? about home heating/boiler if you know about them please step i

Mark A. Custis

Or go see the Q & A section Dan has posted. You have whaat I think is a counter flow system. I am able to go to the deepest part of Lake Erie. I'm lost.

Give him a hand,

Mark

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Joe.G

? about home heating/boiler if you know about them please step i

I had to fix a leak on my boiler so I had to drain the water out of it,
Everything is working great but teh radtiator in my up stairs bedroom, you can hear the water going into it sometime it drips and some time it pours. I have tried to get all teh air out of it but I can't, the problem with this raditaor is thaat the inlet and outlet are on the same side, so everyonce in a while I would have to bleed this one but not like this? I have filled a 5 gallon pbucket trying to bleed it while the heat was going.

Mark A. Custis

You might try:

Increasing the water pressure a few pounds, (stay under the pressure rating of the pressure relief valve) this will make the process faster and over come any problems caused by the height of the radiator.

Mark

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Joe.G

I let the pressure stop at the 12 lbs the flow control stops at, it is now at 20 or 22 lbs, the problem I think is that the inlet is at the top of the raditaor and the outlet is on the bottom right below it. I have the old cast iron hot wwater raditors.

Ben_3

Joe

Joe what was the leak you fixed? There is saying that if you bleed and bleed and get no air, IT AIN'T AN AIR PROBLEM, stop bleeding. I have seen my rads hooked up this way and usually it works fine however the flow tends to short circuit from top to bottom causing the rad to not heat evenly all the way across. My question to you is did you drain your expansion tank when you drained the boiler? If you left the pres. red. valve adjustment set to the factory 12 psig and your pres. is 22 psig it sounds like you may be losing the air cushion in your tank if it's a steel compression type. This air may be then finding it's way to the high point, your bedroom rad. However I can't help suspecting that the flow to this rad has been reduced causing your problem like I said before if your bleeding and getting only water, stop bleeding it is not and air problem.

tombig

Bleeding Radiators

> Joe what was the leak you fixed? There is saying

> that if you bleed and bleed and get no air, IT

> AIN'T AN AIR PROBLEM, stop bleeding. I have seen

> my rads hooked up this way and usually it works

> fine however the flow tends to short circuit from

> top to bottom causing the rad to not heat evenly

> all the way across. My question to you is did you

> drain your expansion tank when you drained the

> boiler? If you left the pres. red. valve

> adjustment set to the factory 12 psig and your

> pres. is 22 psig it sounds like you may be losing

> the air cushion in your tank if it's a steel

> compression type. This air may be then finding

> it's way to the high point, your bedroom rad.

> However I can't help suspecting that the flow to

> this rad has been reduced causing your problem

> like I said before if your bleeding and getting

> only water, stop bleeding it is not and air

> problem.

tombig

Bleeding Radiators

I'm sure you didn't fill that bucket with air so let's assume you got some water at the radiator. You should bleed the rads with the sytem pump(s)off. If you have zone valves open them manually if possible. If 12psi. isn't enough to push the air out of upper floor rads then add pressure until you can. (you weren't that off base Mark so take your swim trunks off) Once the system is filled drain of the bottom of the boiler until you are back at 12 psi cold and fire away. Bleeding while pumping, especially with that piping config at the rad, pushed some water up there but didn't eliminate the air. You should drain the expansion tank too. If it's a bladder type and you can't your tank might be undersized if you're getting over 20psi. Keep an eye on that pressure.

Tombig

Joe.G

The tank I am using is a extrol , it says it is pre charged at the factory at 12 psi, my friend took some air out of it while we where working on the boiler, so i took the tank off and checked the pressure it was at 4 pounds, I set the pressure to 14 lb, how do I know if this tank is going bad? if I touch the top 1/4 of the tank it is hot or warm the bottom half is cool/cold? what do you mean by bleeding it with the system pump off? I have only 1 thermostat so I guess I only have one zone? I did not have this problem intil i had to drain the boiler to fix a line coming out of it, the rad alway did need to be bled once in a while.

Mark Walnicki

Extrol

Best bet is to just change out the extrol tank. They all fail eventually, and it seems to happen quicker after they've been pumped up after being low. Consider it a preventive maintainance cost.

Is the pipe you changed out the same size and routed the same way as the old one? What is the size and kind of pipe you have on the whole system?

PETER SOKOLOWSKI

HOW OLD IS A RADIATOR VALVE?THIS COULD BE THE PROBLEM AS WELL.

ScottMP

Joe

Your getting close. The expansion tank should not have been bleed. Your adding air back to the tank was correct, the tank preasure should equal the system preasure.

12 lbs might be a little low for your system. How many floors ? You said a second floor radiator so we know you have at least two floors. System preasure is directly realted to altitude. If you do not have enough preasure to "lift" the water to the top of the rad. then you will have air problems. The lower the system preasure at the top of the rad, will allow air to gather in larger bubbles and not move thru the piping. Smaller bubbles, under higher preasure, move thru the system and "should be eliminated" by your boiler piping.

I would shut off the circulator or the boiler , what ever is easier for you, and fill the boiler to about 20 lbs. Then go up stairs and bleed that radiator. The piping you describe should not stop the air from being bleed out. Whne you done go back down and drain water from the boiler back down to about 15 lbs. That should be enough to keep the system preasurized to keep the air thats left in smaller bubbles. When the system heats up it should raise its preasure around 2/3 more lbs as the water expands as its heated. If it climbs higher than that you have another problem and more than likly your expansion tank is to small. It should be hot at the top and cool at the botom, thast normal.

If you are hearing water "flowing" thru the radiator its air.

One last thing. What pipe did you change ? What size is the circulator on your system ? These could create problemns also.

Good Luck

Scott

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Joe.G

STRATOS

JOE G

Why dont you try to put an automatic air valve ?

Joe.G

I changed the copper pipes that come out of the boiler, for hot water, the reason i had to drain the hot for the heating section is because the drain vavle for the boiler was leaking. I have black pipe I think is what it is called running to all the raditors, i am not sure on the size but I am goint to say in the basement it is 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 inch and to the raditors it si 3/4.

Hi, this is what I did i raised the pressure yesterday and bled all of the radiators, I let the pressure run as high as possible to see when the valve will blow it went at 38 psi on the gauge on the boiler. I then let the water out from the boiler to about 10 psi on the gauge and let the auto fill bring it back to pressure which it stopped at 14 psi twice, I am guessing maybe my gauge is off it looks real old, after the system runs the pressure gets up to 22 psi some times it is at 18 sometimes i have seen it at 25 psi. Thanks for your help, P.S The house has heat but I am not sure if the radiator is quite since I had to go to work last night.

STRATOS

raise pressure

you dont always help if you raise the pressure.
put one automatic air valve to your radiator,i do it all the time .
And when the problem is gone ,you can take it off.

Ben_3

Auto vent?

how do you remove an auto air vent without re-draining the radaitor to take it off?

john_24

auto air vents

on the radiators are something i would advise against. I have seen them cause more problemsthan they solve. I would advise following the advice posted earlier shut off the boiler determine what pressure you need to get water to the highest radiator and bleed it. Boiler guages should not be trusted seen too many of them 10 lbs off. I use a good pressure guage hooked to a hose fitting to get a more accurate reading.

STRATOS

Ben-Air valve

Ithink there is a radiator valves ,you can close them
take the valve off, the most of our heating systems in europe is with water and we have a lot of proplems like this all the time.