Ask Me Help Desk - Heat upstairs

I just moved into our house beginning of May. We live in the Northeast so we got some cold nights and required to turn the heat on to keep the kids warm at night. I am not to savvy on this so bare with me and ask as many questions as you like and I'll try to answer them. My house is 67years old and I have a Repco furnace with hot water radiators running on a two zone system(controls for downstairs and upstairs). We seemed to have enough heat downstairs but upstairs doesn't seem to get heat. At times it seems like it gets some but we have to crank it to 80 degrees. Most of the time we don't get any and the pipes only seem to get warm but not hot. I don't believe the pump turns on either. I don't have bleeder screws on the radiators tobleed out the system and I changed the upstair's thermostat. I have a friend who's father is a plumber(he also knows furnaces) and he said all that needs to be done is bleed the system. He also said he can test to see whether the zone was working. Unfortunately, he hasn't had time to do it and it is hard to test in the middle of the summer. I need to figure out my options before the fall comes around in case I need to call for service. Do you have any comments on what he said or any othe ideas? If it may be the zone is it easy to test or should I have him (or someone else look at it). I thought I would give this question to you guys and see what you have to say. Thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by jduke44

I just moved into our house beginning of May. We live in the Northeast so we got some cold nights and required to turn the heat on to keep the kids warm at night. I am not to savvy on this so bare with me and ask as many questions as you like and I'll try to answer them. My house is 67years old and I have a Repco furnace with hot water radiators running on a two zone system(controls for downstairs and upstairs). We seemed to have enough heat downstairs but upstairs doesn't seem to get heat. At times it seems like it gets some but we have to crank it to 80 degrees. Most of the time we don't get any and the pipes only seem to get warm but not hot. I don't believe the pump turns on either. I don't have bleeder screws on the radiators tobleed out the system and I changed the upstair's thermostat. I have a friend who's father is a plumber(he also knows furnaces) and he said all that needs to be done is bleed the system. He also said he can test to see whether the zone was working. Unfortunately, he hasn't had time to do it and it is hard to test in the middle of the summer. I need to figure out my options before the fall comes around in case I need to call for service. Do you have any comments on what he said or any othe ideas? If it may be the zone is it easy to test or should I have him (or someone else look at it). I thought I would give this question to you guys and see what you have to say. Thanks

... portion of your post, please repost in the Plumbing section. For the furnace questions wait for Labman to reply...

To get heat to a zone in a multiple zone hot water system, when the thermostats calls for heat, it must fire the boiler, start the circulating pump, and open the valve for that zone. It sounds like the upstairs zone valve is not starting the pump, and maybe not the boiler. Or maybe the zone valve isn't opening correctly. I guess an airlock could stop circulation too. Have you checked the water level? If it is low, there might not be enough water to flow up to the second floor.

The zone valves I am familiar with are motorized ball valves controlled by a double throw relay and limit switches. When the thermostats calls for heat, the coil activates the relay switching the power to start the open cycle. When the valve is completely open, contacts in the actuator switch it it off, leaving the valve in the eon position. When the thermostats shuts off, the relay switches power to the close cycle. The motor then runs until the valve shuts, and again, a limit switch shuts it off leaving it in the closed position. When in the open position, another set of contacts activates the boiler and pump. There are other ways one could be wired.

You should be able to tell by the vibration if the pump is running. Try to figure out how your system works and post back. Sounds like we have a little time before the first cold nights.

Yeah, right now I have about 1 1/2 to 2 months before the cold night hits. Unfortunately, we found it gets cold in our boy's rooms and we had to put a blanket on the youngest in May when we moved in. What you said could be what is going on. I got a hold of the friend who is a plumber and he said he will check it out. Like you mentioned, until he looks at it it could be number for different things. Bleeding the system sounds like the least possible. At least I know what to possibly expect. Thanks for the reply. You guys are great!