Coalpail.com Forum

i haven't started the boiler all year. about a week or so ago my stoker motor took a crap. no problem , i'll start the boiler till I get it fixed. I fired her up and all was good. now I had the termo set at 75 and it was about 30 outside. the temp in the house never got past 68. so I figured some trapped air. I bled all the baseboard units , no air anywhere or heat. had somebody pick me up a nozzle and new filter. today I changed both. fired her up and bout the same thing. set at 75 , house at 72 , close. low limit is at 160 , high 200. if I feel the bare part of the pipe in the baseboard it's hot. the start pipe and return are hot. i'm just not getting any heat out of the baseboards. they are just warm to the touch. use to get nice and warm. after alot of remolding , drywall dust and saw dust , I took the covers off and cleaned them like new with TSP and the air compresser. that was about 5 years ago. she ran fine last year. any ideas?????????? need cleaned again. most people never clean them. i'm lost and only have coal till end of month. this sounds like a short story , I never typed this much

Do you have a coal boiler in series with the oil?

no , just the Keystoker in the livingroom.

oil boiler worked fine last year now ????

Does it seam to be firing ok? Will it build temperature quickly? Is the circulator(s) running? Can you feel hot water going out and warm returning --AT the Boiler. Have you shut down and purged or checked for air again? Do you have a fuel flow?

Oil burners are not my skill - if its pumping or radiation related I might have more advice

Best I can do is turn you on to folks that know oil fired appliances

ask in the boiler room at http://forum.doityourself.com/forumdisplay.php?f=128

Ken, if I remember correctly, you mentioned a dog, a large dog in a different post... Dog hair has a bad habbit of accumulating at the base of the baseboards... Since I have two long-haired dogs, I see this a lot.

The other thing that you can do is increase your low water setting to 180*, most baseboards are sized to the heat loss in a house based on 180* water. I'd vacuum out the baseboards first..

Hope this helps.. Greg L

she seams to be running normal. I've had the unit for 6 or 7 years. hitting 200 rather fast , pump is running because temp is not getting up to shut it down. I guess I will clean the baseboards and see if that helps. not like I have anything else to do lol

What is the boilers actual temperature? Not the settings on the aquastat. It should be in the 140-180* range to heat with. If you don't have a Triadicator (the gauge that shows temp & press) or its broken, grab the pipe that supplies water to the house coming out of the top of the boiler. Is it really hot? If you can hold your hand there for more than a five or ten seconds the boiler is not making enough heat. That could be the aquastat or it's sensing bulb. If it is hot, how far from the boiler can you follow it before it turns warm. If you have plenty of heat, the water is either not circulating or it is moving way to slow.

the boiler has temp gauge on the top of it. it's kicking on at about 160 and off at 200. the pipes are hot and you can only touch them for a few seconds. I have a Taco pump , is it posible it's running to slow. how would you check the rpm's or know how fast the water is moving. the pipes are about the same temp out and the return. the pressure is and has always been 20. it's like everything is doing it's thing , but the fins on the pipe in the baseboard. so maybe Greg is right , a good cleaning. i'll work on them this week and see what happens. my one son is here for couple days. we will vac them out and hit them with the air compresser.

All efm oil boilers run low/high in the 160-180 range for baseboard and 150-170 for cast iron.

It sounds like you aren't radiating heat due to dust, curtains overhanging, or carpet installed under the radiators or some other obstruction to the air flow. Did you install carpet during the remodel?

if you have a monoflow system and it has been unused for a long time, there is a chance that the flow control valve is stuck. This will not let water move at full flow. This valve is near the boiler on the outgoing side of the pump, The B&G band is red in color with a threaded shaft with what looks like a pointer on top, turning this will open the valve. Sometimes a good rap on it with the pump running will unstick it. I have seen this in old houses that where shut down for more than a few mos.

no flooring yet , just wood. on the zone valve you can tell the position just buy looking at it , it's fully open. i'm going to do the kitchen one first. theres 16' in there , plus the kitchen is few degrees cooler then rest of the downstairs. when I done , I will fire it up and you should see the diff there. yesterday looking at the fins they don't look all that bad. then last night I put the flashlight on them and they are pretty bad.

on the zone valve you can tell the position just buy looking at it

What zone valve? The flow control valve will have a knob, possibly triangular in shape and red, that you can unscrew counter clockwise to manually let water through the valve. Keep it turned in for normal usage.

It looks like this. If the return is hot, the water is not moving. Crank the widget at the top.

i have 2 - White-Rodgers 1361 hydronic zone valves. one for first floor and one for upstairs. there is a wheel that turns when the valve is either opening or closing and says on it open or closed.the upstairs temo is at 55 , so it says closed all the time. well I cleaned the base boards up real nice. turned the stoker to idle all day. fired up the boiler after we did the kitchen one. then did the rest of the first floor. temp was 70 when we started and 5 or so hours later was still 70. they never really got hot. the pipe did , but not the units. I thinking the Taco cartridge circulater pump. maybe not turning fast enough. you would think it's all or nothing.

Can you manually open the zone valves like you would on a Taco? Can you hear the Taco circulator? If the same circulator worked 5 years ago and moved the water, it wouldn't be my first suspect. Taco 007s are very quiet, but they move alot of water. You don't want the water to move too quickly unless you have very long runs.