Am I blind? Not seeing the gas shut-off valve.

come back to this picture, yes, that's your pressure reducing fill valve, get us a wider shot to the left (the right is connecting to your system and shows your compression tank), to the left there should / could be another manual hand valve, follow that pipe back to a closed valve, or your water meter,

@sjh said "I lifted the lever on the pressure release valve, thinking that would increase pressure in the system. Did it slowly and carefully, only lifting it a little at a time. Gauge showed no increase in pressure. I increased the pressure I was adding to the system at a faster pace. Still no difference. Then I added it a bit faster, still no difference in pressure showing on the gauge. Then, the release valve for the boiler started shooting water out:" and showed us a photo of water pouring out of the relief valve white safety drop tube.

 In reading this thread I believe that @sjh is calling this valve a pressure relief valve. In fact this is a pressure reducing valve NOT a pressure RELIEF valve. There is also a photo of a Tradicator or boiler gauge that has three scales on it. One of the scales is for the boiler water temperature and that appears top be near 100°F. The other dial points to the water pressure and height the static pressure (boiler pressure at the gauge location) of zero PSI and zero Feet. The boiler pressure gauge is reading ZERO and the water flowing out of the pressure relief valve indicates that the gauge is bad or the gauge is not in connection to the boiler gauge location.     

I believe this is the same job we talked about last week when the fuel oil dealer was going to be there soon to remove an old oil boiler and install this new gas boiler that the gas company is paying for through some sort of grant program where the homeowner does not get to select what they are installing and who gets to install it.  We offered advice on how the best way is to install the replacement boiler and if they were going to re-use all the old circulators.   

The installing company assured @sjh that they were not going to make a mess of piping behind the boiler and that they would follow the manufacturer ’s diagrams like this one when installing the new boiler and cleaning up the existing circulator mess.  This obviously was said just to satisfy @sjh at the time and they had all intentions of making a mess of the piping behind the boiler because it was the easy thing to do .  Use as much of the old piping and circulator locations as they could to get it to run.  Now there are problems and @sjh is looking at what they can do to make it work themselves , rather than let the contractor solve the problem.  The only way that @sjh has leverage is if the final payment to the contractor has not been received yet and he does not sign off so that they can get paid .   If @sjh already signed the completion certificate for the grant money, then there is no leverage.   I hope the contractor will stand behind the work they have completed. 

I'm going to study the photos of the old oil boiler and the new system and see exactly what is going on there. This may take some time and may reveal why the gauge reads 0.0 PSI and the 30 PSI relief valve is blowing off pressure at the same time.

This is interesting. It appears that the suggested piping design for a zone system using pumps that is on page 28 in the manual was not used. in fact they piped it as I feared and this design may not yield the results that the manufacturer intended. Here is the supply piping from the oil boiler:

This is the closest I can get from the photos. Now in the new boiler piping That was not going to be a cluster of piping behind the new boiler (which in my opinion that IS a cluster of piping) and be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's I/O manual (this is the closest one to what you have) using a primary secondary layout.

You can clearly see that the as built piping is not using a primary secondary piping design here:

In fact this piping design is based on old school direct piping from the supply to the return of each zone. Also I can not see zone D piping in the as built piping. This piping design lends itself to improper hydraulic separation of the zone pumps from the internal boiler pump which may cause a problem in transferring heat from the boiler heat exchanger to the system if for some reason all three (or four) zones call at the same time. All the zone pumps are forcing all the flow of all the zones thru the boiler heat exchanger at the same time.  The primary /secondary piping will create the hydraulic separation that the manufacturer requires for the best operation and longest boiler life.  

If the installing contractor will not make this right, then I would contact the manufacturer's representative, the gas company that is supplying the money for the contractor, and the authority having jurisdiction and lodge a complaint that you believe that the installing contractor did not follow the IO manual and you would like them to put whatever influence they have with that contractor and make them install it properly.   

I hope you followed my recommendations to withhold payment until you are satisfied that the system is operating properly.  Which it is not at this time. 

In order to be exactly clear using what I believe is the actual diagram from your IO Manual I believe this is your Figure 17 from Page 28

This is what that might look like if you have 4 zones

And this is the way it was piped by the contractor

See how the very important closely spaced tees are missing? Also see how the circulators are on the return side of the system? There is also a lower cost air scoop that requires 18" of approach piping in order to be the most effective in air removal. There appears to be about 6" from the union fitting. So that sort of negates the efficiency of the air removal device. That 18" minimum is clearly in the Submittal and the installation instructions. Click here Submittal

That is just three of the many short cuts this contractor has used in order to do the least amount of work in order to get the big payment from the gas company.

Thanks @Kaos. I did not see that picture. Wow what a difficult way to do the near boiler piping. There are no service valves or purge valves with that black pipe and fittings. So the boiler may be properly piped after all @sjh. I thought I looked at every picture and did not see the Tee fittings that @Kaos just showed in the above picture.

The installers still did not move the circulator pumps to the supply side just after the expansion tank and air scoop as recommended by NTI in the instruction manual. With that new information this is your as built system.

I am only guessing at the circulator location for zone 3 and 4. and there may or may not be flow control valves or Internal Flo Check (IFC) devices on the circulators. in either case if there is no flow control or FloCheck in the other zones 3 and 4 then you will get reverse flow in those zones when zone 1 or 2 calls for heat ans zone 3 and 4 are not calling for heat. That is certainly not a good thing.

You still have leverage if you owe $4000.00. That always gets the attention of the boss when you ask a question about how things work and will be willing to wait for the explanation in order to produce that payment. If you are not satisfied as to the answers, you can always ask the installing company to tell you things like why the circulators were installed on the return when they are clearly shown on the supply in the manual. Just because they serviced it for all those years when they were on the return of the Weil McLain boiler does not mean that they can not be installed on the supply now.

And not for nothing… You did ask about that before they started the job. Nothing was resolved at that time when it would have been easy to make that change. Now that it is done and it is more involved to make that change, is not your fault.

Regarding the other circulators in the basement. I was wondering about them…. Are they connected to a different heating system that is controlled by the other switch?

I kind of remember that you may have mentioned that you have two boilers serving a total of 8 zones. Four zones on each boiler.

And not knowing what zone is what can make solving problems more difficult. You may want to take the time to find out that information before it gets too cold. You do it by turning off the heat at both main switches one mild night before you go to bed. In the morning all the zones will be cold. Now go and turn all the thermostats to the lowest setting before you turn the boiler switch 1 back on (leave switch 2 off for now. You will want to disable the outdoor reset feature on the boiler if it is active now. That way you will get the hottest water from the boiler in order to get the fastest response for your testing.

Then turn up one thermostat to 85° and see what radiators get hot. Call that zone 1A if it is controlled by switch 1. See what circulator pump is running. See what flow control valve is hot on both sides. See what return pipe gets hot after 10 or 15 minutes. Place a tag with a #1 on everything that gets hot when that apartment thermostat gets turn up to 85°. NOW, turn that thermostat for zone #1 down to 55° and move on to another thermostat. If nothing gets hot then that must be on switch #2 so move on to another thermostat.

When you get to the next thermostat that produces heat from switch #1, call that zone 1B and see what pump operates and what radiators get hot and what return pipe gets hot after the that zone calls for heat for 10 to 15 minutes.

Follow that procedure for every thermostat and every zone.  Once you are completed, move on the switch #2 and do the same thing again. Once you are completely finished, you will want to make sure that every radiator in the building has a tag on them so you know that the radiator works when there is a call for heat.  If there is a radiator that does not get hot by the time you are finished with the test, you can ask the contractor why there is a problem with that radiator.  But for now you can't be sure if there is even a problem if you don't know how your building is supposed to work.

It is amazing what holding $4000.00 can get done when you have that leverage.

You can even give the contractor $2000.00 in good faith after they help you with understanding the system and call in a credit card payment to them for the balance once you have digested all that information. Then you can come here and let us know how things turned out and we will be happy to guide you if there are any other issues before you send in the last $2000.00.

Just some random thoughts.

I just saw a notice that you mentioned me ins a post at 6:39 this evening. When I look at that post it was edited at 8:27 so I dont know what you said. but I'm glad to help if I can

I see a previous comment about the automatic boiler feed being called a Pressure Reducing Valve (PRV) which is sometimes confused with a Pressure Relief Valve (PRV).

Since there is often confusion on this topic with Professionals I like to make this information clear as mud whenever I can… I jusr saw you sent me a PM.

BRB.

No gauge in the boiler. That is the one provided by NTI. There are digital readouts of all the parameters but that does not qualify as the gauge required by code. So, you get that piece of junk to pass inspection. I don't believe it is necessary if you know how to work the menu of the control. But not all customers are that well versed in reading the 100+ page manual to get to the menu that tells you the way to get that info. the pressure reading from the electronic menu may not stay there and drop to a default menu after several minutes of no input to the control. The age of modern computers that make out life easier. Don't you love the 21st Century?