Hi everyone,

I have a steam heat system with a combination of baseboards and radiators. Yesterday one of my baseboards on the main floor starting spitting water out of the air valve. Since the valve was old, I replaced it with an angled varivalve. Unfortunately, the same thing is happening with the new valve. I flushed the system, and made sure the baseboard having the problem is slightly pitched. Only one baseboard is having this problem and we can't use our Heat until we get this resolved (it's 30 degrees out).

Before I try and track down a plumber, is there anything else I can do to try and fix this? My knowledge is very basic.

Thanks so much.

 

Is the air valve of the adjustable type? If so, you might try setting to slower vent rate. It's also possible you crapped up the new vent. Is the steam piping sloped all the way back to the boiler? If it is holding some water, this too could cause spitting.

 

Thank you Grady. The airvalve is an adjustable varivalve.

http://www.heat-timer.com/?page=varivalve

I set it at open full, and then closed full, but water still found its way out either way. I spoke to a plumber friend, who reviewed some pictures I sent him of the baseboard and it turned out the pipe under the floor was pushed down. It was more than likely lying flat under the floor and as a result, water was not draining back correctly. I put a block of wood under that side of the pipe where it connects to the baseboard, and pitched the other end by the valve even higher. This stopped the water.

The next challenge is figuring out how to put the baseboard covers back with the baseboards raised so high. Regardless thanks for your response. I wanted to be detailed on the solution to help others as well.

 

Often we do not get feedback when posters get the problem resolved by others. Pipe slope on steam systems is critical. Why I didn't think of that at the time, who knows. Tunnel vision I guess.