Very odd heating problem
 

We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor is steady as it should at 68 degrees. This is with temps outside around 30-35. I have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the morning, just before it goes back up to 68. Now, I get up in the middle of the night and it is still in the 70's. I even turned it off at the thermostat, the radiators are still hot. I took the thermostat controller right off the wall, no diff. The funny thing is if I check the zone control on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are always hot.

Very odd heating problem
 

"jtpr" wrote in message
...
We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the
way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and
a
broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop.
For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week.
The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor is
steady as it should at 68 degrees. This is with temps outside around
30-35. I have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night
and for all the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting
that by the morning, just before it goes back up to 68. Now, I get up in
the middle of the night and it is still in the 70's. I even turned it off
at the thermostat, the radiators are still hot. I took the thermostat
controller right off the wall, no diff. The funny thing is if I check the
zone control on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the
radiators are always hot.

What would cause this?

Sounds as if a valve for that zone is leaking through.

I don't know much about hot water heat, but worked with lots of heating
schemes in a factory. I am guessing that there is some kind of valve for
each area of the house.

If a radiator is hot without a call for heat, then I would assume a valve is
open that is not suspose to. Check them to see if any power is getting to
it when it is not suspose to. If no power and the outlet side of the valve
is hot, then it is probably leaking.

Very odd heating problem
 

Bad zone valve.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"jtpr" wrote in message
...
We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way
it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a
broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. For
some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. The
second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor is steady
as it should at 68 degrees. This is with temps outside around 30-35. I
have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all
the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the
morning, just before it goes back up to 68. Now, I get up in the middle of
the night and it is still in the 70's. I even turned it off at the
thermostat, the radiators are still hot. I took the thermostat controller
right off the wall, no diff. The funny thing is if I check the zone control
on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are
always hot.

What would cause this?

Jim

Very odd heating problem
 

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 16:44:19 -0800 (PST), jtpr
wrote:

We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor is steady as it should at 68 degrees. This is with temps outside around 30-35. I have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the morning, just before it goes back up to 68. Now, I get up in the middle of the night and it is still in the 70's. I even turned it off at the thermostat, the radiators are still hot. I took the thermostat controller right off the wall, no diff. The funny thing is if I check the zone control on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are always hot.

What would cause this?

Jim
The zone control valve is stuck or the servo is burned out. I've
replaced a few. And rebult a few - Not a lot of fun.

I'd suspect the zone valve for the upstairs zone as well.

I have 21 Honeywell V8043C zone valves in my building, so I'm intimately familiar with them. However, I do know that SOME older Erie zone valves will fail in the OPEN position. That is, if the valve stops working, it'll allow continuous flow of hot water into the radiators rather than stop the flow of water through the radiators. I can't remember all of the details now, but 10 to 15 years ago I remember one suite that had an old Erie zone valve got so hot that I was telling the tenants to open the windows to cool their apartment down until I could fix the problem. Anyhow, I do remember that the sector gear on the Erie zone valve in their apartment was stripped, and that when I replaced that gear, the zone valve worked properly again and the temperature in their suite went back to normal.

In my experience, if a Honeywell V8043C zone valve sticks, it will stick in the closed position so the radiators will be cold. I can't recall every having to unstick a Honeywell that was stuck open. But, I've unstuck more Honeywell zone valves that were stuck in the closed postion than I care to remember.

If it's a Honeywell zone valve manufactured after about 1980, then you can replace the "actuator" (also called the "head") on the zone valve without having to drain the heating system down. Erie zone valves are the same way, with their "Pop Top" zone valves. That means that if the problem turns out to be the zone valve, you can fix the problem by replacing the actuator on that zone valve yourself.

Maybe take a look at the zone valve and post any markings you see on it. That will tell us what make and model of zone valve you have. Most zone valves operate much the same way, except Taco zone valves which I have virtually no experience with.

And, while you're looking at the zone vavle:

1. Check that the valve's manual over ride lever isn't in the open position. On this Erie Pop Top zone valve, you can see the manual over ride lever:



All Honeywell and Erie zone valves will have a manually over ride lever like that so that if anything ever goes wrong with the valve in the middle of winter, the valve can be opened manually (and left open to provide continuous heat if desired). You just push or pull the lever to the end of it's travel (against spring pressure) and press the lever up or down (depending on the valve) so that it catches in the slot provided for it as the spring pulls the lever back into it's original position. As long as spring tension holds the lever in that slot, the valve will remain in the open position to allow hot water flow through it. Check to see that your manual over ride lever isn't caught in that slot, thereby over riding the normal operation of the zone valve.

2. Take the cover off the zone valve (on a Honeywell or Erie, it just pulls straight off) and have a helper turn the upstairs thermostat all the way up and all the way down while you watch the operation of the zone valve. Watch the machinery under the zone valve motor, and see if that machinery moves all the way in one direction when you turn the thermostat up, and all the way back again when you turn the thermostat down. If the zone valve doesn't respond to the thermostat, check that the zone valve motor is getting the correct voltage (typically 24 VAC) when the thermostat is turned up and 0 VAC when the thermostat is turned down.

There should be markings on the valve which will tell you what voltage it operates on, and normally that will be 24 volts AC, which isn't enough to give you a shock. However, the valve may be equiped with an "end switch". The job of the end switch is to close and thereby complete a circuit just as the valve finishes opening. Often this end switch is used to turn on a 120 VAC circulating pump for that zone. (So, the thermostat opens the zone valve, and as the zone valve finishes opening it's end switch turns on a zone pump.) So, be careful what you touch inside the valve actuator because if you have an end switch in your zone valve, there could be up to 120 volts AC at the wires going to that end switch. If there are only two wires going into the zone valve cover, those two wires go to the motor, and you don't have an end switch.

3. The motor inside both an Erie and a Honeywell zone valve will look like this:



Feel the motor, and see if it's really HOT. If it is, that's typical of a motor that's simply stuck, and all it needs is a shot of WD40 to get it working again. These motors are tiny, and it just takes a bit of friction to stop the motor from turning. If the motor won't turn, the zone valve will remain stuck in whatever position it was when the motor stopped turning, and that COULD be in the open position so that even when the thermostat is not calling for heat, the zone valve remains stuck open.

(However, the motor will only be really HOT if there is 24 VAC going through the motor windings 24-7, and that would only happen if it's thermostat was calling for heat, and your zone controller says it isn't calling for heat.)

Besides any markings on that zone valve, could you confirm that your heating system only has a single circulating pump for all three zones. I'm presuming it's only the one pump because if you had separate zone pumps, the zone control wouldn't be turning on the zone pump for the upstairs zone if that thermostat wasn't calling for heat. And, without any hot water flow through the upstairs radiators, it wouldn't be any warmer upstairs.

There is a POSSIBILITY that the problem may originate with the upstairs thermostat, but unless you've done anything to that thermostat lately, it's more likely to be the zone valve for the upstairs zone.

Very odd heating problem
 

On Mar 7, 12:44*am, jtpr wrote:
We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. *For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. *The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. *The first floor is steady as it should at 68 degrees. *This is with temps outside around 30-35. *I have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the morning, just before it goes back up to 68. *Now, I get up in the middle of the night and it is still in the 70's. *I even turned it off at the thermostat, the radiators are still hot. *I took the thermostat controller right off the wall, no diff. *The funny thing is if I check the zone control on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are always hot.

What would cause this?

Jim

There will be a zone control valve for each area.
Obviously one is remaining permanently open.
It's either stuck or there is an electrical fault apertaining to it.
Either the motor that opens/closes the valve, the associated wiring, a
relay in the control panel or the control system.

Very odd heating problem
 

On Thursday, March 7, 2013 3:05:58 AM UTC-5, harry wrote:
On Mar 7, 12:44*am, jtpr wrote:

We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a broken circulator.



The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. *For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. *The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. *The first floor is steady as it should at 68 degrees. *This is with temps outside around 30-35. *I have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the morning, just before it goes back up to 68. *Now, I get up in the middle of the night and it is still in the 70's. *I even turned it off at the thermostat, the radiators are still hot. *I took the thermostat controller right off the wall, no diff. *The funny thing is if I check the zone control on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are always hot.



What would cause this?



Jim



There will be a zone control valve for each area.

Obviously one is remaining permanently open.

It's either stuck or there is an electrical fault apertaining to it.

Either the motor that opens/closes the valve, the associated wiring, a

relay in the control panel or the control system.

Thank you all for the info. I took a look and could not find zone valves in my system, just a type of one way valve at the beginning of each run. So I called the oil company and they sent somebody out that confirmed this. One was bad and he replaced it, so all works now.

Thanks again.

-Jim

Very odd heating problem
 

Stormin Mormon wrote:
Bad zone valve.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus


Sounds more like a bad *oompa* valve.



www.lds.org
.

"jtpr" wrote in message
...
We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way
it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a
broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. For
some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. The
second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor is steady
as it should at 68 degrees. This is with temps outside around 30-35. I
have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all
the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the
morning, just before it goes back up to 68. Now, I get up in the middle of
the night and it is still in the 70's. I even turned it off at the
thermostat, the radiators are still hot. I took the thermostat controller
right off the wall, no diff. The funny thing is if I check the zone control
on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are
always hot.

What would cause this?

Jim

Very odd heating problem
 

jtpr wrote:
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 3:05:58 AM UTC-5, harry wrote:
On Mar 7, 12:44 am, jtpr wrote:

We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved
the way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second
floor and a broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop.
For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week.
The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor
is steady as it should at 68 degrees.

.... Snip ...

What would cause this?

Jim

There will be a zone control valve for each area.

... Snip ...

Thank you all for the info. I took a look and could not find zone valves
in my system, just a type of one way valve at the beginning of each run.
So I called the oil company and they sent somebody out that confirmed
this. One was bad and he replaced it, so all works now.

Thanks again.

-Jim

Umm...wouldn't a valve at the beginning of each run be a "zone valve"?

Very odd heating problem
 

On Mar 7, 8:11*pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:
jtpr wrote:
On Thursday, March 7, 2013 3:05:58 AM UTC-5, harry wrote:
On Mar 7, 12:44 am, jtpr wrote:

We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved
the way it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second
floor and a broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop.
*For some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week.
*The second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. *The first floor
is steady as it should at 68 degrees.

... Snip ...







What would cause this?
Jim

There will be a zone control valve for each area.

*... Snip ...

Thank you all for the info. *I took a look and could not find zone valves
in my system, just a type of one way valve at the beginning of each run..
So I called the oil company and they sent somebody out that confirmed
this. *One was bad and he replaced it, so all works now.

Thanks again.

-Jim

Umm...wouldn't a valve at the beginning of each run be a "zone valve"?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That's what I was thinking, it's a matter of terminology and
understanding each other's use of English.

Very odd heating problem
 

Please remit $48.50 for internet consultation.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"jtpr" wrote in message
...

Thank you all for the info. I took a look and could not find zone valves in
my system, just a type of one way valve at the beginning of each run. So I
called the oil company and they sent somebody out that confirmed this. One
was bad and he replaced it, so all works now.

Thanks again.

-Jim

Jim:

No, I expect the things you saw at the beginning of each radiator run were "balancing" valves, not "one way valves".

That's because the pump is going to determine which way the water flows through your piping. You don't need one way valves on your piping to prevent the water from going the wrong way.

In most houses with hot water heating systems, there will be several different radiator loops of different length, and unless there's some way to control how much water flows through each loop, most of the water is going to take the shortest straightest route from the pump discharge back to the pump suction side. That means that the shortest straightest radiator loops are going to be super hot all of the time while the longest windingest radiator loops in the house will be cold cuz of lack of sufficient hot water flow through them.

To promote more uniform heat distribution throughout the house, a heating contractor will typically install gate valves on all but the longest radiator loop in the house. By partially closing those gate valves, the heating contractor can pinch off the flow through the shorter radiator loops, thereby forcing more water to take the long scenic route through your house, and thereby provide more uniform heat distribution throughout the house.



While it's common to see ordinary hardware store gate valves being used as balancing valves, proper balancing valves will have ports upstream and downstream of the shut off mechanism in the valve so that the pressure drop through the valve due to flow can be measured:



And, knowing what the pressure drop across the valve is, you can determine (calculate or look up on a chart) the flow rate through the valve. So, it's just a matter of opening or closing each balancing valve until you have the same flow rate through each balancing valve, and hence the same flow rate through each radiator loop.

So, I expect the things you saw were really balancing valves of some sort rather than one way valves.

PS: A balancing valve OR a zone valve can be located anywhere in the radiator loop, not just at the upstream end.

Very odd heating problem
 

On Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:47:44 -0500, "
wrote:

Stormin Mormon wrote:
Bad zone valve.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus


Sounds more like a bad *oompa* valve.



www.lds.org
.

"jtpr" wrote in message
...
We have lived here for about 5 years and the heat has always behaved the way
it should other then an occasional frozen pipe on the second floor and a
broken circulator.

The house has FHW by Oil, 3 zones: First Floor, Second Floor, Workshop. For
some reason we have had this odd thing going on for the past week. The
second floor is constantly hot, like 73 degrees. The first floor is steady
as it should at 68 degrees. This is with temps outside around 30-35. I
have the thermostats set up to turn the heat down to 58 at night and for all
the time we have lived here the second floor would be hitting that by the
morning, just before it goes back up to 68. Now, I get up in the middle of
the night and it is still in the 70's. I even turned it off at the
thermostat, the radiators are still hot. I took the thermostat controller
right off the wall, no diff. The funny thing is if I check the zone control
on the boiler, the zone is not calling for heat, but the radiators are
always hot.

What would cause this?

Jim



I see someone wants to get noticed. Liars really aren't my type,
though.

Don't play with me.