Getting Rid of Air in System

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velvetfoot

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 5, 2005
10,203
Sand Lake, NY
I'm running my oil boiler/baseboard system full time now for a few days now. There is noise in one of the first floor baseboards. There's an air scoop on the supply header but no other vents higher up on distribution. When I had air in the indirect system when I restarted that a few weeks ago, I seemed to successfully get rid of the air by opening a drain valve on its loop that is front of the circ pump which pumps to boiler return. I tried something similar this morning and may, or may not, have had a little success. I cracked open the valve; didn't notice any big bubbles though. There doesn't seem to be any other obvious drain valves.

Do I keep trying this? Does the air scoop need maintenance? Can the air scoop vent be used somehow manually?

Not that it's related but the expansion tank hangs off the air scoop and is at 14.5 psi. As I'm removing some water, I replace it a little with the fill valve, which says 12-14 psi. The pressure/temperature gauge on the boiler is hard to read, but I suppose it's there somewhere too. What should the line pressure be for a two story house? How about the expansion tank? It looks like 14 psi is equivalent to 32 psi.
 
I haven't burned my oil boiler in about 6 years, now, but my system had bleeders at every radiator & at every drop to a lower zone.
I hadda use a small key to open them...
 
I lived in a place like that.
This is baseboards and an air scoop in the basement.
 
Check (if you haven't) for one or more bleeders at the ends of the baseboards (usually where the come up or go down into the floor.) If they are not there, add them. I think someone on here mentioned some other vent type that was supposed to be magically good (well, my skeptical reading of the description - spirovent?)
 
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