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Dairy Godmother Dairy Godmother is offline
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Default Did I mess up my steam one-pipe system by fiddling with a radiator vent?

HI board. I love my old house but am learning about it as I go -
including my one-pipe steam heating system. The boiler is new and
works great (dont know specs) and until a recent outage here in CT it
was all working well. Then, after a 24 hour outage, my radiators in
the office room started clanging away. Being 'clever' I decided to
turn the radiator vent up -- which did indeed stop the clanging.
Stopping the heat in that room was no problem -- but what I didnt
realize is that it would stop heat in other rooms upstairs. Now, I
put the vent back and none of the upstairs radiators seem to be
working properly. They are all barely warm, but its definitely colder
upstairs now. And oil is expensive!

What did I do wrong? Did I likely dislodge some 90 year old grime that
is now blocking the steam?

I don't have any experience with this stuff, and am happy to hire my
plumber back, but I'd like to learn if its a simple fix.

thanks