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BOILERS
If you have always had a forced air gas furnace you will
no doubt be confused by boilers to heat your home.
These heating systems are called Hydronic Systems. This
simply put, means they use water or in some systems steam. We will only
discuss hot water systems here as steam is totally different. To keep
the systems from freezing if there were to be a prolonged power outage
some hydronic systems use glycol or in other words anti freeze. If
there is glycol used in a system, a separate domestic water heater must be used.
While glycol will keep a system from freezing it shouldn't be put into a system
that is old and has never had it before as it will probably cause leaks in such
systems.
The principle of operation usually, but not always is
this. Your thermostat calls for heating, a "zone valve" at the
boiler or sometimes at each baseboard then begins to open. At it's
nearly fully open position it makes contact with an end switch which
thru a relay/transformer control center then starts a circulation pump.
As the hot water goes to the baseboard heating elements and gives off
it's heat, the temperature in the boiler begins to cool. When it cools
to a certain point the burners in the boiler will light and bring the
boiler back to temperature. This is a gross under simplification as
there are many different valves, also in the system. But for theses purposes this
is all you need to understand.
Tip: When carpeting a floor with baseboard heat make sure at
least an inch is left above the carpeting to the baseboard or the natural flow
of air will stop and so will your heat. The baseboards give off their heat since
cold air settles and warm air rises.
The one biggest culprit in destroying a hot water system
is air in the system. The manufacturers of zone valves and pumps for
instance say " Do not install our components in a system containing
dissolved oxygen". Dissolved oxygen means air.
Pour a glass of tap water into a drinking glass and immediately hold it
up to a light. All those air bubbles will get trapped in your
boiler. On top of harming
all the components this air also gets trapped in the baseboards. When
this happens, the flow of hot water stops and so does your heat! Your
circulating pump can only pump water NOT AIR! Certain devices in your
system help remove this air IF THEY WERE EVER INSTALLED AND IF THEY ARE
WORKING CORRECTLY! This is why you need yearly service on your boiler. When
you see water leaks on the boiler or any of it's components what is
happening is this. As the water level decreases within the boiler a
water make up valve opens and re fills the boiler with water and now we
have even more air in the system, since there is air in your city water
or well water. Folks that have a well rather than
city water get even more air on top of this! Many circulating pumps
have been diagnosed as bad when actually they are working but have
stopped pumping because they hit the air. The system can be purged of the
air and the heating will start again until new air gets into the system.
The answer is to keep up with water leaks as they develop instead of
ignoring them until a major expense to correct the leaks pops up. To go
through a system which has many leaks can cost over $1,200.00.
We will always try to get our clients to have us correct
these water leaks for these reasons. However, people say to us "
that's been leaking for years why should I fix it now?". Our
purpose for writing this article is to educate clients why this is so
important. If you see corrosion and leaks you can be sure your system
has air in it.
Old boilers can be replaced with new ones that have efficiency
ratings about 87%.
All our equipment
installation work is warranted
for ( 1 ) year
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