Hi All,

My wife and I just bought our first house and it has steam heat, it was built in 1900 but had a small addition put on sometime after. My house growing up (built two years before the declaration of independence) also had steam heat, so I was very loosely familiar with the idea. The system is not heating evenly and making all sorts of noises, so I wanted to learn why. The system fascinates me (I'm a chemical engineer, but no steam heating experience) so I tried looking for a book or two, found Dan's books - and here I am.

After reading through "We Got Steam Heat!" I feel like I have some good places to start, and it's certainly in the basement. I am having a professional come in to clean the boiler and a plumber to look over the piping compared to the manufacturer's recommendation (Crown Bermuda 138) - so I will pass over that for now and re-visit later.

The pipes are horribly insulated, someone did a small wrapping job on some mains but looks like they gave up and nothing else is insulated. I am going to get some 1" fiberglass insulation to insulate everything (2" mains, radiator pipes vary from 1.25" to 0.75") - I looked at 1.5" for the mains but the price almost doubles and I know the insulating properties will rapidly decline with thickness (as in the second inch will not stop nearly as much heat flow as the first inch).

This brings me to my next step, the main vents. One main is about 37 feet long (west side of house) and one is about 42 feet long (east side of house). From my calculations, this should be about 0.84 and 0.97 cubic feet of air respectively. Currently, they are both Hoffman #4 Quickvents at the end of the two mains - which from looking at the vent capacity chart seem way undersized and I'm not sure what kind of shape they are in. I've read a lot about Gorton #2's but am a little unsure of if they are appropriate here or if I should do timing of the steam in an open pipe to understand how long it takes to reach the vents. I also want to make sure I have enough room between the vent location and the floor since I know the Gorton's are quite tall and you want the vent 6-10" (I think) above the pipe. I've attached pictures of my two main vents below for reference of the vent and locations/areas to work with.