mje113
New Member
Hi all,
Just noticed in our new to us house that one of the 2nd floor baseboards has a very slow leak. Based on the stains on the hard wood I'd guess this has been leaking for sometime.
I'm very comfortable with copper & solder fittings and the leak is right at an accessible coupler so I'd like to take a stab at fixing this myself. The problem is I'm pretty unfamiliar with how to drain our oil-fired boiler system.
We have pumps (zones) on the returns, and hose fittings right above them--adjacent to ball valves. There's also a hose fitting on the sending side, again, right after a ball valve, and I believe both are after the water leaves the expansion tank (going on memory here).
Reasoning it out, I'm thinking that after I turn off power to the boiler and thermostats (one is line-level), I'll isolate the boiler itself by closing all the ball valves, then working first on the return side drain each zone by hooking up a hose, opening the valve and then cracking open the bleeder valve on the 2nd floor baseboard itself. Then repeat on the other side.
After I repair the leak I'm a bit at a loss for how to refill the system. I know that I need water re-circulating then will need to bleed off any air that's in the system (do I need to do that at every baseboard? There are quite a few!). So I'm guessing after opening up all the valves I turn on the heat then work each bleeder valve until only water comes out? That definitely will be challenging since the bleeder valves are so close to the floor.
Please, if anyone has any advice or a good critique of my plan, I would really appreciate it!
Cheers,
Mike
Just noticed in our new to us house that one of the 2nd floor baseboards has a very slow leak. Based on the stains on the hard wood I'd guess this has been leaking for sometime.
I'm very comfortable with copper & solder fittings and the leak is right at an accessible coupler so I'd like to take a stab at fixing this myself. The problem is I'm pretty unfamiliar with how to drain our oil-fired boiler system.
We have pumps (zones) on the returns, and hose fittings right above them--adjacent to ball valves. There's also a hose fitting on the sending side, again, right after a ball valve, and I believe both are after the water leaves the expansion tank (going on memory here).
Reasoning it out, I'm thinking that after I turn off power to the boiler and thermostats (one is line-level), I'll isolate the boiler itself by closing all the ball valves, then working first on the return side drain each zone by hooking up a hose, opening the valve and then cracking open the bleeder valve on the 2nd floor baseboard itself. Then repeat on the other side.
After I repair the leak I'm a bit at a loss for how to refill the system. I know that I need water re-circulating then will need to bleed off any air that's in the system (do I need to do that at every baseboard? There are quite a few!). So I'm guessing after opening up all the valves I turn on the heat then work each bleeder valve until only water comes out? That definitely will be challenging since the bleeder valves are so close to the floor.
Please, if anyone has any advice or a good critique of my plan, I would really appreciate it!
Cheers,
Mike