Steam Heating → Troubleshooting Help Topics

I had written a story for Plumbing & Mechanical a while back about a fella in Canada who sent me this email: "Our problem is that five out of hundreds of univentilator co...

This one goes back a bunch of years. The contractor was a good steam man but he had run out of ideas with this job. It was a typical, five-story, New York City tenement b...

Clogging up heating surfaces is sort of like having all the traffic lights in your town turn red at the same time, and then stay red. Most movement just stops. In the cas...

Many old steam-heating systems are oversized as a result of the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19. The flu killed 50 million people worldwide. People became deathly a...

Here are some reasons why the air vents are hissing or spitting water on your one-pipe steam heating system (and where to look for solutions). The system is dirty. Steam ...

"The valve keeps leaking. I can't keep steam. Help!" the text message read.

Dan Holohan, probably the smartest person I know on steam, has a saying, "The problem and the solution are rarely in the same room with steam." That holds true I have fou...

Makeup water is considered a steam boiler's worst enemy. Fresh water can take a system designed to last several decades and cut the life expectancy to only a few years. I...

Have you ever found yourself in some dank basement staring at (and totally appreciating!) the simple beauty of some old one-pipe, gravity-return steam heating system? You...

This newly installed VXT-120 Hydrolevel automatic water feeder for steam boiler makes an unearthly screech when it feeds. The domestic water pressure was checked and foun...