How often should I add water to my radiator

1jennifer2

I have radiated heat in my house with split thermostats for 1st floor and 2nd floor heating. The first floor works well. The second floor I am only able to hear the bathroom and one bedroom. We've owned the home for 10 years and it is a very old home. Wondering if we need to add water to the system. When we bleed the line a lot of air comes out but not much water. In the rooms that the heat doesn't work, nothing comes out of the valves. It is below zero outside and our upstairs won't go over 60 degrees.

Jamie Hall

There should be a pressure gauge on your system, somewhere right near the boiler. It should read around 15 psi, but I'm betting it doesn't.

There should also be an expansion tank.

You need to add water to your system to bring the pressure gauge up to 15 psi, and then bleed the air out of the upstairs radiators -- and, probably, add more water and bleed more air. This is not really that hard, but if you are unfamiliar with hot water heat it might not be a bad idea to contact a reliable professional to help you out, as the expansion tank must be checked and the reason for the water loss found as well -- and there may be valves and pumps which will need to be set properly to get the air out of the system.

JUGHNE

Assuming that you have a boiler in the basement, post pictures of it. Especially a gauge that may indicate temperature of the boiler water and pressure of system. It probably has 2 pointer indicators on it.