I Guess the Answer Is No

I awoke this morning at 5:45 and I don’t even have to be at work till noon. I don’t work out anymore since I hurt my ankle, and I’ve given myself a vacation from the writing till the end of the year (not everybody knew that; now they do: Hi, Everybody!). I don’t have anything to do.

The only reason I was up so early is that the stupid radiator in the bedroom – now that it actually, finally gets hot – has a water hammer that it never had before. And I thought steam radiators did not get water hammers.

(Water Hammer, for the uninitiated, is that loud BANG that happens deep inside the pipes. The noise is made by water – hence the name; clever, eh? – and apparently it can cause damage over the long term. Yay.)

This one is not that loud, not yet. But, like I said, I thought steam systems didn’t get them.

In our last apartment we got water-hammer super-loud – loud enough to (seriously) wake the neighbors. And I didn’t care, because that’s the beauty of paying rent: not having to give a hoo about anything that’s not a direct threat to your life. That place had hot-water heat, and I was under the impression that the hammering was caused by air bubbles trapped in it.

I gather I was right as far as that went. Yay, me. But now I learn that hammers are also caused by water-bubbles caught in steam. I didn’t know that. Now I do. Yay, me.

I’m still confused about a lot of other things, however, steam-system-wise.

For example: I’ve been told by actual, honest-to-god plumbers (who had been called here, and were inches from getting paid for, this express purpose) that steam systems don’t need to be bled. That was years ago, when we were trying anything we could think of to get ourselves some freakin’ heat. But now that we’re warm I wonder: if one does not bleed the system, how does one get rid of water hammer?

Also, all those years when I was wearing hats and scarves and ski parkas to bed each night for six months of the year, lots of people told me I could regulate the system by dialing certain rooms down to lower levels and other rooms all the way up – thereby “forcing” the steam out to the desired radiator. It never worked, but once I set it that way I just left it, because at least it didn’t make things any worse.

Now I read that steam radiators are supposed to be either all the way on or all the way off. I read that terrible things will happen if I leave them in between. I’ve gone around now and turned them all up in the meantime, but which is it?

Except I haven’t technically turned all of them all the way up, because plus also? The other radiator in my bedroom? (There are two, the big one hammers and then there’s this little one.) If I turn the knob all the way to “open”? The entire knob-piece comes off in my hand.

See?

And then – it wasn’t on when I took this picture, but when it is on – hot steam shoots up through the hole and you have to push the piece back in like the Little Dutch Boy. The Little Dutch Boy, that is, with his hand-skin coming off in sheets.

Finally, there’s these air-vents, or air-valves, or steam-either thingmabobs.

I don’t know what to do with them. If I turn them to “open,” steam hisses out – which I’ve read should not be happening. But I’ve also read they should not be turned to “closed.”

What I need is a tutorial on this entire thing, but I am not calling the Kid back here (or his mysterious, supposed-father) and I don’t want to wind up paying somebody else to do nothing but walk in the house and fiddle with some knobs.

Johnny says I should call the gas company and see if they’ll send somebody out, but the last time they sent somebody out he showed up in a suit, with dollar signs where his eyes were supposed to be. Plus I’m flat-out tired of dealing with the farty old gas company.

I think what I’ll do is stop off at the plumbing-supply place on my way home this afternoon, see if I can’t get those air-valve screws I was looking for a month ago. I’ll ask those guys up there if they’ve got any pointers regarding this whole mess. And if they don’t, then I guess I’ll have to try my luck with national “lower case’ gridspan.

Of course, any pointers anybody wants to leave here for me would be appreciated. In fact, let’s turn it into a GAME – and let’s make up some rules. I can’t police it, but we’ll go on the honor system:

You’re not allowed to read anybody else’s comments before you post your own. Just tell me what you think, or what you heard, or what you found out when you googled, and then you can go back and see what other people had to offer.

Let’s see whether we come up with a list of corresponding advice I can trust – in which case I’m the stupid one, again – or if we get a list of contradictory ideas like I’ve come up with so far. In which case, I guess, that proves that I can read. And if we don’t get anything, then that proves nobody loves me after all.

(Oh come on, how can you not play after such a naked grab for the heartstrings?)

However it shakes down, I’ll turn the results somehow into a (hopefully) funny post.

So be warned.



Oh, and bonus points for anyone who wants to explain the title. This one should be easy…