Torrey Hall
Two Pipe Steam Heat Radiators

Torrey 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 Torrey 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 in every room and are located in the outer wall below the window. The radiator is behind a steel grill and is not accessable. This type of radiator is a convection dependent device and requires adequate air flow to work properly. A damper controls the air flow and is the only way to control the heat output of this system. A covered or blocked radiator will not function efficiently.
Each radiator has a damper control knob that controls the air flow over the radiator. This effects the rate of convection and thus the rate at which the room is heated. Turning the knob counter-clockwise opens the damper, and is the ON position. The radiator will HEAT the room when the steam is available. When the knob is turned clockwise all the way to it’s stop, the damper is closed. This is the OFF position and NO HEAT will result when the building’s automatic valve cycles to heat the rest of the building. If you leave your damper control closed , your room will not get the heat needed to maintain your room at a comfortable temperature. When you open the damper, 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 dampers open during the same time period. This damper control knob 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 it’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 coil. The hot coil 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