Draining and refilling baseboard system without bleeder valve

devnull

I need to remove a small portion of baseboard to accommodate a home improvement. The problem I'm facing is that my system doesn't have bleeder valves at the baseboards. One I'm done I'm not quite visualizing how I'll be able to bleed the air out without these.

If the system doesn't have these valves, is there something else that i should be looking for?

lchmb

how about pictures of the near boiler piping?

adambnyc

two pipe or one pipe system? Monoflow tees in use?

STEVEusaPA

It's not uncommon to have no bleeders for baseboard. Usually there are valves to accomplish this at/near the boiler.
A picture of the near boiler piping would help. But if you are draining the system, draw us a diagram. You can take advantage of the system drained to add some simple, not to expensive components that will make bleeding easy moving forward.

devnull

That was silly of me, i should hedge started with pictures. My apologies.



The pipe coming from the bottom towards the left is the fresh water intake.


It is only using two zones (upstairs, downstairs, working great) but has capacity for five.


It has the pumps, one clearly seen on the first picture plus two under the boiler.

What i need to do is simple, to take a length out to accommodate a renovation.

If anybody needs me to take a closeup of anything let me know.

devnull

Corrections: fresh water intake towards the bottom right. "It has three water pumps" instead of "it has the water pumps"

rick in Alaska

Easy! Close the valve to the left of the air eliminator ( supervent), the two valves going down from the secondary manifold back to the boiler, and any zone you do not to bleed. Now open up the valves for the zone you do want to bleed including the zone valve. Now, hook a hose to the drain valve to the left of the primary lines going in to the secondary manifold. Open up the drain and let it run until water is clear with out any air.
I believe the fill valve has a fast fill built in so it should put house pressure on the line until it starts regulating.
Ideally there would be another drain valve connection between the Supervent and the ball valve to the left of it so you could hook up a transfer pump there and really move the water, but the way it is plumbed right now should work just fine.
Rick

devnull

I managed to do what i needed to do. I closed the fresh water valve, opened the drain, and managed to take out the section i needed to take out and then put things back together. The only problem is that I'm not getting water flow on that zone, the other zone is working fine.

I'm guessing that the electric valve is staying close. If nothing else the box with the lights is complaining about a valve



What's next?

Zman

Is zone 5 the one you need to purge?
When those zone valves are open the manual lever will slide easily. When they are closed, you will feel resistance.
To purge a zone, you want to close all the paths you do not want the air to go and open the path of air egress.

devnull

That part is done, everything is back together minus the length that i needed removed. Now water won't flow on that zone.

rick in Alaska

Purge it like I posted above and it will.
Rick

devnull

I don't know if I wasn't getting what you were saying or if I did but it wasn't working. I tried to follow as best as I could, very little of anything came out with or without the fresh water valve open, and at the end both zones died.

I connected a hose from a faucet to the drain faucet on the furnace, turned it on, and force feeding water that way did the trick. The air bleed out through the air relief valve and eventually both zones kicked again. What I don't understand is why the regular fresh water intake wasn't feeding fresh water.

Rick, are you a contractor here in AK?