I have a heating system in my house that we installed new when we built the house. System went live Summer of 2002, began regular use in winter 02/03. Basics that I know off the top of my head, its an oil fired Weil-Mclain boiler, 180k btu with a powervent. 5 zones total and the system is (I think this is the right terminology) a close loop system filled with Noburst glycol. Regular annual cleanings have been done to the system and regular testing by the cleaners have put it running about 86% IIRC.
Zone1 is hot water
Zone2 is living room
Zone 3 is Maser Bedroom
Zone 4 is back bedrooms (first floor) and first floor bath.
Zone 5 is basement heated floor.
I don't use it anywhere near as much these days as I used to because we havea woodstove in the living room that meets probably 80%+ of our heating needs. We use the boiler for hot water and occasional heat in the MBR and zone 4. Zone 4's performance is abysmal...the thing runs and runs and runs and the heat in the room with the thermostat ( a 12x14 bedroom) climbs very slowly. The glycol runs through the bathroom baseboard first, bedroom with the thermostat and then another bedroom (14x16) and then back to the boiler. For awhile the baseboards in the middle stage seemed poor performaing and the other 2 rooms would get warm considerably more quickly, now it seems like all 3 rooms but I'm having trouble gauging it.
I've cleaned the baseboards out, made sure to remove paper bits, crayons and kids toys, the bottom of the baseboards are al open to allow air in from the floor and largely unobstructed on top...some stretches are behind furniture for example, but nothing really spectacular. The other zones seem to operate properly and put out decent heat...MBR warms up alot more quickly than the little bedroom and it about triple the air volume.
Not really sure where to go from here. Is it possible the feed pipes to the zone are clogged and simply not passing as much warm glycol as they should be? Does the glycol need to be changed (I've heard it can turn mildly acidic over time...maybe this is the case and I've got some crap in there)? I have 15 gallons of it in jugs leftover from the install.
Thanks for your advice.
Zone1 is hot water
Zone2 is living room
Zone 3 is Maser Bedroom
Zone 4 is back bedrooms (first floor) and first floor bath.
Zone 5 is basement heated floor.
I don't use it anywhere near as much these days as I used to because we havea woodstove in the living room that meets probably 80%+ of our heating needs. We use the boiler for hot water and occasional heat in the MBR and zone 4. Zone 4's performance is abysmal...the thing runs and runs and runs and the heat in the room with the thermostat ( a 12x14 bedroom) climbs very slowly. The glycol runs through the bathroom baseboard first, bedroom with the thermostat and then another bedroom (14x16) and then back to the boiler. For awhile the baseboards in the middle stage seemed poor performaing and the other 2 rooms would get warm considerably more quickly, now it seems like all 3 rooms but I'm having trouble gauging it.
I've cleaned the baseboards out, made sure to remove paper bits, crayons and kids toys, the bottom of the baseboards are al open to allow air in from the floor and largely unobstructed on top...some stretches are behind furniture for example, but nothing really spectacular. The other zones seem to operate properly and put out decent heat...MBR warms up alot more quickly than the little bedroom and it about triple the air volume.
Not really sure where to go from here. Is it possible the feed pipes to the zone are clogged and simply not passing as much warm glycol as they should be? Does the glycol need to be changed (I've heard it can turn mildly acidic over time...maybe this is the case and I've got some crap in there)? I have 15 gallons of it in jugs leftover from the install.
Thanks for your advice.