QUESTION FROM Jay Gallipo

I'm visiting my son who live in NH. One zone is not heating. I tried to purge the zone in question but it did not purge. Here is what happened. first htere is not way to bypass the boiler when opening the auto feeder. After shuting all return valves and attaching a hose to the spiget in question, I opened the feeder valve very little water came out spiget. After a few minuetes the pressure relif valve on the furnace opened. I never was able to get a good flow from the spiget. My question is this, do you thnk that an elbow may be frozen as as one intake line is near and in a corner of an outside wall. Unfortunately is is located near the oil tank and sewer pipes which makes it very difficult to get at. If the pipe is bot frozen somewhere, would an air-lock resrict the flow when I purged the way that it did. Could the expansion tank cause any of this? I would appreciate any help or advise that you could give us.

ANSWER FROM HOME-WIZARD

Dear Jay:

Without seeing your specific piping situation for your heating system, it's a bit difficult to tell exactly what's going on. But here are some thoughts for you . . . First, if you haven't already, you might want look at our tutorial video on how your heating system operates, and it includes a description of how to purge air from your system. Here's a link to the video: http://www.home-wizard.com/Baseboard_Heating_101.asp And at about the 6 minute mark on the video is where the video describes the purging process. Also, you said that you are shutting the zone isolation valves when you are trying to purge the air out, and I'm wondering if with these valves closed if this is why you are not seeing any water coming out.

Hope this is helpful.
Home-Wizard.com