We have two thermostats, main floor and upstairs, for two separate zones of a
hot water baseboard heating system. It's starting to get cold and I noticed that
the upstairs thermostat (an old White-Rodgers 1F56-301) isn't turning on the
furnace. (It does work fine with the a/c for the upstairs.) Should the second
floor thermostat work independently of the first floor thermostat (which does
turn on the furnace)? I don't even see where the 2nd floor thermo is wired,
whereas I can trace the 1st floor one directly to the furnace.

Even though my wife would like it fine if the upstairs stayed freezing, it's
getting a mite too cold for my tastes.

What can I check?

Thanks!


--

Possibilities:
Bad thermostat
Bad zone valve
bad pump for the upstairs
bad wiring
The AC unit may power the thermostat, did you leave the power on to it?

When you say hot water, do you have 1 ir 2 pumps, zone valves? Did you
bleed the air vents upstairs? Did uou check the water pressure in the
boiler? Water pressire on the boiler should be 1/2 psi per foot the
baseboard is above the boiler + 5 PSI. More insormation would be
needed for a better answer.

Stretch

Like Stretch said, there are many possibilities depending on the particular
equipment you have. If you open the thermostat, look for terminals marked RH
and W, put a jumper wire across them and see if anything happens at the
boiler. If so, you've got a bad stat, but beyond that, the sequence of
events depends upon your equipment, zone valves, circulators and relays



"JW" wrote in message
...
We have two thermostats, main floor and upstairs, for two separate zones
of a
hot water baseboard heating system. It's starting to get cold and I
noticed that
the upstairs thermostat (an old White-Rodgers 1F56-301) isn't turning on
the
furnace. (It does work fine with the a/c for the upstairs.) Should the
second
floor thermostat work independently of the first floor thermostat (which
does
turn on the furnace)? I don't even see where the 2nd floor thermo is
wired,
whereas I can trace the 1st floor one directly to the furnace.

Even though my wife would like it fine if the upstairs stayed freezing,
it's
getting a mite too cold for my tastes.

What can I check?

Thanks!


--

thermostat: check for proper 24 volts at the upstairs thermostat. if
the upstairs thermostat is broken you might alligator jumper its wire
pair that calls for heat to test it while the downstairs thermostat is
turned down.

water: if radiators are dry you won't get heat. check for missing water
in the upstairs loop. [let the air out of the bleeder valves while
adding water to the system.] this is normally done in summer. cold
water added to a hot boiler slowly never to a dry hot boiler or damage
can occur.