Hotwater baseboard does not heat up?

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penguin933

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What could be a reason why a hot water baseboard does not heat up as fast as the other ones? i have 5 rooms with hotwater baseboards. 2 of them dont heat up as fast as the other 3. The baseboard that does heat up fast is in the room with the thermostat so it turns off way before the baseboard in the other 3 rooms get hot. Could there be some valve i need to turn or something?
 
distance would be one factor... the heaters closest to the hot water supply will heat up much faster than the heaters at the end of the loop.
 
well i really dont hear water running there that good. The fins dont seem to be getting hot ethier. Tomorrow i Will ask my landlord if there is a valve or something
 
well its happening in the other rooms too except for the rooms that are next to the room where the thermostat is.
 
The bubble would affect all the rooms in that loop.

Is there more than one zone?

I had a ranch house with a single zone system. It had two loops, each serving a side of the house, with a common return line. If one side got a bubble that entire side of the house would be cold.
 
the house is a 3 family apartment built in i think 1908. there are 3 floors. The furnaces are in the basement.

There are 3 of them one for each floor. There are 4 hot water tanks in the basement as well one for each floor and one for the wash machine i believe. We just turned the furnaces on for the winter. The landlord likes them off in the spring + summer. The hotwater tanks are like this but this isnt a picture of my tank its like that one.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08241A.JPG
 
I found this on the deed page


Heating Type: Water
Fuel Type: Gas
System Type: Basic
 
penguin933 said:
the house is a 3 family apartment built in i think 1908. there are 3 floors. The furnaces are in the basement.

There are 3 of them one for each floor. There are 4 hot water tanks in the basement as well one for each floor and one for the wash machine i believe. We just turned the furnaces on for the winter. The landlord likes them off in the spring + summer. The hotwater tanks are like this but this isnt a picture of my tank its like that one.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08241A.JPG
Click to expand...

In a furnace, flue gas acts on a heat exchanger full of air that is then circulated directly through the house. That's not what you have.

In your building, the space heating is done by gas boilers. The hot flue gas acts on a heat exchanger filled with water. The water is then pumped to the radiators.

The tank that you showed me is a domestic hot water tank. It heats your water that you use for washing. These systems are unrelated to the space heating systems.

Does the boiler heating your floor have one zone or several. I'm guessing that it is one. You could, however, have two or more loops as I described for my ranch home. Each loop should have an air release valve located at its highest end, as well as a separate hand-operated valve that can be used to reduce the flow through that loop. These can also be used to diagnose and sometimes solve problems.
 
Hmm i have to take a look i will post back in a couple of hours as i am busy right now.
 
I didnt see any loops then again it was dark outside and the basement lights are dead. I will look again tomorrow. I did see a puddle of water behind the boiler though. The other boiler had water behind it too.

The first room where the copper pipes that bring hot water into is in the kitchen. The kitchens baseboard barly gets hot.

So i think there is a loop i will look again tomorrow when there is light. And there is only one zone in the boiler too.

Is the puddle behind the water normal?
 
Last edited:
penguin933 said:
I didnt see any loops then again it was dark outside and the basement lights are dead. I will look again tomorrow. I did see a puddle of water behind the boiler though. The other boiler had water behind it too.

The first room where the copper pipes that bring hot water into is in the kitchen. The kitchens baseboard barly gets hot.

So i think there is a loop i will look again tomorrow when there is light. And there is only one zone in the boiler too.

Is the puddle behind the water normal?
Click to expand...

Check to see if you have manually operated valves in the lines circulating water to the radiators. There should be one for each loop.

Water on the floor means something is leaking, which isn't uncommon, but not "normal". A lot of times the T&P valves leak. A little bit isn't going to hurt anything.
 
HI
Sorry for not replying in a month, I went on vacation and was very busy the last few weeks.
Its now in the 30s here everyday and the teens at night. A couple of rooms are very cold because the heat still works poorly.


The landlord said its a one zone furnace and there are no loops. He said to bleed the radiators but i dont have radiators in my apartment they are baseboards.

The baseboards in the cold rooms do get hot after 20Mins but that is when the furnace turns off. It takes about 8Mins for the rooms where the heat works very good to get very hot like that ones at my old house. (14 Year old house). So could it be distance? I am going to take another look in the basement in a few mins.
 
The thing is he knows nothing about furnaces he has this guy take care of him but he is out of town until december.
 
I think it is a valve issue. I felt the return valves in the other 2 furnaces and they were hot and i can feel the water stream in them. My return valve is not that hot and i can feel little water going thourgh it.
 
The question still is.. So what? are you going to buy the parts and do the repair? Tell the f'ing landlord to call a service man or you will stop paying the rent.
 
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