Watson524
Member
Hi all,
We have a Weil McLain Gold boiler up at my mom's. She has a zone that's radiant flooring in her bathroom with a mixing valve. 3 other zones are baseboard hot water and another zone is baseboard hot water but in a sun room that's on peers with insulation under the flooring. Because of that zone being to open air more or less, there's always been glycol in it. Had some issues with the boiler in the fall and one zone appearing to be air locked and not letting heat through to the radiant floor. After many screw ups by the service company and me finally telling them I wanted the old guy tech who had a clue, it got fixed (expansion tank needed to be pumped up, not leaking, but I guess after 12 years they lose pressure). As a result of the boiler being drained, the glycol is gone so I need to get it back in there (company didn't seem interested in doing it tho I told them I had it on hand and a pump to pump it in - we have a boat, it's in my winterizing arsenal). So net net, I need to put it back in.
Her system doesn't have a way to isolate and drain just one zone, so I'm going to tackle that by adding hose bibs and a shut off below the existing shut offs on her return side. For some reason, there's only ball valves there so you can stop water from coming down but the bottom end isn't protected so it drains the whole thing. No big deal, I can practice my soldering. Also, since I'll have it drained, I'm replacing her pressure/temp gauge as we found out in the spring that's not working and I guess we're just relying on the quick fill valve to do its thing and maintain pressure but I'll replace it and it'll make me feel better about filling from a garden hose.
On the glycol, a few questions:
1.) I'm assuming the pink -50F burst point stuff is fine?
2.) Should I assume it'll circulate to all zones and that's just the way it is? I don't think there's really a way to keep it ONLY in the sun room zone
3.) What should I plan to read on the refractometer? Since I don't plan to entirely fill the system with glycol I don't know how much to put in or know what it should read when I'm done filling with water. I assume I'll put in at least a few gallons.
4.) I plan to put it in to the drain point that's now at the bottom of the return side. Figure I'll just pour the stuff in a bucket and use my bilge pump setup to pump it in. Good plan?
If the -50F (Northeast PA) isn't enough, I can add in some blue or purple stuff to make it go to lower burst but honestly, -50F is fine for burst, tho it has a slush point at +10-16F.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
We have a Weil McLain Gold boiler up at my mom's. She has a zone that's radiant flooring in her bathroom with a mixing valve. 3 other zones are baseboard hot water and another zone is baseboard hot water but in a sun room that's on peers with insulation under the flooring. Because of that zone being to open air more or less, there's always been glycol in it. Had some issues with the boiler in the fall and one zone appearing to be air locked and not letting heat through to the radiant floor. After many screw ups by the service company and me finally telling them I wanted the old guy tech who had a clue, it got fixed (expansion tank needed to be pumped up, not leaking, but I guess after 12 years they lose pressure). As a result of the boiler being drained, the glycol is gone so I need to get it back in there (company didn't seem interested in doing it tho I told them I had it on hand and a pump to pump it in - we have a boat, it's in my winterizing arsenal). So net net, I need to put it back in.
Her system doesn't have a way to isolate and drain just one zone, so I'm going to tackle that by adding hose bibs and a shut off below the existing shut offs on her return side. For some reason, there's only ball valves there so you can stop water from coming down but the bottom end isn't protected so it drains the whole thing. No big deal, I can practice my soldering. Also, since I'll have it drained, I'm replacing her pressure/temp gauge as we found out in the spring that's not working and I guess we're just relying on the quick fill valve to do its thing and maintain pressure but I'll replace it and it'll make me feel better about filling from a garden hose.
On the glycol, a few questions:
1.) I'm assuming the pink -50F burst point stuff is fine?
2.) Should I assume it'll circulate to all zones and that's just the way it is? I don't think there's really a way to keep it ONLY in the sun room zone
3.) What should I plan to read on the refractometer? Since I don't plan to entirely fill the system with glycol I don't know how much to put in or know what it should read when I'm done filling with water. I assume I'll put in at least a few gallons.
4.) I plan to put it in to the drain point that's now at the bottom of the return side. Figure I'll just pour the stuff in a bucket and use my bilge pump setup to pump it in. Good plan?
If the -50F (Northeast PA) isn't enough, I can add in some blue or purple stuff to make it go to lower burst but honestly, -50F is fine for burst, tho it has a slush point at +10-16F.
Thanks in advance for any advice!