top floor radiator - 2 hrs to fully heat up?

I have a hot water heating system in a 3 story building. Plumber did the annual boiler check last week and bled the top floor radiators while heat was running and thermostat was set to 80 degrees. Even after that, it’s still be noticeably colder on the top floor compare to the garden and parlor. It takes 2 hours for the radiator in my bedroom (furthest from the boiler) to heat up.

My thermostat is programmed to 60 overnight. At 5:40 am it is programmed to 74. That’s when I can hear water start to slowly trickle into the radiator. The trickling lasts about 10 minutes and then stops for about 10 minutes and then continues again. After about an hour of on/off trickling sounds, about half of the radiator feels warm (not hot), and the other half is cold. After another hour of on/off trickling, the whole radiator is finally warm.

I don’t know how much pressure is in the system when the system is cold, but I went downstairs before going to work to check the pressure in the boiler while it was running and it was a smidge over 20psi.

Should i add more pressure to help push t he heat up? Which valve is that? I attached some photos. New homeowner here! Thanks! [IMG_20191127_080956](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s2/:brownstoner:y65T:img_20191127_080956.jpg.jpg) [IMG_20191127_080945](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s2/:brownstoner:CXN8:img_20191127_080945.jpg.jpg)

Fort_Green_p_nut

in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago

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camp6ell | 5 years and 11 months ago

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I would also bleed the radiators on the other floors. It takes 30 seconds.

hkapstein | 5 years and 11 months ago

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1. Check pressure at boiler. You can look bgg it up, probably needs to be around 20, but you can usually set it up to 30 with most boilers.

2. Bleed radiators.

3. Rebalance system. Turn off all rads until the pump is forced to circulate through the problem radiator and then adjust the other rads back on until the system is balanced.

4. Check that your expansion tank is properly charged and the pressure isn’t fluctuating too much and allowing air into the top floor radiators.

I think that probably gets it going.

eman134 | 5 years and 11 months ago

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sounds like your expansion tank may be compromised…that trickling sound that you are hearing is a ton of air in the system… get a boiler guy like mp (or myself) to look at it

Master Plvmber | 5 years and 11 months ago

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You’ve got an old B&G Series 100 pump on the return of the boiler. It may be fine but, yes, you’ve got to get someone to set your static pressure properly so that you never hear your top-floor radiators filling again. It takes 1 PSI to lift water 2.31 feet of height. That’s about 28 inches. Figure out how many PSI it will take to get water from the boiler to the top of the highest pipe or radiator in the system, then add an additional 5 psi to push air out and that’s your operating pressure. I see the reducing valve behind the yellow-handled valve in your second picture. It’s an old one. You might need to replace it. You’ll also need someone to pay your expansion tank some attention. You need a boiler guy. Everyone does.

GreenThinker | 5 years and 11 months ago

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ignore my pump comment, just realized thats just a switch relay and the actual pump is behind the boiler. Never seen it done like that personally, but could be alright.

jazzwalk | 5 years and 11 months ago

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We had issues with our top floor until we controlled how open the lower radiators were. By closing the valve of the lower floor radiators a little bit, this allowed those radiators to still get warm while at the same allowing the hot water to work its way up to the 3rd floor.

GreenThinker | 5 years and 11 months ago

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Sounds like you need to add more water to the system. The water is fed from the copper line. Left side of boiler. Turning the first valve you should hear flow. Then you have the pressure reducing valve. Which often isn’t properly set, a lot of people leave it at the standard setting of like 12-15 psi. Which isn’t enough to send water to the top of a 3 story house. There should be a little handle on it, and you can manually turn it to the side that says “Fill” This allows you to quickly fill the top floor radiators. I fill them up 3/4 of the way, (bleed the radiator but don’t wait along enough for water to come out) After closing the valve and the pressure reducing valve, you can bleed the top floor radiators again after turning on the system.

I also suggest to find a more competent plumber to check the circulator pump, i’ve never seen one like that and it seems pretty small for a 3 story building.