Okay, I know it’s new, I mainly wanted to make sure it’s a make-up water pressure regulator. I’m sure that’s what it is. And you have proper pressure in the system so there’s no issue there.
You may have an airlock (as someone else mentioned) or possibly (if you have a pump) your pump isn’t working.
It’s not easy troubleshooting from afar, but I guess I’d recommend you keep trying to get air out of the system. (Or again, check for a non-working pump.)
The heat clearly comes from the bathroom.
So how do I drain/bleed the other part? there is no bleed valve down at the other end of the radiator where it goes back down thru the wall.
Should I try and drain from the basement? If I put a picture up, could you say which tap?
I have not found any pump. Heater goes to pipes, into walls, and emerges to baseboards.
One other piece- not sure if worth mentioning…
When I first started bleeding it, the water was nearly brown with rust. Then it slowly became reddish, then yellowish. It was only yesterday it finally became clear.
It is now after the weekend. Any updates?
Yes. So, I called Sunday and left a message for the repair company. They did not return the call. Today I called again. They have sent 2 people this time. They have determined, as did all of us here, that an air pocket likely exists past the radiator bleed. The pipe that returns the radiator to the basement has NO bleed valve or other valve, even down by the boiler. There is, at this point, no way to remove the air pocket. They are trying to drain the whole system to see if that works.
Otherwise,a new boiler system is recommended, and since the current one dates from a billion years ago, I agree. That will be approximately $45986986479689, I imagine.
I am going to solicit price quotes from multiple companies, and it is unlikely that company A from the current scenario will be the preferred provider.
The upside of that is that they can multi zone it and you won’t have to rely on one tstat for warmth, plus it will be a fair bit more efficient. And if you have the budget, hot water on demand!!!
I will probably multi zone it. Already hot water appears instantly somehow? Maybe because there is a wee tiny tank attached to the boiler?
That likely mean your hot water is drawn from the boiler so you have hot water on demand already. Nice. We have a small boiler that feeds the basement and garage floors with tstats for each. At some point I’d like to have HWOD as running out mid shower is crappy.
I told you your heating contractors are incompetent. Doesn’t draining the whole system introduce more air into it that needs to be bled out? Did you find out if you have a pump to circulate the water? The tiny tank attached is an expansion tank that takes out a lot of the noise generated as the water expands and contracts. It gives the water someplace to go instead of jacking the pressure in the lines. Return lines don’t have bleeders. Your bleeders should be at or very near the highest point in the system. You should not need to replace anything if the heat source works and is relatively efficient. The piping will not be replaced inside the walls. Thus the air lock they say you now have will be still there. The loop you have in the basement will be replaced to put in a manifold for the zoning.
I replaced my oil burner with propane when we added to the house to eliminate the chimney. Propane can be direct vented. I got instant hot water by running a 1/4" tube from the furthest hot water faucet back to the bottom of the water heater. Same size as the fridge ice maker connects with. Gravity circulation keeps hot water at the faucet 24/7.
I do not have a pump. Heating system dates to time of Christ. There are genuine and obvious issues with it, including some clear corrosion and leakage. Last year a different company also mentioned the system would need replacement in a few years when they came to do the ordinary service. That company, Company B, is coming on 2/11 to also look at it and provide estimate for replacement.
The only bleeder in my son’s room is at the entry point of the radiator, and the air pocket is beyond it. The radiator goes down the wall, across the next wall, and back down thru the floor all the way to the basement.
The nice thing about replacement is that it will add value to the property. I am hoping to sell this horrid thing this summer and move into an apartment, where none of this shit will ever be my hassle again.
I will keep you apprised of developments and also of what Company B says and Company C, a great older guy who chatted for awhile because he was also confused by what Company A said.
UPDATE Feb 25
I called Company 3, who had previously fixed an issue with this heater before. I thought they were sending a sales person over to give me a quote, but they sent a tech. This guy fixed it though!!
From my understanding:
The airlock was removed by cutting a return pipe from that room, draining out everything. A lot of mud/rust came out in the process. Initially the radiator got a bit warm, but then cooled a few minutes later. The tech determined that a T intersection containing valves had stopped working due to age. He could not replace it yesterday because that was not a part he had in his truck.
He came back today. The T valve was not even made any more. So he had another idea. He cut some of the return pipes and inserted some locks and valves and things, and basically forced the return past the problem T and routed the inflow some other way. I can take a picture of it if you want.
Basically, if it was a heart, it got a double bypass.
Anyway, the whole thing now works really well. Given the age of the system, upgrade is still recommended, especially if I were selling the house this summer. But it is not an emergency.
I am never calling Company 1 again except for oil delivery.
Glad you got it sorted. Sounds like quite the adventure!
Somehow I missed this thread. The key is in the 4th photo you posted, it shows a monoflow tee. The two links below will help you understand what you have and what the problem is. The tech was wrong about the tee not being made anymore, but like the guy says in the video in the second link, young guys don’t know all of the secret the old guys knew. There is another heating website that refers to the Dead Men, that is the men who installed these early steam and hydronic heating systems, and states that these guys knew what they were doing, unfortunately they rarely passed down their knowledge and you couldn’t ask them because, well, they are dead. I try to keep that in mind when working on old systems.