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@sjh said "I lifted the lever on the pressure release valve, thinking that would increase pressure in the system. Did it slowly and carefully, only lifting it a little at a time. Gauge showed no increase in pressure. I increased the pressure I was adding to the system at a faster pace. Still no difference. Then I added it a bit faster, still no difference in pressure showing on the gauge. Then, the release valve for the boiler started shooting water out:" and showed us a photo of water pouring out of the relief valve white safety drop tube.

 In reading this thread I believe that @sjh is calling this valve a pressure relief valve. In fact this is a pressure reducing valve NOT a pressure RELIEF valve. There is also a photo of a Tradicator or boiler gauge that has three scales on it. One of the scales is for the boiler water temperature and that appears top be near 100°F. The other dial points to the water pressure and height the static pressure (boiler pressure at the gauge location) of zero PSI and zero Feet. The boiler pressure gauge is reading ZERO and the water flowing out of the pressure relief valve indicates that the gauge is bad or the gauge is not in connection to the boiler gauge location.     

I believe this is the same job we talked about last week when the fuel oil dealer was going to be there soon to remove an old oil boiler and install this new gas boiler that the gas company is paying for through some sort of grant program where the homeowner does not get to select what they are installing and who gets to install it.  We offered advice on how the best way is to install the replacement boiler and if they were going to re-use all the old circulators.   

The installing company assured @sjh that they were not going to make a mess of piping behind the boiler and that they would follow the manufacturer ’s diagrams like this one when installing the new boiler and cleaning up the existing circulator mess.  This obviously was said just to satisfy @sjh at the time and they had all intentions of making a mess of the piping behind the boiler because it was the easy thing to do .  Use as much of the old piping and circulator locations as they could to get it to run.  Now there are problems and @sjh is looking at what they can do to make it work themselves , rather than let the contractor solve the problem.  The only way that @sjh has leverage is if the final payment to the contractor has not been received yet and he does not sign off so that they can get paid .   If @sjh already signed the completion certificate for the grant money, then there is no leverage.   I hope the contractor will stand behind the work they have completed. 

I'm going to study the photos of the old oil boiler and the new system and see exactly what is going on there. This may take some time and may reveal why the gauge reads 0.0 PSI and the 30 PSI relief valve is blowing off pressure at the same time.

if there is water supplied to the pressure reducing valve it should automatically keep the pressure up. is there a valve near it that is off? it is also possible that the backflow preventer or something is stuck.

it has no pressure. is the valve ahead of that pressure reducing valve you showed turned on? It should automatically regulate the pressure and it isn't for some reason. sloshing means there is a lot of air in the piping so there is not circulation.