Posted by Tom W on January 01, 2000 at 08:15:04:
We recently bought a house from the 1920's and it has steam radiated heat. The previous owner(who owned the house for only one year and knew nothing about steam heat)was told by the owner before him to bleed the radiators and add water to the boiler and drain the bottom of it of sediments. He did not do any of this but did pass the information on to me. The local hardware store gave me a key to bleed the system and told me to look at the glass guage on the boiler to determine the level of water in it. Though I have looked long and hard I have not found any guages, glass or otherwise to indicate boiler level. There is a valve to add water and a release pressure valve if there is too much water or steam pressure. I do not want to just fill it up until it shoots hot dirty water all over the basement floor. Also do I need to drain the bottom of it? How would I do that? Should any of this be done now or wait until spring when we are not using the system. Can someone help me out?
Thank You