Duplex brownstone w Single Gas Heater - Heat not circulating in some rooms

Hi. I have a two unit brownstone with a duplex over a duplex; have a gas-heater which heats water, and circulates through copper pipes all over the house. The house is south facing, and all the common living areas are South facing as well. The heat is working fine except in the whole house except the two back bedrooms (facing North). We have bled the pipes, drained/re-filled some water, etc, but cannot seem to solve the mystery.
I have tenants staying there, and want to make sure they have heat. In the interim, I have provided them electric heaters, and, am subsidizing their electricity, to compensate. But, I really need to find a long term soln.

Any thoughts, on how to investigate, or address? Also, looking for professional recommendations – who could I call in to take a look at this.
Thank you, in advance!

zhoushi

in General Discussion 8 years and 7 months ago

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slopefarm | 8 years and 7 months ago

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While you are troubleshooting, check for signs of heat loss in the cold room — are the exterior walls cold to the touch? that would indicate a lack of insulation. Sometimes there can be a draft through outlets on or close to exterior walls.

Conceptually, either the cold rooms are not heating up as quickly as the rest of the house and/or losing heat faster.

figtree | 8 years and 7 months ago

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Hi, I had a very similar problem with hot water radiators and a gas boiler. What I eventually figured out was that the water was not flowing through the whole system the same way. Some radiators would be waaay too hot while other wouldn’t get hot at all.

I solved with the problem with two things, and I would recommend both. First we replaced the pump. The old pump clearly wasn’t strong enough to get the water to the farthest reaches of the house. Second we added a flow check to the pipe with outgoing water (closest to the boiler). This makes sure that the water is always flowing in the proper direction and does not spill back. If you fix both of these things, I believe everything should be working great. These systems were made to last many lifetimes.

The only thing I would also add is that sometimes, if the system is very old and hasn’t been addressed or fixed in a while, there may be some kind of buildup or clog leading to one radiator. I also had thi s issue with one radiator that never got even remotely warm and we cut the pipe and put in a new elbow and everything is fine now.

Augustiner | 8 years and 7 months ago

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Also make sure you don’t have an air leak on your exterior wall somewhere that you don’t see from inside. An old vent, hole in the wall or similar could cause the rooms on that side to cool down significantly.

Master Plvmber | 8 years and 7 months ago

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In the cold areas, check to see the radiators are getting hot when the warmer ones in the warmer rooms do. You seem to be aware of the benefits of solar gain on some of the building and that is often a factor when tracing the cause of heating imbalance. Sometimes, the room being warmed by the sun is the room with the thermostat and that room reaches the desired temperature before all the others, and stays warm longer. That’ll keep the thermostat satisfied and the boiler off while other parts of the home have gone cold.
Aside from that, you’d need to check the ∆T (difference in temperature) between the pipes leading to the cold areas and those coming back to the boiler. That difference should be about 20°f. If it’s significantly more than that then the radiators on that line may be giving off more heat energy than they may be adequately supplied with, less than that and they may be under-radiated, meaning you may not have enough, or large enough, radiators on that line. Of course there’s a lot more to it, but circulating hot water heating (called hydronic heating) is ver y flexible whereas steam is not. There’s always something you can do to bring hydronic heating into balance.
I work on my own when consulting for buildings and homeowners. I am generally hired when there are existing service personnel to perform the actual repairs and upgrades:
www.72fLLC.com
And my family-owned and operated service and installation company is here:
www.GatewayPlumbing.com

NeoGrec | 8 years and 7 months ago

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Call a plumber. Balancing a hot water radiator system can involve more than just bleeding the rads.

eman134 | 8 years and 7 months ago

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send me a photo of the boiler setup at errol832000@hotmail.com and I may be able to help…no availability till late next week for a site visit

daveinbedstuy | 8 years and 7 months ago

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Is this the first Winter you are having with this house? If so, could there be zones that you are unaware of?