switched back to oil and lost heat, what happened?

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woodmeister

New Member
Nov 2, 2008
155
lower ct. river
All the wood is gone so I had to switch back to burning the oil furnace. I have three zones The second floor seems to be ok but I keep that at 62 new addition is cool but that has been an issue with baseboard sizeing for the square footage. The main part of the house is set at 70 and the temp this am was 52. hi-lo on the furnace is 170-185 I changed the aquastat on the boiler from 150 when buring wood to 170. I have line voltage taco circulators they seem to be working - I'm cold and confused at this point, any thoughts?
 
Any chance you still have a shut off valve manually closed from when you were heating with wood?
Also, is there a circulator pump that was not being used while burning wood that may be air-locked?
 
I have a concern that it may be air but it just seems to be one zone and sometimes the return is warm and at other times it's not, I made some adjustments in the wee hours last night still cold this am.
 
Try shutting off the two good zones and purge the zone that is giving you problems. Sounds like air.
 
It sounds like time to start feeling the pipes, I am always feeling the pipes, are they hot or not.

Steve
 
woodmeister said:
To Maine, two zones the pipes are pretty uniform for temp. the problem zone has been hot and cold and varying degrees of warm.

I agree with the previous poster that it may be air, isolate the problem zone and see how it heats, try and get any air that maybe in there out. That is if you have not already done this.

Steve
 
Something else I thought of: I had a bad honeywell zone valve that would half open, or half close due to the gear tooth being stripped.
Try checking your zone valves thoroughly to make sure nothing is wrong with them.
 
Well back to normal and here is the lesson learned 1. write down the equipment settings -I adjusted the clamp on aquastat to match the high limit on the furnace, i incorrectly had it at the low limit. 2.Had air in the zone at issue, I don't know why shutting down the wood boiler ( and closing the associated gate valves ) would allow air in but after purging the zone it's fine. 3. Don't mess with things you know nothing about. While waiting for a friend to show up to help with the purge I let air out of the expansion tank which let water in which raised the water pressure needless to say I'll call for service to make sure I did no harm. Stick to what you know I guess but thanks for the help, you can bet I won't run out of wood when it's 7 degrees out.
 
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