the job
Thanks for your help to new technician.
Thanks a lot your videos do help pretty much 👍🏾
You're welcome!
Thank you so much sir ❤
Most welcome!
Gordon! I thought of you today as I was bolting up a Spence valve. I thoroughly enjoy your videos brother. I hope all is well.
Thanks! You too!
@@gordonschweizer5154 hey here's an update. My instructor is using your videos for instruction at the General Society of Mechanics and tradesmen. That's quite the honor. Everyone was amazed when I started telling them about your Baltimore district steam work. They think only nyc has district steam. Well anyways I hope you're flattered.
@@Monaco_mechanical Thanks!
I hope those videos don't put them to sleep 😆!
I'm half serious. 50% of my watchers have clicked away within the first 2 minutes on most of my videos.
Keeps me honest and humble.
But thank you very much for that update.
I really do appreciate it and I strive to be better and make more useful videos.
You're an artist. I wish I could've been your apprentice. Im going to try to start making my own videos of work. I don't some really fun big jobs in NYC. Maybe you'll see me in your suggestions one day 😉
@@Monaco_mechanical I look forward to that!
Stay safe, brother
Hard to see the pig tail from the camera angle. My mistake. Anyway, your videos are very good, and I look forward to watching more. Thanks, Christopher
I thank you, Sir!
Be well.
I'm surprised that the pressure cutout doesn't have a pig tail pipe connected to the boiler. Any reason why new boilers don't have a pig tail?
But this does have a pigtail.
It might not be visable in this video, but it's there underneath.
Gordon. My pressurestrol is turned down all the way and shuts off at 3.5 psi. It was running over 10 psi can you believe it? I don't know how long the previous owner let it ran at over 10 psi. I bought a vaporstat and it's labeled in Ounce and kPa. You mentioned 1 pound.what should my vaporstat Diff and Main setting be to get 1 pound?
The "gray box" PA4040 pressuretrol is a fairly precise control, but not very accurate.
The settings on that control are the "cut-in" , that's the scale in front, which, as you know, should be all the way to the bottom and the differential wheel on the inside, which should be set to the number "1", so the control is "additive".
Vaporstats are set up differently.
The scale on the right, set by the larger of the two screws on top, sets the high limit.
and the differential scale on the left is *subtractive*, so, in theory, if you set the high limit to max - 16 oz/in2 - and the differential to 6 oz/in2, it should reset and fire the boiler when the pressure drops below 16 minus 6 = 10 oz/in2.
Since I turned the pressure low, the fire hasn't kicked in. The steam heater is supposed to support the second floor, but I turned it down because the water kept evaporating without any visible leaks.
What can I do?.
First, is your "pigtail" clear of blockage?
Next, sometimes the p'trol will not reset if turned down too low.
Turn up the pressure just a bit to see if it will fire.
@@gordonschweizer5154 it fires up when I move the cut in up a bit, although I still have my diff at 1 but my cut in at 2.5
Should I increase my different ? Not to forget that the reason I turned it all down was because the water kept drying up and the water feeder kept flashing
@@asvpjoeyevdo9798 You've gotta find that leak or leaks.
How old is your boiler?
Hi Gordon, I had my old oil burner replaced with a slant Fin gxha 120 and since then I have been learning a on about steam heating and I am about to pick up the "art of steam " and start reading that.
I do believe these cheap pressuretrols are not accurate, I had to kick up my honeywell by a 1 or 1.5lb.
Others recommend replacing it with the upgraded honeywell units like L404F1367.
Much thanks and I enjoy your videos.
Thank you for your kind words!
The PA404 that comes with steam boilers does have issues, don't get me wrong, but I would say, for the price point, its not all *that* bad.
The L404F1367 certainly looks more impressive, it is more expensive(?), but is it "better" than the more humble 404?
I'm not convinced and reserve judgement on that issue.
The reason I made this video was because I had just recently seen local police photos of a person who died partly due to high steam pressure from a residential boiler.
I will not go into details, but I will say what has been seen cannot be unseen.
Watch the video again with that in mind and "hear" what I don't say.
@@gordonschweizer5154 that's always the scary stuff with pressure related stuff.
My pressuretrol does nothing at the .5. I let the system completely cool down and had it off for some time. Turned it on and slowly adjusted the pressuretrol untill it kicked on.
The issue I am seeing with my system is that it runs for 10-15 mins and then turns off for 5 or so minuets.
I didn't have this issue when I had my oil furnace, that thing would stay on until it hit temperature or I turned it off. Unfortunately the oil tank took up too much space in my basement and the furnace sounded like an airplane when it was on.
@@YTSTK89 Do your radiators heat up evenly and quietly?
@@gordonschweizer5154 so, I have 2 different types of rads. 1 is brand new cast iron and the other 3 are the aluminum fin style ones. The cast iron is very quiet and since I moved the air vent to the center and put a vent rite adjustable one , it now heats evenly with no cold spots.
The 3 upstairs are the aluminum fin ones and I believe they heat up evenly, the 1 in my bedroom might need a new air vent since I seen some water come out of it.
Over all no water hammers (THANK GOD).
Actually, I did hear some water noise in my bedroom rad, I just pitched it up a tad bit more.
2nd floor. My room has a gorton D, the back room has hoffman 43 and the center room does not have markings, though looks like the hoffman.
Oh and my main is a gorton 1,
Im not consumed by the steam boiler world and am reading up on everything, crawling heatinghelp.com
It might help if you figured out your load (post your sizes and shapes on heatinghelp) and see if your boiler is oversized?
If so, you might be able to get a tech out to downfire (slightly) your gas boiler?
Do you have good main steam vents on your system?
Those convector style heaters (aluminum fin) tend to heat up quickly, generate a fair amount of condensate, and cool off quickly relative to the cast iron type.
Sometimes, if the riser can be vented (if accessible), then the convectors can be vented with slower vents.
Gorton D is a really large vent to put on any radiator, it gets the steam in, for sure, but the condensate has to get past it to get back to the boiler.
It also sounds like your p-trol is failing at the low end, an unusual failure, but not unheard of.
Maybe teak the cut-in another half a turn to increase the run time without upping the pressure too much.
Gordo…….mine is set to almost the last threads on that cut-in switch……gets me to 1 &1/2 to off, 1/2 back on….PSI, that is.
We found out a bit later that this pressuretrol was off by about one psi even after adjusting it as shown in the video.
(Still better than leaving it at 8 psi, methinks)
Thank you for checking and reporting on your pressuretrol. Good on you, sir!
@@gordonschweizer5154 After installing a 3psi gauge I saw that it was off too (higher than .5psi). I was able to tinker a little with the adjustment indicator in the pressuretrol so it bottoms out lower.
@@Ldall87 Excellent!
Thank you for that feed-back.
Happy steaming & stay safe.
Hi. very new to residential steam over here but I have operated large boilers in the past. Our was set to 7psi with a 5 differential. I noticed when we moved in that the burner seemed to run abnormality long and wasn't cutting off at all untill thermostat was satisfied. I tried lowering to 0.5-2 psi with a differential at 1, then 2. The boiler now cycles on for 1.5 minutes and off for 1 minute. I read that my boiler could be oversized, but untill replacement, should I just increase differential untill cycle is a little longer?
Are you firing with oil?
You may try to have it down-fired.
Residential steam heating systems were designed around the "2 psi standard".
Other steam heating systems only need 1/2 psi.
7 + 5 psi is crab steamer pressure!
It is oil fired. Slant Fin LD 40 with a Riello 40 burner. Mechanical return system with a condensate tank/pump. Convection style Finn rads built into the walls. The boiler is for 592 sqft of steam. 3000sqft house with a total of 12 radiators medium sized rads in Atlantic Canada.
I currently have things set to 2psi cut it and 3 diff. This is at least keeoing the cycling down to 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off.
The total call heating time with cycles included(Nest) is 3-4 hours a day, currently with daytime high around 40f and nighttime lows of 22f. It's gets a bit colder in January/feb but not to much. So acual burner time would just be slightly over half this time with the 3 minutes on, 2 off..... About 2-2.25 hours I would say.
Boiler is quite old I believe.
I feel like with the age and condition of the boiler, I may be wise to have it replaced soon. It's a 87 year old house but with efficiency changes over the years, windows, insulation, draft control... The old girl might be way over sized.
With the high pressures you seem to be operating at, it does seem the unit was over-sized.
That is all too common, and often occurred when transitioning from coal to oil.
The old coal-fired boiler had to be huge to hold the big pile of burning rocks, and a properly sized oil boiler would look too small and "wrong" to the installer and the customer of the day!
Also, boilers were sized to handle the domestic hot water load sometimes, too!
Do all your radiators heat evenly and quietly?
Yes pretty even. I know when we bought the place and first started the heat up, a couple rads were hissing. I think there are 2 very small leaks around the inlet side of the union/threads. I don't here it now that it runs between 0.5-3.5psi. there is also less pipe noise. Just one area I suspect has a sticky trap (Hoffman 17C). I'm looking into replacement, maybe rebuild with tunnsel capsule.
Is there a easy way of testing the pressure controller while on the boiler?
None that I am aware of, sorry.
Hi Jim again, I found your video as you suggested to set pressure control as low as possible. I found after dumped some more water, now pressure is 1.0 psi . Good enough?
Yes, that should be OK!
@@gordonschweizer5154 happy new year GORDON！ do you have a video how to reduce pipe banging or noise when hot water heating (not steam heating) is on ? Thank you so much
@@jimwu1182 You're most welcome!
Sorry to say that hot water heating pipes banging is a very unusual issue that we've seldom run into it.
The only thing that I can think of would be pipes running through a wall or ceiling penetration through a bound or very tight space being heated very quickly from cool to hot and the pipes expanding in length.
@@gordonschweizer5154 the noise lauder I am worried if will bad to boiler. Someone said probably air in pipe
@@jimwu1182 I'd shut down the boiler.
Let it cool down.
Make sure there is enough water in the system, the system properly pressurized & the expansion tank is not waterlogged.
I have 2 cut in pressure controllers right next to each other, is it like a refrigeration system where one is the cut in and one is cut out? They both are identical and say cut in
As to your question of two pressuretrols right next to each other, I think they are acting in series.
That is to say, if one fails to control the pressure, the other one takes over.
The problem is, most of the time when wired that way, they are also mounted on one pigtail!
Once that pigtail is clogged, its game over.
@@gordonschweizer5154 okay thank you very much