Help with 2 Radiators Not Heating on Hot Water Boiler System!

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I moved into a house last year with a Weil McClain CG hot water boiler.
It has 4 heating zones and a domestic hot water zone connected to a
storage tank. The largest heating zone is for the 1st and 2nd floors of the
house and contains 12 cast iron radiators. The other 3 heating zones are for the
basement, kitchen, and attic zones which are all baseboard heat.

Last winter everything heated well and evenly and there really were no
issues. For future ease of maintenance and safety I wanted the heating
company to do a few things:
1. add a few additional ball valve shut offs (one zone didn’t have any
separate shut offs which would make future maintenance like changing a
circulator difficult)
2. add a spirovent for better air elimination (there was a tiny scoop before which was improperly placed)
3. replace the air bleeder valves on the radiators which were painted shut/broken
4. Add a low water cut off device above the boiler.

When they did this work they accidentally ordered the wrong size
spirovent air eliminator for 1.5” diameter pipe even though the piping coming out of the boiler was 1.25” in diameter. They went ahead and adapted from 1.25” to 1.5” to
add the spirovent air eliminator and then reduced back to 1.25” before
any of the flow checks or take offs to the cast iron radiators.

They had to drain the system to do this. When they connected it all back
and repressurized the system, 2 of the radiators furthest from the
boiler no longer heated well or at all. One radiator gets warm at the
handle, but even after 2-3 hours will not heat. The other radiator will
get warm (around 115°) but not hot like the other radiators that work (which all reach
about 155°).

The supply and return pipes to the boiler are all coming back hot which
means the way the cast iron radiator heating zone is piped is not a
simple circuit but I’m guessing has lines that  T off of the main line
at different points.

The tech thinks the radiator handles at the non heating radiators may
have disintegrated or have something broken to be causing a problem. The radiator that heats to115° seems to be heating backwards from the return to the supply valve
and the other non-heating radiator isn’t really heating at all - it just gets warm
at the supply valve handle. The tech is suggesting replacing the
radiator valves on the 2 problem heating radiators to fix the issue.

I’m wondering if the problem is the radiator supply valves or instead
the increased 1.5” supply pipe size out of the boiler that is causing
a flow/ short-circuiting issue (or something else I’m thinking of).

Everything was heating well before, which is why this is so frustrating.
What do you all think is going on? Could a 1/4” upsize in diameter of a couple feet of
that supply pipe cause this issue or is more likely to be the individual radiator valves for the 2 problem radiators? Please let me know what you think! Thank you in advance for your help.

Weil-McLain Model CG Hot Water Boiler.JPEG Weil-McLain CG Boiler Card.JPEG System Pic.JPEG Supply From Boiler.JPEG Supply from Boiler Pic 2.JPEG Supply to 4 zones with flow check valves.JPEG Large Flow Check to Cast Iron Radiator Loop.JPEG Returns to Boiler.JPEG Radiator #1.JPEG Radiator #2.JPEG Radiator #2 handle.JPEG Radiator Valve Handle.JPEG

Comments

  • 109A_5
    109A_5 Posts: 4,612

    You are sure all the air is out of the poorly performing radiators ?

    image.png
    National - U.S. Gas Boiler 45+ Years Old
    Steam 300 SQ. FT. - EDR 347
    One Pipe System
  • psb75
    psb75 Posts: 1,175

    I would highly suspect the old valves at the radiators, AFTER making sure they are free of air. You made this statement:  "has lines that  T off of the main line at different points:" Are these "monoflo T's"? If so, these can be problematic.

  • Jeremy_16
    Jeremy_16 Posts: 116

    @109A_5 - yes, the techs made sure to bleed all of the newly installed bleeder valves on each radiator (including the problem ones). I even opened one bleeder valve up myself after they left and water squirted right out. There was no air left.

    @psb75 - It's confirmed they are free of air from the bleeder valves on the radiators. The main tech said that they are not monoflo T's (or at least they don't appear to be based on there being no markings on them - see up close pics attached of 2 of the accessible T's which are located right after the flow check valve for the cast iron radiator zone).

    Based on what you all see so far, is the logical best first step to just replace the supply valves on the radiators as the tech suggested and hope that solves the problem?

    close up of Ts pic #1.JPEG close up of Ts pic #2.JPEG
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Posts: 28,517

    maybe try manually opening those green flochecks, see if that changes flow,

    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
    Intplm.
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Posts: 21,169

    They got air in the system that is now trapped and not letting the heat flow. Can you shut off the zones that do heat to try to get more velocity through the underheated zone temporally?

  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Posts: 7,612
    edited 4:26PM

    close the supply and bleed.
    Close the return and bleed.
    repeat as needed

  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Posts: 28,517

    looks like you have individual purge points on every zone, should be an easy purge. Raise pressure to 25 psi to purge.

    Sadly circs are on return. One on the supply for some reason,but before the purger and exp tank?

    If they were on the supply pumping away it would self purge in minutes 😉

    IMG_1690.jpeg
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • Jeremy_16
    Jeremy_16 Posts: 116

    @hot_rod - I've never messed with the flow checks before so I'm not sure how to open and don't want to screw anything up. With that being said, there is only one flow check valve for the cast iron radiator zone on the supply side (the other 3 flow checks are for the other 3 zones which each have their own circulator / thermostat control). The circulators are all on the return side for each heating zone and are pulling the water back to the boiler. The picture you screenshotted shows the 3 baseboard heating zones with their own draw off / purge point. The main zone with the cast iron radiators with the largest, white colored ball valve does not have it's own isolated draw off / purge point (it would have to be purged from the blue gate valve on the bottom left below all of the circulators). We do also have a spirovent on the vertical supply line that serves all heating zones. There's currently no air at all in the baseboard zones. Those were purged successfully and since they're in a simple loop we know they leave hot and come back hot so there's no air. I thought for the cast iron radiator zone once most of the air was purged we could bleed all the radiators directly from the radiator bleeder valves (which the techs did before they left the first day).

    @EBEBRATT-Ed This afternoon I shut the ball valves on the supply and return side for all heating zones except for the cast iron radiator zone with the 2 problem radiators. I could trace the supply and return pipes (which I believe may go to the problem radiators) all the way to the front of the house in the basement before they disappeared in a wall (the problem radiators are on the 2nd floor above the area where I was in the basement). The supply and return pipes felt very hot where they were accessible for me to touch them. Oddly enough it seems both problem radiators are not getting heat from the supply valve side. They seem to be getting heat from the return side (see first 2 pictures below from my IR camera - excuse the picture of a picture, but I can't find my cord to upload the pics directly from the IR camera). The radiator that didn't really heat much at all seemed to get a tiny bit of heat now (99º with IR gun) where before I felt almost no warmth at all (83º with IR gun the other day - although the supply valve the other day got up to 99º). It seems the flow has reversed for that radiator since the first problem day ( it's heating now from the return side instead of supply side). I had the heat run for about 45-60 minutes this afternoon. The rest of the working cast iron radiators got up to 145º-155º and were heating well (see 3rd IR picture to see a working cast iron radiator fully heating).

    @pecmsg - I tried bleeding the individual problem radiators from the bleeder valves again while the heat was running. No air came out - only cool water. I also tried opening and closing the ball valves for the supply and return on the cast iron radiator heating zone while the circulator for that zone was running - I don't think that did anything.

    As of now the heating company is planning to come back next week to replace the supply valves on the problem radiators. I really hope that fixes them, but if anyone else has other ideas or thoughts on this, please let me know.

    IMG_6839.JPEG IMG_6840.JPEG IMG_6843.JPEG
  • jesmed1
    jesmed1 Posts: 1,614
    edited 8:53PM

    This may be too obvious, but did they ever touch (close) those radiator valves during their work? The closeup of the one radiator valve shows paint and crud on the stem, looking like it hasn't been closed in a long time. And if they didn't close the valves, how are valves now the problem? If air is in the system elsewhere, replacing the valves is only going to add more air…

    And what is your water pressure now? Try raising to 20 psi

  • psb75
    psb75 Posts: 1,175

    My question is: if the radiators have "T's" coming off the main circulating zone and there are NO mono-flow T's…what makes the supply water go reliably into a given radiator?

  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Posts: 28,517

    maybe the circulator is locked up, or not getting power.

    Does it get really hot when powered? That can indicated a locked impeller.

    .

    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream