Abbey Hall
Two Pipe Steam Radiator

Abbey Hall is heated with a two-pipe steam system. Steam from the Central heating Plant is piped into the building where it is controlled by automatic valves located in the mechanical spaces of the basement.
Sensors located throughout the building monitor the room temperatures and report that information to an Energy Management Computer System also located in the basement. This information is transmitted to a Master Computer System in the Central Heating Plant where it is checked against a heating program dedicated to the Abbey environment. The automatic valves respond to this program to maintain the spaces at Setpoint ( the equivalent of a Thermostat setting).
The Engineer operating the Central Heating Plant when necessary can override this program.
Steam radiators are located in every room and have some control associated with them. They are convection dependent devices and require adequate air flow to work properly. A covered or blocked radiator will not function efficiently.
Each radiator has a steam valve that permits steam to enter the radiator where the energy is released to the cast iron sections. Turning the valve counter-clockwise opens the valve and is the ON position. The radiator will HEAT when the steam is available. When the valve is turned clockwise all the way to it’s stop, the valve is OFF and NO HEAT will result when the building’s automatic valve cycles to heat the rest of the building. If you leave your steam valve off and leave your room, your room will not get the heat needed to maintain your room at a comfortable temperature. When you turn the valve on, there is no guarantee that steam will be available at that time. Thus no guarantee that your room will begin to receive heat immediately, and in fact it may be several degrees cooler than any rooms that had their valves open during the same time period. This valve
can be positioned anywhere between fully open and closed, which will control the rate at which the radiator produces heat.
There is a Steam Trap at the opposite end of the radiator, and this Trap reacts to steam and condensate. When the hot steam reaches the steam trap’s temperature sensitive element it closes, thereby trapping the hot steam in the radiator where is must surrender it’s Btu’s to the surrounding radiator. The hot radiator warms the nearby room air and convection moves the warm air around the room to heat the space. As the steam loses thermal energy it condenses and the cooler condensate is allowed to pass out of the radiator and into the return piping system for eventual recycling at the Central Heating Plant.

Data provided by MHC Facilities Management Department