My GF gave me one afternoon to fix this, what do i do
The radiator makes unbearable noises throu out the night, which drives her insane. We think that this is due to air pockets in the pipes, we can hear crackling and water drops.
The heating system is common to the whole building, and I cant turn off hot water.
How do i open this shit
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Comments72
Talk to the building owner.
If you get this wrong you'll likely cause havoc across the whole building.
Especially because some idiot painted over the key and thread.
And they used that Landlord Special colored paint.
Here's the cool part: you fucking don't.
It's not your building, heating system, or property, so you don't fucking open/break it. You open it and you're likely to be dealing with an uncontrollable amount of rather hot water, and a very angry landlord/neighbors.
Call your landlord (AND DOCUMENT IT) and complain until they fix it or tell you to fuck off. Don't do their maintenance for them unless you're willing to pay for any repair costs when they have to undo and fix properly.
Don't just call, make sure written request or digital. Gotta have a CYA (cover your ass) if you go to court.
Here is the evidence of the complaint...
Edit to add: can say "per our conversation on the phone... "
100%, can't believe I forgot to put that part in. I added a note on documentation, because you'll def need that if things progress that far.
Depending on the state, you could also easily record the calls for documentation. Look up state laws, and if you happen to be in a one party consent state, have at it with the phone calls, too.
Even if she's not renting, like it's a condo association or co-op situation, do the same thing. Report it. Could be a sign of something worse in the whole system.
Don't
Talk to your GF about mutual respect in your relationship.
Or botch the heating, then give her an afternoon to clean up the water damage.
You need the radiator key to bleed the air out of the system. Since you said this is common throughout the building I recommend you don’t touch this at all and let the building owner handle the issue.
Call the owner to fix it. If it causes water damage, you'll be on the hook for that because you fucked with radiator.
Also what's with the "gave me one afternoon" bit? No one can "give you" time. Do you "give" her afternoons to do a chore? How would that go for you? That sounds like a mother telling a 5 year old they better clean their room "this afternoon or else no dessert"
I’ve been given time to fix something myself before we call a professional, which seems reasonable to me. Even the time window of an afternoon, for something as important as heat makes sense, because you don’t want to be unheated overnight and have your pipes freeze
Of you don't know how or what bleeding a radiator is, talk to your building maintenance person.
You don't want to get scalded or flood the room with hot water.
I have no idea why everyone here is saying to not do jack shit. Like, is the us system so different than what im used to?
Here is an information dump of what i know, and what my experiences is from 9 years of being the handyman in an elderly home. And yes, i called in experts enough times on heating issues. I know my ( local ) shit.
Would you describe the sound like a knocking, rumbling sound? If so, turn it all off, check the pressure of the heater and get a plumber. Youre pushing steam or nothing through the system and the piping doesnt like it. Scary sound if its bad tbh. Also a serious issue you need a plumber for, as the heater or preassure tank is likely fucked.
Would you describe the sound like blub blub, airbubbles popping or a waterfall? If so, there is air in the closed loop of the radiators. It happens, and its recommended to check all radiators once a year when it gets colder. Nothing bad about it, easy to fix/remedy.
You can also validate this by turning on the heating system and noticing, on top of the sound, that only part of the radiator heats up.
This is usually a problem with the highest radiator of your system, or the farthest radiator of your loop.
If it happens more than once a year -> you might have a leak somewhere ,if water pressure remains the same, get a plumber to check on the system or radiator system.
The later can easily be remedied. Go to the radiator that makes sound and try and find the following :
It is an release valve intended to let air in, or out, of the system. It is on the top side of the radiator, on the opposite side of the knob. Turn on the heating system, wait a bit for it to heat up. Then use the special key, or screw driver to very very slowly turn it open. You will hear air escape at one point, or drips of water coming out of the small hole you see in the picture. If you can no longer hear air escape, or a steady small stream of water comes out, all air is released and you can close it again.
I'm with you there. Sure, if you get stupid and screw the valve all the way out, you are fucked and flooded. But to unscrew it completely, you'd have to exercise an overwhelming amount of stupidity.
Degassing radiators is a really simple operation - you either have a special square inverted key, which fits the valve or just use a flat screwdriver and slowly turn the degassing valve until it starts hissing. You let it out until the air turns into a very small stream of radiator water - but the stream is extremely mild and if you close it after a seond it does so, there's usually no more then couple of drops of water.
I have no idea why there should be some sort of superheated steam like anyone is freaking out. Radiator water is usually around 50C if you have an old system or even lower if your heater uses new fancy equiterm curves. Nothing that would burn you.
What is important to say: only turn the little round bolt with the slot in it, do not screw out the whole valve.
The other comments sound really scary, does the US have another system? Why should there be steam coming out?
I don't have first hand experience, but I think NYC and possibly some other large US cities do actually operate on a steam network. It's not a closed loop hot water system like I have in my house, from what I understand you purchase hot steam like you would buy electricity.
Take all of that with a grain of salt until someone that knows more can chime in.
Whoa, what the hell? Id like to know more if true!
EDIT: what the actual living hell???
https://www.reddit.com/r/Brooklyn/comments/1gjdpug/someone_explain_to_me_how_radiators_work_in_nyc/
Fascinating, thanks
Oh valid point. Dont unscrew the whole valve haha. Only the slotted key hole!
Steam might come out if you have a very major pressure issue or water temprature is way way too high. Either case, slowly opening the valve solves all off that
Was going to say this exact thing, good thing someone else of sound sense has typed the correct answer. Just turn the screw pictured open (counter-clockwise) ever so slightly to let air out (makes hiss) and tighten once water comes out (makes no sound).
Source: Nordic man of the house. I did this a lot until we put in a new heating system with an automatic valve at the main heat reservoir.
Get a girlfriend who doesn’t impose arbitrary limitations on the work you do.
Especially on work that OP has absolutely no business doing himself unless he's a licensed plumber.
OP shouldn't be doing it even if they are a licensed plumber, since it's the landlord's responsibility, not theirs. Even if they know what they're doing, it opens up legal liability.
This comment section really shows how important it is to specify your location when asking for advice.
Airing out radiators is like the simplest task one can do where I'm from. One flat heat screwdriver and a rag for the dripping, and you're done faster than you can even call a landlord or repair firm. No crazy steam contraptions.
So you're either calling for an expensive and time wasting repair unnecessarily or catching a faceful of scalding steam, if you take advice from the wrong part of the world...
My dude, if you open that you're going to get blasted with steam. Call the guy who owns the building and tell him the problem sounds expensive.
ITT: People telling OP to break up with her because we are absolutely certain that she is crazy and only gave him one afternoon to fix this, and there is no way she could have been losing sleep for days or weeks while asking him to do something about it, like hold the landlord accountable.
While I agree with this, if it bothers her she can take care of it her own damn self.
I guess op could want to take a crack at it before calling the super. But like. Figure your shit out.
Or maybe people aren't that serious about it
Why can't she call the landlord, cat got her tongue?
How do you know she's the main tenant and not on a sublease? How do you know what OP means when he said his GF 'gave' him one afternoon? If he doesn't get it fixed, she'll do what? Stop coming over? Stop sharing finances? Break up?
So many unasked questions and yet everyone is quick to assume that the GF is insane. I wonder why that is.a
Look if I were to guess I'd say most probably she never said anything of the kind, and that's just the op making his otherwise dull question a little spicy for the people to get involved.
But if you take the post at face value and set aside all your biases, you have to agree that this sounds kinda bitchy and entitled. Truth is we don't know anything about the situation, so we can only go with what op gave us. We don't know if he's the owner or just renting, what country he's in, or even if he's a he btw.
From what was said alone, the question that I have is why is it op's responsibility to do something about it. Seems like a household problem that op didn't cause and one that if she lived alone she would have to deal with somehow. So asking someone else to fix it and setting ultimatums sounds like someone who's used to having servants.
People don't generally set ultimatums unless it's something that has been bothering them for a long time and hasn't been addressed.
The way you call OP's girlfriend 'bitchy and entitled' just reeks of misogyny when she never got to tell her side of the story. People like you should be setting aside your own biases and ask if OP is a reliable narrator, instead of taking everything at face value because a man's word is more trustworthy than his account of a woman's word to you.
People like me huh? You literally know nothing about me yet you figured me out in two seconds. I didn't draw any conclusions from the original post, I took it at face value. You're the one apparently making up stories about a man's word and bs. You don't even know if op is a man, you just fucking assumed. I'm sorry for you and for those around you. You sound absolutely insufferable.
You're simpler than you think you are. Explosive temper in your response, grasping at straws and deflecting, calling women bitchy on a stranger's word.
Some therapy could help with that. Feel sorry for yourself first before feeling sorry for others.
You are desperately deflecting from the fact that you assumed OP's gender. How about we start with that acknowledgement and move on from there. If you like we can dissect every little facet of this silly post we're arguing over. Imho - and given that you already judged me so harshly - here's some back. You seem to have some issues with men, you appear to be looking for abusers everywhere, probably from past trauma. Once again, I'm terribly sorry for whatever may have happened to you, but it's affecting your judgment in a terrible way and it makes you seem toxic. I hope you're aware and working on that. I'm sure you can overcome it if you acknowledge it.
Break up with her
This is probably your best bet.
Nah.
The better advice is to fuck her sister and let her do the breaking up.
What if you don't do it in one afternoon? What happens then? She dumping you or what?
You call an expert/building maintenance and don't fuck with it yourself.
Are you insane? Unless you're looking for serious injury you leave it the fuck alone
find the radiator that's at the highest point/farthest from the boiler, get a container, open the valve you have pictured there and close it when there doesn't seem to be any more air coming out. use the container to catch any water. make sure to refill the water heater for your heating system, they recycle the water, so the input valves are normally shut.
edit, just saw that you have a shared system, so ignore that last bit. but when in doubt, call the building super.
also, the fact that your GF gave you "one afternoon" to fix it, it kinda sounds like a toxic personality trait. if there's anything else worrisome about her behavior, she might benefit from therapy. Having been in a relationship with someone with the dark triad, it was shit, and i kinda wish i would have been able to get her the help she needed.
I was living with roommates clueless about house maintenance stuff.
So one day I explain we should purge the radiators. Did I forget to say "purge the air"? I dont know. But the bucket I told em to use to catch water spilling one roommate thought was supposed to be used to empty the radiators. I was on the computer and saw him from the corner of my eye go empty his bucket a few times before I caught on.
Delete your therapy break up with your lawyer and hit your face
Don't touch dude. Radiator are not simple to work on. Call a professional or put yourself out thousands by breaking it
She means for you to tackle the issue, not necessarily fix it yourself.
Get the owner to fix it, call a janitor or plumber, or anyone who knows how to fix it.
It’s possible that noise and popping you hear is the steam in the radiator flashing back and forth from steam to condensation. It means the condensate isn’t draining properly. This is not a problem you can fix yourself. You need to tell the building manager, who needs to hire a pipefitter. If you try to do this yourself, there is a high likelihood that you will damage something beyond your ability to repair, and you could very well seriously burn yourself while you’re at it.
Do you live in the top or first floor? Just wondering if you're about to flood your bedroom with the smelly and rusty radiator water of just one floor or the entire building.
Don't touch it. Bleeding radiators is a job for the maintenance, not you.
-Plumber
Dont over react. If you know to turn the valve slowly you are fine.
- ex large building maintenance guy
While the risk is small, the potential consequences are catastrophic. Water damage doesn't just ruin their day, but their neighbors as well. It's simply not worth it, especially when it's something they shouldn't be handling on their own to begin with. The fact that they need to ask for advice on how to bleed a radiator is all the confirmation I need that they absolutely shouldn't be doing it themselves.
If they were fixing a toaster, at least there would be the electrical switchboard and main shutoff to turn to if something caught fire. But there's no plan B when you can't get a radiator to stop pouring water all over your bedroom. You really don't want to mess with plumbing unless you have a fallback. This isn't much of an issue in a house but it sure is in an apartment building.
Which is why they are asking for advise/information here though. Youre not wrong in what youre saying, but if you tell people about whats going on, what helps, and what the risks are, they can make their own choices. And if they fuck up, they will learn their lessons.
I have faith in humans to make relatively ok choices. Exceptions exist, but they wouldnt be on lemmy nor would they ask for information first :')
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008MVYL7C
Works wonders in letting me sleep like a baby through my wife’s chainsaw-like snoring. Just make sure they’re inserted firmly enough and not sticking too far out or in.
You’re welcome.
Get a different girlfriend
Or a second one.
Peace to your ashes.
Best bet short term is to rig something that dulls the noise. A few insulated panels would do, so long as the heat isn’t too intense, but will have the unfortunate effect of reducing the heat to your residence, so you’ll need to augment that somehow. If there’s air in the line, then it’s probably not working to its fullest potential anyway.
Long term, I agree with everyone else. Have the super hire a professional. This is not one you want to DIY, especially while it’s operational. I’ve done carpentry, wiring and plumbing. I’d never touch steam, doubly so while it’s running.
Get a hold of the janitor. As simple as it might seem, this is not something you want to do yourself in a multistory building.
You'll need to have access to the boiler room and the topmost radiator. There's probably a good reason why you don't.
If you open that screw, you'll only let more air into the system and potentially get a lot of smelly water on your floor.
Yes this was exctly THE reason..
But anyhoo, we found called a plumber. He said that screw is missing a cap, which makes it impossible to turn, no wonder i couldnt even budge it.
So it is not fixed, i am still alive, nothing has been flooded, and my GF calmed down. She can be rough sometimes..
Why one day? Are you filming a reality TV show where you need artificial time pressure to make it seem entertaining?
Man, people really do like nonchalantly taking themselves out of the existential equation huh?
Different place or different girlfriend
I'd start with earplugs
Spotify - Brown Noise 12 hours. Blast that nice and loud. Get a fan. Call the super.
Hopefully you've read enough replies to understand you need to report this to building maintenance. This is not a DIY fix, if you fuck it up, you risk injury or fucking up the heat for the entire building.
Steam or hot water boiler? Tell your girlfriend to chill out
Tell her to drill a couple of vent holes in it. Make sure you've already moved out first.
In one afternoon.