high water pressure after bleeding boiler
Familar knocking and tinkling occurring in my 1st and 2nd floor baseboards so went to purge the air yesterday. It was not a cold day here yesterday so I shutdown the system for a few hours before purging. Saw a ton of air come out from my 2nd floor zone and went thru about 15 gallons of water, the 1st floor had very little air (the tinkler). When purging I was throttling the auto fill to try and maintain water level but I did notice the water pressure dropped down to about 5. When complete, I manually opened the auto fill valve until cold pressure got to about 13 and then I heard the auto fill kick in and it seemed to stop around 15. When I turned the heat back on I noticed water pressure creeping up to 20, and then 25, and then 30, at which time I shut off the system worried that I was close to the relief valve spewing water. After a while, I took some water out of the bottom spigot of the boiler,,,probably a few gallons to get the hot pressure back to 15. After an over-night, its sitting hot at around 22. My settings are 180high and 140low. The expansion tank sounds hollow to tap and underneath the see-thru bubble is clear. This is a 30+ year old NY Boiler system, located in my basement (zone 1), with baseboard in 1st floor (zone 2) and 2nd floor (zone 3) with a pretty good run of piping to get to all those zones. Not shown in pic but each zone has a bypass valve. About 10 years ago, the 2nd floor added two more rooms and the piping there was extended about another 30' with no changes to the boiler system. A few years ago, I had a freeze event at the farthest run, so presumably there was a an air-block, and the pipe at that turn leaked. There are no air vents on any of the baseboards but its what I'm looking to get installed. But my question is, do I need to do anything else to deal with this borderline high water pressure?
Comments
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Thinking that the auto-fill valve was defective, after removing water from the system, I did turn off the water in-flow so that no new water was being added to the system.
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22 psi is fine if that is at shutoff temperature. You could cold fill to 12 psi instead of 15 and pressure would be lower, also
You might replace the brass air vent on top of the purger, they can stick close
assuming your gauge is accurate?Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream0 -
would the boiler still get that hot if the fill valve was adding too much new water? Mine only ever gets as hot at 140f
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@RhinebeckDude if you are located in Rhinebeck in Dutchess county I could assist you in person. I would check the pressure reducing fill valve and expansion tank and automatic air vents and make sure the entire system is operating safely reliably and as efficiently as possible.
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When I was filling the system after the purge I was only paying attn to the water pressure so the temp may have been lagging a bit more,,,I actually didn't think I could overfill the system with water and create more pressure, but I wasn't accounting for heat expansion of the water. But again, if the pipe isn't full then space is filled with air,,,which presumably leads to air knocks in the pipe…?
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How old is the feeder? It's a good B&G brass, so it's a good PRV. But even good ones get hung up. We used to rebuild them. No more. It might be time for water parts across the board if they're old. PRV, relief valve, air eliminators, extrol. You shouldn't have to purge every year. You shouldn't have to purge ever unless it's work related.
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I just bought @RayWohlfarth 's very informative book "Lessons Learned Troubleshooting Hydronic Heat." He says in it that bladder tanks typically lose 1 psi/yr (pg 16).
If the tank hasn't had air added in a long time, it's probably lost a lot of air, which the makeup water has displaced.
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When I was filling the system after the purge I was only paying attn to the water pressure so the temp may have been lagging a bit more,,,I actually didn't think I could overfill the system with water and create more pressure, but I wasn't accounting for heat expansion of the water. But again, if the pipe isn't full then space is filled with air,,,which presumably leads to air knocks in the pipe
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Back for again for sage advice! I am setup to replace PRV, Extrol, and autofill thanks @HVACNUT. I also was planning to install a baseboard air relief valve at the end of my top story baseboard run but when I had a plumber in to check the system he said it wasn't necessary and then ended up just flushing air saying that Extrol was designed to take that air out. I'm not convinced?
Just when my heat started kicking on in Oct I noticed rushing water in my top floor baseboard and when I checked the boiler its PSI was below 5. So, I turned the boiler off for a few hours and manually added new water and got the pressure up to 20 psi. When I ran it I noticed a few days later that it was peaking near 30 but I didnt' notice water coming from my PRV (its hidden behind the boiler and I have it emptying into a plastic bucket). I doubt my PRV opened up as I cannot even manually open it up so time and hard water have preyed upon it. I removed water from the system to get it back to 15 psi cold,,, System seemed to run well for a few weeks but then again I noticed PSI peaking near 30 and also hovering back below 5 psi I have always kept my fill spigot shutoff as I haven't trusted the autofill - I did not have to manually open the autofill in order for the fill to work and when I did open it I heard more water flowing thru it. Anyway this part seems suspect and will be replaced. I guess I could test it by opening the fill spigot and seeing if the autofill stops at 15 PSI?
So, if water isn't exiting due to PRV opening up, and the Extrol taps empty and still has clear view below, where is the water going? I don't need to add a lot to bring PSI back to 15-20, but doing this every other week isn't a fix.
Appreciate your feedback.
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okay, after I opened my fill spigot when the boiler was cold, I slowly watched the pressure rise, and rise past 12 PSI (which is the mfg set limit),,,I stopped when it went past 15 psi. This confirms that the pressure regulating valve isn't working. So, it will be replaced.
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