Uneven baseboard heat

Rock

My tenant is complaining about the baseboards. The system is oil hot water one zone baseboard. The house is a two bedroom ranch . She had the thermoset set to 64 and said the only baseboard that gets hot is the living room. Im thinking that the outside air temp is not that cold now and the boiler is below the living room . The living room is probably the closest to the boiler and the thermostat is in the living room. It seems like the system is operating normally? What say?

Jamie Hall

It may be only one zone, but how are the baseboards plumbed? Are they in series? Parallel with home runs? Parallel from a manifold? Monoflo?

Possible reasons for only one baseboard in a zone getting warm vary with how the system is plumber.

The boiler being directly under the one baseboard that does get warm might be a factor — but there are many others.

bburd

The boiler water pressure should be checked. The system may be airbound and need purging. It may also have developed a leak.

Rock

I believe the baseboard is in series. I purged the system to bleed any air out last month and set the pressure to 30 lbs.. When you say the system may have a leak, do you mean in the baseboard loop?

HVACNUT

30 psi? Your service provider can't get there, so you're doing what you can? That's so nice.

mattmia2

so after you defuse the bomb, sounds like it isn't circulating either because it is air bound or the circulator is bad or the control that should turn on the circulator is bad.

the relief valve should blow off at 30 psig. it should be about 12 psig cold and rise a bit when it gets hot but stay well below 30 psig.

i would strongly suggest you call a competent professional until you learn how the system works to protect you and your tenant

Jamie Hall

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1848409#Comment_1848409

Oh dear. Well, first 30psig is too high. Drop it down to 12 to 15 psig cold.

Second if is a series loop, it is may be air bound — but it may also be that the cycle time of the thermostat is set so short that only the first element in the series has time to warm up. Remember that in a series system it takes time for the entire system to warm.

Intplm.

When was the house built? That should give us a better Idea if it's a series loop system or not.

As previously mentioned, you probably have an air bound system. What was your method on how you purged it. It can take a bit of time running water through a system replacing the air with water. Does the system make noise as if shaking a piggy bank or a can of nails when it calls for heat?

Rock

intplm, in answer to your question to purge I turned the thermostat up so circulator was on then closed bottom valve and opened top valve and put the hose in a bucket of water, purged and then stopped when it looked like there was no air coming out of the hose.. To regulate the pressure I used the fast fill valve(green). The house was built around 1960. I didn't notice the noise you described, but I know what you mean.

mattmia2

why is it covered in soot?