Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
merc1100sc

Baseboard Heating Problem

merc1100sc
11 years ago

Hello everyone. I am having a hard time bleeding all the air out of my baseboard heating system after having to replace a bursted pipe due to a drafty wall. The largest difficulty from what I can tell is the lack of isolation valves within different sections in each zone. My system is laid out like this:
Oil fired burner. 3 zones. 1 for hot water tank, 1 for lower level, 1 for upper level. House is a split level ranch with the boiler located in the lower level. No bleeds on the baseboards at all. Within each of the 2 heating zones there is 1 circulation pump. Each of these zones splits into two sections. One going west and one going east which I think is causing my troubles. The pumps are set up on the return side pushing water back through the boiler.
The routing of the plumbing starting from the water feed is as such:
Well pump water->regulator->Tee fitting(feed & return water)->boiler->Expansion tank->Shut off valve->Distribution Manifold ->(now for each zone)Spigot->one way flow valve->baseboard->Tee fitting(connecting east and west zones)->circulation pump->manifold->Shut off valve->Feed water Tee fitting mentioned above.
I have been attempting to bleed it in a reverse order. Since each zone doesn�t have a shut off valve I have been using the flow valves as shut off�s. I close the shut valve after the expansion tank and open the spigot and flow valve of the section I am trying to bleed using feed water to drive it. So the flow for this is feed water->pump(turned off)->base board->flow valve->spigot.
I could be wrong but I think I am having problems because after each pump there is a tee so I cannot isolate the individual zone. I would think the flow valves would work as a shut off of the zone I am not bleeding but I still can�t seem to get all the air out of the upper level system.
Any thoughts anyone? Also, I assume the flow valves are to be fully closed to allow water to just flow one way?
Any input would be helpful.

Thanks