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No flow in a baseboard heater recently upgraded from a radiator.

Hoping I can get some help from this forum.

I decided to replace an old radiator in the 2nd floor bathroom with a baseboard heater. Using the same feed, I decided to add another baseboard in the next door room which did not have any heating. Solder all the piping and although all looked great the baseboard does not heat up. After further troubleshooting and asking around, I decided to add 2 bleeders on the line including 1 with a shut off valve. After bleeding all the air out, I still get not flow. There is water going up in both feed and return and it seems having the same pressure. I have exhausted all ideas on what to do.

My house is a 2-story building with only 1-zone which has 1 Taco 00R-MSF1-DIFC. The boiler itself use Taco 0010.

1. Is there anything I can do to help the water flow (I have bled the line and system multiple times without success)? In the line water flows up both ways (feed and return) and all air have been removed, but still no flow

2. The 00R Circulator Pump pushes up to 12.5 GPM and its head is 15FT. Do you think upgrading this pump to a stronger one (ie 20GPM) going to help? Is it going to force water thru that section of the house?

The strange thing is that it used to work before without issues, when there was a radiator there. All other radiations on both floors operate normally.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you,

Andre S

Comments

  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    Problem could be the way the risers are connected in the basement, could you post pictures of those connections?
    andredibrava
  • andredibrava
    andredibrava Member Posts: 7
    Hello JUGHNE, thank you so much for looking into this. I have attached the pictures here and they are labelled accordingly. I just don't understand why there is water flowing up on both direction, but not flowing at all.

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    That is interesting piping. Is this, by any chance, a converted gravity hot water system? Or even farther fetched, a converted steam system? Because, in either case, they are very very sensitive to flow resistance in the piping -- and most of the flow will go to the lower resistances.

    Is there absolutely no flow in those new baseboards? Or just very little? If it's the latter, it may be a balancing problem -- and rather tricky to solve.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    ZmanGordyJUGHNE
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    My best guess is that there is too much pressure drop thru your BB heaters.....are they 3/4"?
    The old radiator offered a large path way for the water to move, now with the smaller pipe for passage the water takes the easy route.....thru all the other large paths. You could try to valve down other radiators to force some flow, but that is not a final solution.

    You have a converted gravity system BTY.

    Someone else here may have the solution.
    CanuckerTinmanPaul S_3
  • andredibrava
    andredibrava Member Posts: 7
    edited March 2017

    That is interesting piping. Is this, by any chance, a converted gravity hot water system? Or even farther fetched, a converted steam system? Because, in either case, they are very very sensitive to flow resistance in the piping -- and most of the flow will go to the lower resistances.

    Is there absolutely no flow in those new baseboards? Or just very little? If it's the latter, it may be a balancing problem -- and rather tricky to solve.

    Jamie, I have no idea what it was before. I have had this property for 10 years and it has been like this. In terms of flow, I have removed one of the soldered connections to test and there is flow in both ends (feed and return) and if I let the water run for a few minutes both ends of the pipe start getting hot. The moment I solder the connection together the hot water that is in the pipe start to cool down until it is very cold. In essence, no flow when pipes are all connected.
  • andredibrava
    andredibrava Member Posts: 7
    JUGHNE said:

    My best guess is that there is too much pressure drop thru your BB heaters.....are they 3/4"?
    The old radiator offered a large path way for the water to move, now with the smaller pipe for passage the water takes the easy route.....thru all the other large paths. You could try to valve down other radiators to force some flow, but that is not a final solution.

    You have a converted gravity system BTY.

    Someone else here may have the solution.

    JUGHNE, the pipes on the picture (mb 1 1/4") run all the way up to the 2nd floor. Once there, it connects to 3/4" pipes that go out to the baseboards.

    I will try to close all other radiators and see if that helps. Also do you think it would help to place a Circulator Pump on the 2nd flr to kind of help "pull" the water or a more powerful Circulator Pump in the basement?

    Perhaps in the past this was a gravity system, but I am not sure. Since I purchased this property, it has always worked with circulator pumps.
  • Paul48
    Paul48 Member Posts: 4,469
    What is the length of the baseboard you replaced the radiator with? Even if you get it hot, you may not be pleased with the heat you get out of it, and you get NO residual heat from it. I don't consider it an upgrade. Every emitter has a rated output, and you have to match, one for the other. Or, you can do a heat loss for the room and revise the btu output for a new emitter. But, either way, it involves some work for a satisfactory result.
    kcopp
  • andredibrava
    andredibrava Member Posts: 7
    edited March 2017
    Paul48 said:

    What is the length of the baseboard you replaced the radiator with? Even if you get it hot, you may not be pleased with the heat you get out of it, and you get NO residual heat from it. I don't consider it an upgrade. Every emitter has a rated output, and you have to match, one for the other. Or, you can do a heat loss for the room and revise the btu output for a new emitter. But, either way, it involves some work for a satisfactory result.

    Paul,

    I added a 4' baseboard heater in the bathroom and an 8' in the 10x10 next door room. You are right, it is not an upgrade. I worded it wrong. It is just a replacement as we remodeled the bathroom and the radiator was in the wrong place so we thought it would be better more space saving to have the baseboard.
  • Paul48
    Paul48 Member Posts: 4,469
    I made a similar mistake, years ago, in my kitchen. I have regretted it ever since. I would have advised you to, perhaps tuck the radiator into a wall cavity.
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,452
    edited March 2017
    If the risers are all the way to the second floor 1 1/4" you should get some flow (maybe not enough but sum)

    Did you pipe both baseboards in series or are they in parallel?

    If you can't get flow and are Certain your not air bound you may have to install a pump on this zone

    Pictures of the baseboard might give us a clue. Chances are the water is taking the path of least resistance and if flowing through other radiators with larger piping
    Canucker
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    No, an additional circulator won't help much -- and will upset all the rest of the radiators. @JUGHNE and I agree -- it was a gravity system at one time, and those are very very sensitive to head loss in the pipes. Your 12 feet of 3/4 baseboard plus the connecting pipes make for far more flow resistance than any of the other radiators -- the old radiators had almost no flow resistance at all, and that say 15 feet of 3/4 inch is equivalent to about 50 feet of 1 1/4, never mind the bigger mains.

    You could try throttling all the other radiators, but you may find that the existing pump is then too small -- as well as it being incredibly difficult to balance the system that way.

    A better possibility would be to put thermostatically controlled radiator valves on all the other radiators. This would allow for temperature control in the other spaces, but is a rather expensive project -- and you would also have to have a very different control strategy and piping, and at least one more pump for your boiler.

    There is also @Paul48 's comment: that 12 feet of baseboard won't come close to the heat output of the radiator that was there, even if you can get flow through it.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    Gordy
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    Jamie, I doubt if it was ever a steam system. The return is the same size as the supply from what I see. They piped the gravity with the extra slope as if it were steam.....I wonder if that much slope/rise was really necessary considering the water temp.
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    There are 1 1/4" fin tube convectors....they have the commercial look to them and little mass. Not the nice lingering radiant-dry your towels- type heat of a cast iron rad.
  • andredibrava
    andredibrava Member Posts: 7
    Hooray! @JUGHNE I took your suggestion and valved down 4 of the 7 radiators I have in the house and now I get flow thru the pipes. Those 4 still heat up good enough that I might actually leave them as is. However, I will run several tests in the next few days, like valve down only 2 and see it the flow is still there. I appreciate that suggestion and I am happy to feel heat in those pipes. I think thermostatically controlled valve in the radiators, but you are right, that would be too expensive.

    @Paul48 if knew about your experience, perhaps I would have taken a different approach. It is flowing now, but valving down a few of the other radiators. I will keep on watching to see what happens in the next few days.

    @EBEBRATT-Ed I hooked up the two baseboards in series. I just thought it would have been easier to hook up than in parallel. Yes, it seems the water flow is giving priority to the larger piped radiators. As explained above, I valved them down and it flows.

    I appreciate all the suggestions here. I will keep on monitoring the system and post back if success or otherwise.

  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    If you could reconnect them in parallel then you may get more flow thru the riser system. There is usually room for a return pipe inside of a BB htr if that would simplify piping.
  • j a_2
    j a_2 Member Posts: 1,801
    A good installer back in the days would have installed balancing valves....Up in your attic and most likely near the chimney there may have been an open tank....Hope the converter capped it correctly....Look around with a bright flashlight...
  • andredibrava
    andredibrava Member Posts: 7
    j a said:

    A good installer back in the days would have installed balancing valves....Up in your attic and most likely near the chimney there may have been an open tank....Hope the converter capped it correctly....Look around with a bright flashlight...

    There was no balancing valve. The pipes went up to the 2nd flr and not all the way to the attic. I see what you are saying though. It would have been a good option. I am happy with the flow I am getting based on the suggestions I got here. Thanks
  • lchmb
    lchmb Member Posts: 2,997
    how about end run them back to the boiler and create another zone just for the baseboard?
  • Ironman
    Ironman Member Posts: 7,366
    Putting a circulator in the supply line of the runout to the BB would probably correct the problem and not be that difficult. Sort of like a secondary loop off of a primary.
    Bob Boan
    You can choose to do what you want, but you cannot choose the consequences.