low pressure

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sfjohnson

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Jan 16, 2009
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I have an old ot model hs tarm multi fuel burner. I burn wood and oil with it. Burned wood saturday night and on Sunday morning it overheated. The relief valve spewed a fair amount of water out in that process. Now when running it I have very low pressure (right around 5 and it usually runs at around 20). I did hear some gurgling and water draining type noises when I started running it again. It does seem to be circulating and it does seem to be heating the house though the temps were pretty mild last night. All the baseboards seem to have some heat, except one in one room.

Will the pressure build itself back up or is there something I need to do? thanks
 
Do you have an auto fill valve in the system? If so, manually open it and build up system pressure to at least 10-15 lbs. be sure to monitor the pressure and close it when done. If you do have an autofill, it should be pre-set to about 12 PSI, but for some reason your system is not re-pressurizing.

Pat
 
thanks for the reply Pat. I believe so, but I am a rookie at this. I am attaching a picture that I believe is the auto fill valve as it is on what I believe to be my water "in" line. Does that look right?

Do I just move that valve part on the top straight up to allow more water in?

thanks
 

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Yes, that's the auto fill valve, and I also believe it may not be functioning properly.
Just pull the top lever so that it is vertical and you will hear the water flowing.
Stay close to it and watch the pressure.
 
sfjohnson said:
thanks for the reply Pat. I believe so, but I am a rookie at this. I am attaching a picture that I believe is the auto fill valve as it is on what I believe to be my water "in" line. Does that look right?

Do I just move that valve part on the top straight up to allow more water in?

thanks
Click to expand...

Yes, thats an autofill valve. I see there is a shutoff spigot to the right of the valve, make sure it is open. Yes, move the lever UP to manually add water to the system, and make sure you put the lever back down when finished. However, the fact that the system did not refill automatically indicates that the autofill could have failed or is not working as it should. it looks old and may need to be replaced. But first make sure that spigot is open. It should be open at all times when you are burning.
 
Hey Johnson; You may also want to consider putting in a backflow prevention device of some sort so that a future high-pressure incident won't be able to drive nasty boiler circuit water back into your domestic water supply. A simple check valve works ok. I prefer monitoring the pressure and manually filling it as a failure of the pressure regulating valve (failing open) could overpressure your heating system and flood your basement(?) with water while you are out to work. Just my $.05.
 
thecontrolguy said:
Hey Johnson; You may also want to consider putting in a backflow prevention device of some sort so that a future high-pressure incident won't be able to drive nasty boiler circuit water back into your domestic water supply. A simple check valve works ok. I prefer monitoring the pressure and manually filling it as a failure of the pressure regulating valve (failing open) could overpressure your heating system and flood your basement(?) with water while you are out to work. Just my $.05.
Click to expand...

Yep! It's our standard procedure to fill the system and then close the valve off on the feed water line. Just get in the habit of monitoring the system pressure ar least once a week when your down there firing the boiler. Another thing that should be done is flipping the lever on the pressure relief valve on your system once a month or so. Make sure it's functioning properly.
 
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