A New (Old) House with Water Heating - Having Problems...

Mike Summers

I recently purchased my grandfather's house (as he passed away last year) and I'm having issues with the heating system. It's a hot water heat system powered by a Vaillant GA 92 Series furnace and I'm having problems getting heat out of the house's radiators. Of course, we decided to move into a house that had been vacant for over 8 months in the coldest part of winter, so we knew we were going to run into problems... The boiler/furnace itself is probably only about 5 years old, but the copper tubing, however, is probably 20-30 years old. I've already had to repair/replace a couple lines due to the lines breaking when they froze (in the crawlspace area) when it was 2 degrees (F) outside a couple weeks ago, but now I'm on to another problem - I was letting the furnace run for a couple hours last night and both pipes on the back of the furnace were hot (about 160 degrees), but random pipes around the house were still cold, including the radiators upstairs. This was confusing because all of the lines are connected. It looks as though it's supposed to be piped like a traditional 'loop', but extra lines were branched off and tapped into here and there, etc.

Basically, I guess I'm just trying to learn a bit more about this setup and I'm trying to figure out why the radiators aren't heating up. Also, there's a valve on the back of the furnace that looks like some kind of pressure relief or steam valve that's been spurting steam and water onto the floor. Is this normal when the system hasn't been run for about a year or so? Is it just bleeding air out of the lines? I went back down into the basement after letting the furnace run for about 2 hours and I roughly had 1-2 gallons worth of water on the floor from that pressure relief valve looking object.

Okay, enough with the rambling, I'll let someone chime in with more questions before I keep going into detail and confuse you further. Sorry for the long winded post.

Thanks in advance for any input!

The cold guy in Northeast Ohio,
Mike Summers


Edit: I took some photos of the furnace and some of the piping of the system to help clarify any questions...

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c206/sard0nic/New%20House/Water%20Heating/

GW

Mike

You may have several problems, and it's hard to figure it out over the computer. You either have one pipe that goes from one to the next to the next (called continuos loop), a two-pipe system (kinda rare in residential), or a "one pipe" system where one bigger pipe loops around the basement and tiny 1/2" lines shoot out to the various heating elements.

You may have lost flow, and froze. You may also have a lame expansion tank, relief valve, feeder valve, to name a few more.

You may need to get a heating guy over.

Gary

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Mike Summers

It sounds to me like I have a combination type system. I think the house originally started as the continuous loop-type system and when the rear of the house was added on, they just tapped into the existing 1" lines with the 3/4" tubing.

I posted pictures of the system and added a link to the album in my original post. Do those pictures help clarify anything? At the moment, I don't have a budget to pay a guy to come out, but I'm going to call around soon and see what people charge to come out and assess a problem.

Thank you for your help, though!

Mark Hunt

Mike


The photo of the front of the boiler with the door off shows that the boiler has a combustion issue. The discoloration is from heat and it should NOT be there.

I HIGHLY recommend that you try to locate a contractor in your area that can perform a combustion analysis on your boiler. This is not something that should be ignored.

The rest of your issues sound like you have air in the system. Those old convectors and the one continuous pipe from the boiler indicate a "diverter tee" system and they can be a real PITA to bleed if they were not set up correctly. That is realtively easy to fix.

Again, there is DEFINATELY something wrong with the combustion on that boiler. Follow this link and select "Carbon Monoxide and Combustion analysis" from the drop down list. Type in your zip code and you should get some hits in your area. If you do not, e-mail me and I will see if I can locate someone for you.

Do not put this off. Carbon Monoxide is deadly. You may very well have CO alarms in your house, but if you bought them at a hardware store, they are not accurate enough to trust with your well being.

Mark H

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Sounds to me as if you have air trapped in some locations.

The only thing I can say for DIY is "think like water".