Posted by Chris on January 18, 2000 at 17:45:26:
I just bought a house in June with hot water radiators for heat. This is my first experience with this type of heat. The House has an Oil Fired Boiler made by Vaillant. The Burner is made by RW Beckett. When I bought the house it was in ill repair. The house had stood vacant for several years and no one had droined the system subsequently it had frozen cracking many of the cast iron radiators. To get the system up and running for winter, I was able to salvage some radiators by removing cracked fins and I replaced several with ones purchased from a local plumber. My Questions are :1. My boiler never reads a pressure on the guage the, temperature gauge registers but not the pressure is this a problem? 2. when filling the system originally I would turn on the domestic water supply to the system with the bleed valaves open on all the radiators. When water would come out I would close the valve. Recently, I added two new radiators in the bathrooms. Once I did this, the domestic supply will not fill the system completely. It stops filling some time after the first floor is full. Why is this? How do I know if the boiler is properly sized? How do I know if the Expansion tank I working properly. Why does my house seem to get cold just before the boiler fires? Everything I've read about hot water heat say it is supposed to be even heat. Anyway, please help me fix the problems with my system. Any knowledge you can impart on me is greatly appreciated.