FHW NGAS HEAT PROBLEMS

RESTORED

Where to begin. Issues are numerous. Currently no heat to one zone. Just replaced a 6' section of baseboard that froze the last cold snap last winter. People cumoing for Christmas. Natural gas, 4 zone boiler. Has been a problem, since we purchased the house 20 years ago. I believe it's referred to as a monoflow system. The zone that is the problem, a 1" line comes off top of boiler, approx. 5ft. away it splits with a Y, one line has a shut off, the a taco 241 swetcheck. The line that has always been the problem, goes left, and about 20" it also has a taco 241 swetcheck, 1" line. There is NO shut off to this line. It is also void of any bleeder 90's. It feeds a 3' and 2' piece of heat in front entrance. (House dates late 1700's). It drops back into cellar and back up into foyer, above cellar and into front bedroom. There is a ball valve shut off in cellar after the 2 small strips of baseboard. Room is 13'6" square. A wall on the left side separates another room, same exact size. Main original section of house. This is a crawl space. I mean crawl. The heat is on the exterior walls of both rooms. Approx. 27' of active and dummy baseboard in both rooms. It then drops back down into cellar /basement section, on a 45 degree angle, and then heads back to boiler, approx. 15' + - of 3/4" pipe. Circulator is a Taco. there is NO bleeder's on any portion of this zone. The shut off is after the 5' of heat in hall foyer. The zone does have a drain, and ball valve shut off. The line (1" Pipe) gets hot up to the 241 Taco, cold after. When we ran a super store off the boiler, the 2 strips of heat in the foyer would blast on in the middle of summer. Hot water is now alone. 3 of the zones have the 241 Taco's. The zone which does not, furthest from the boiler, kitchen family room, runs the best, has trouble staying up to temp, when it gets 5 below zero or so. Expansion tank above boiler, checked pressure shows about 5lbs maybe. This has been changed twice in 20 years. The honeywell controls is basically hanging from the water in line. Service guy approx. 8 years ago left, while working on, went home, not feeling well, and passed away. People can't make this stuff up. I have fixed a couple breaks in this zone, and changed the Taco Circulator. I have a service call scheduled for next Wed. I am looking for as much input as possible, so I can ask the right questions, make the proper choices, and hopefully get what we pay for. I / we want to eliminate the strips of heat in hall/foyer. The one line feeding 2 zones I would love to just have 2 separate zones. Why do I need the taco 241's? I have purchased 90's with bleeders, and want those installed or I was going to in the bedrooms. I have decided not to attack myself, out of my comfort zone, in the middle of heating season, with 20 people coming for the weekend before Christmas. Ideas, help, 4 seperate zones ? For now, need to get the downstairs bedroom zone running, and do so with keeping in mind a total upgrade, to avoid this yearly issue. I did not have access to the crawl space until end of last winter. I finally drilled, and knocked out 3 large granite foundation pieces, giving us a 3' x 3' access hole and by hand removed approx 8 yds of dirt. At 62, now 63, I can deal with the interior portion of the CRAwL space to insulate and encapsulate. They did not have excavators back in the day. Ideas, taco241, bad? Why the monoflow? Thank you, RESTORED.

unclejohn

A picture is worth a thousand words. So several pictures are worth several thousand words.

HVACNUT

Yes, pics of the boiler and connected piping.
With all the ups and downs and ins and outs, it doesn't seem like a monoflo.