Heating Help

bleeding one pipe steam

I moved into my first home before i ever dreamed of entering the plumbing and heating field (that was a career swith that is a story in of itself). The house is heated with ONE PIPE STEAM. The first winter rolled in and a number of rooms were much colder then they should have been. I called the gas company and described the problem to the nice lady that answered the phone. She very kindly advised me to BLEED the radiators. Not knowing the first thing about heating i asked her just how to  go about doing that She told me to turn on the heat (that much I knew how to do) wait until the heat started coming up and open the bleeder valves on each radiator. She warned me that at first some air would come out and after a few moments hot water would start to come out. After the water came out consistently i was supposed to close the valves. When I asked her where the bleeder vents were she told told me that at the end of each radiator there was something that screws open and closed. I took a quick look, saw the air vents(which were the only things that looked like they screwed open), thanked her for her expert advice and got to work. I turned the heat way up, waited until the radiators started warming up and then proceeded to remove every air vent as instructed. I soon saw steam start to come out and patiently waited for  the water. I waited and waited and waited. After an hour or so i finally noticed a few drops of water around the air vent hole. I shut off the heat and reattached the air vents. Feeling very proud that i had tackled my first home improvement job i turned on the heat and waited for the well deserved results of my labor. As you may suspect the situation was not improved at all. To make a long story not that much longer i got a pro to tackle the problem(i.e. replace some clogged air vents).

bleeders

I was installing a new boiler in our new office.  We just moved and had the new place redone entirely.  New carpets, painted walls, even replaced some of the ceiling.  I get the entire job piped and started to fill the large cast iron radiation system when I noticed the sound of running water.  When the house was winterised by the relator's office they opened all the bleeder ports on all the radiators. In the two story house. I was so proud of the piping job I have just done that I did not even think to check the bleeders.  As you can guess it was like water park in our new office.  Thankfully I was the only one there at the time and was able to clean everything up before I caused any real damage.  Now that is the first thing I check when I am doing anything with radiators.