Base Board Radiaters in Bedrooms no Heat

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UpStateNY

UpStateNY

Feeling the Heat
May 4, 2008
435
Catskill Mountains
Anyone else ever have a similar problem?

I hope one of my pipes didn't freeze during this cold snap. I was using my pellet stove to keep the upstairs in the house warm in our raised ranch. I was only using the hot water fuel oil boiler to heat the down stairs. The pellet stove is in the living room heats the living room, Kitchen and dining room very nicely. I use a floor fan in the hallway to move air from the back bedrooms into the living room to be heated by the pellet stove. Been doing this for a few years now.

The problem I have right now is the hot water boiler radiators heat up downstairs zone nicely and the upstairs second zone only the living room, kitchen and dining rooms have heat. The upstairs bedrooms and baths over the garage have no heat coming from the radiators. This is strange since I only have one zone for down stairs and second zone for all of upstairs. Half the upstairs radiators have heat with no problems.

I don't see any water leaks anywhere.
 
UpStateNY said:
Anyone else ever have a similar problem?

I hope one of my pipes didn't freeze during this cold snap. I was using my pellet stove to keep the upstairs in the house warm in our raised ranch. I was only using the hot water fuel oil boiler to heat the down stairs. The pellet stove is in the living room heats the living room, Kitchen and dining room very nicely. I use a floor fan in the hallway to move air from the back bedrooms into the living room to be heated by the pellet stove. Been doing this for a few years now.

The problem I have right now is the hot water boiler radiators heat up downstairs zone nicely and the upstairs second zone only the living room, kitchen and dining rooms have heat. The upstairs bedrooms and baths over the garage have no heat coming from the radiators. This is strange since I only have one zone for down stairs and second zone for all of upstairs. Half the upstairs radiators have heat with no problems.

I don't see any water leaks anywhere.
Click to expand...
Possibly a zone valve is stuck. I hadn't used the furnace in 9 years and when we started it one zone didn't turn on right so it didn't get enough volume to push hot water all the way through. The small volume got cooled off so it didn't produce heat for the last area.
 
rona said:
Possibly a zone valve is stuck. I hadn't used the furnace in 9 years and when we started it one zone didn't turn on right so it didn't get enough volume to push hot water all the way through. The small volume got cooled off so it didn't produce heat for the last area.
Click to expand...

Nope not that. The upstairs only has one zone valve and one thermostat. Only half the radiators upstairs get hot. Go figure.
 
The upstairs zone valve seems to work.

You may have a frozen pipe. Depending on how they were plumbed, the two areas upstairs may be in parallel, so that one half still circulates hot water even though the other half is blocked (frozen). Do you have any areas where the pipes in that half go through uninsulated space? My dad had a closet that the pipe ran through, and in winter the closet would get cold enough to freeze the pipe if the door was left closed. (Being over the garage, an unheated space, may be where the freeze is.)
 
I'm glad I ran the oil guzzler on and off every 3 - 4 hours for 60 mins at a time over the last 52 hours, saved me from a frozen / burst pipe.
 
I have pipes running through a garage in the basement, once I insulated them, it solved my problem....
 
There is antifreeze available for hydronic heating systems. I had the same situation a few years ago with a frozen zone. I have had none since I added the stuff. It periodically needs to be flushed and replaced but cheaper than flood from a broken pipe.
 
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Do each of your radiators have a shut off? If so, one may have gotten closed, or partially closed, check those out. If you have hot water in some of the zone, it leads me to believe that there is at least some circulation. If those valves are all open, then use electric heaters in any corner or place that is over an unheated space (if there are any) to thaw them out. Had one corner that froze any time it was in single digits, or lower, and the wind was howling. Never had it burst though.
 
I don't have any experience with radiator systems, but I had a friend in college who rented a house with radiators. From what I remember when a radiator would malfunction in that house, they had to bleed air from the problem radiator. It usually cleared it up.
 
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MarylandGuy said:
I don't have any experience with radiator systems, but I had a friend in college who rented a house with radiators. From what I remember when a radiator would malfunction in that house, they had to bleed air from the problem radiator. It usually cleared it up.
Click to expand...

Funny, my original comment mentioned that they may have a whole lot of air in the system, but I took it out.
 
During this cold I manually open the zone valve, and crack the shutoff just above it open a little that way it circulates through that zone enough to not freeze..
 
bogieb said:
Funny, my original comment mentioned that they may have a whole lot of air in the system, but I took it out.
Click to expand...

I never understood how air in the system could block water flow. It seems like once water starting flowing, it would force the air out of the radiator. But then I also questioned where the air went in a closed system. I figured pockets of air must continue to circulate.

Kind of silly thinking, but I was young and dumb. Of course I still don't understand boiler systems that well, so I suppose nothing has changed.
 
MarylandGuy said:
I never understood how air in the system could block water flow. It seems like once water starting flowing, it would force the air out of the radiator. But then I also questioned where the air went in a closed system. I figured pockets of air must continue to circulate.

Kind of silly thinking, but I was young and dumb. Of course I still don't understand boiler systems that well, so I suppose nothing has changed.
Click to expand...

If it is a small amount of air, then you will hear it rattle in the pipes as it joins the rush of water. However, when the circulator isn't going, then the air will accumulate at the highest spot. get enough air there and it won't move. Ever try pushing an overturned glass into a sink of water. If you don't tilt it, then the air pressure will keep the water out. Same idea in a FHW system if enough air gets trapped.

However, if you get that much air in the system, you have to ask yourself where it is coming from. It could indicate a leak - probably at the boiler but could be at a joint in the pipes.
 
MarylandGuy said:
I don't have any experience with radiator systems, but I had a friend in college who rented a house with radiators. From what I remember when a radiator would malfunction in that house, they had to bleed air from the problem radiator. It usually cleared it up.
Click to expand...
Op said base board radiators which to me means finned tube. The radiators you are taking about were cast iron sectional radiators probably. Right? Different animal .
 
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UpStateNY said:
Nope not that. The upstairs only has one zone valve and one thermostat. Only half the radiators upstairs get hot. Go figure.
Click to expand...
Let's confirm one thing first, do you have finned tube baseboard radiators or big sectional radiator? And when you say hot, how hot? Like they are functioning properly with water running through them? Or just warm? How fast do they get hot? Normal fast or slow?

If all of your radiators/finned tube are piped in series in that zone, could it be that a section is frozen after the ones that are hot and it is functioning like a gravity hot water system now?
 
I had the same issue last year except it was my whole 1st floor not getting heat... it was indeed a frozen pipe, luckily I found it and thawed it before it burst. I turn on the heat once or twice a day to try to prevent freezing pipes, when this happened last year I hadn't turned the heat on for a week ( I forgot ) when I did turn it on again the pipes were frozen and I wasn't getting any heat.
 
I did a bleed of 3 out of four tube radiators that run along the floor. I took about 2 cups of water from each radiator. The water is running which is a good thing. I got one of the radiators to produce some heat. Not 100% but some heat. The other radiator is going to require some more work to get access to that before I can bleed that one. I will work on that tomorrow. Since I am getting water I take that as a good sign. It was 30 degrees outside today. My HVAC friend seems to think its air in the line. I have been in the house for 20+ years and never had a freeze up even when it got down to -25 degrees outside.
 
I had a Winter a few years back I had to keep bleeding air out of the system.
Cold radiator, cold bedroom.
Replaced the expansion tank and haven't had to bleed a radiator since.
There's not much pressure there.
 
UpStateNY said:
I did a bleed of 3 out of four tube radiators that run along the floor. I took about 2 cups of water from each radiator. The water is running which is a good thing. I got one of the radiators to produce some heat. Not 100% but some heat. The other radiator is going to require some more work to get access to that before I can bleed that one. I will work on that tomorrow. Since I am getting water I take that as a good sign. It was 30 degrees outside today. My HVAC friend seems to think its air in the line. I have been in the house for 20+ years and never had a freeze up even when it got down to -25 degrees outside.
Click to expand...

Might want to take a quick look at your boiler and make sure you don't have a leak somewhere. First clue I had at my previous house that there was an issue with the boiler was suddenly getting a lot of air in the basement heat zone. Turns out the boiler had developed a leak but the water leaked all ran to the back and under the wall next to it - into a carpeted. room. Since that wasll was covered by bookcases, I never found the leak until the carpet started molding in the spring and I followed my nose.

This may not be an issue in your case - but it will be WAY cheaper now if you do find a leak, than if you find it later. Hope it is just your pressure tank though!
 
Make sure that you have some pressure in the heating pipes/furnace. There should be something like 12 PSI or so. Lack of pressure could cause air to get into the system, as well as the circulating pump cavitating and creating bubbles. You may have an automatic bleeder near the furnace. Make sure it works. A faulty expansion tank, as mentioned, could cause you this grief, too.

Some systems have an automatic water feed to maintain the pressure in the system. You may or may not have one, and it may not be working, or the feed valve may be shut off.

If your system is quite old, you may have an expansion tank that needs to be drained occassionally. Newer tanks have a bladder that goes bad after some years.
 
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Lots of great advice here. Many thanks. I have been watching the water pressure on the boiler very closely. Its been around 15 to 20 lbs or pressure. I shut off the water line that feeds the boiler with additional water. I turned off the boiler and bleed out about 3 cups of water and watched the water pressure drop down to10 lbs. That gave me an idea how much water it takes to reduce the water pressure. I let more water into the boiler to increase the pressure back up to 15 lbs, turned the boiler back on and eventually I turned the water supply off to the boiler. All good, still no drop in water pressure.

Next I started testing return water lines. For the upstairs there is one hot output line right after the zone with two returns lines that I can see. These lines have shut off valves. I found which return line was staying cold so I shout off the return line that was returning hot water. I still could not get the bad return line to return warm water. I feel the return pipe about 15 feet from boiler and you can feel a slight vibration with the line open and no vibration with the line closed.

I was going to try bleeding the big garden hose lines near the boiler. One of the bleeder valves starting leaking and I didn't even touch it. I quick had to run to the local hardware store and get a garden hose metal cap. Leak solved. Still can not heat half the top floor of the raised ranch. I give up. I will have the HVAC guy come this week. No real rush. I don't think I have a leak and I got a have my pellet stove for the upstairs to keep warm. I don't want to cause anymore leaks :)

What I learned so far:
  1. Always have extra metal garden hose caps to cap off bleeder valves or maybe your outside garden hose valve.
  2. My bleeder valves on the baseboard heater required a special tool for a very small square nut inside a round hole . ( no kidding)
  3. Run my oil guzzling boiler once a week especially on cold nights and make sure all radiator are producing heat.
  4. Hydronic hot water home heating systems are more problematic than hot air home heating systems. Note to self if buying a new home.
 
I run Hercules Chemical buffered Propolyene Glycol in my shop PEX closed loop system. It's good for -100 before solidifying and it's cheap too...and non toxic. Only way to fly
 
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