Few questions regarding heating system

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RegH

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Hello all, I need some help with tuning up my heating system.

I have a 1991 Burnham P-204A-WNV hydronic boiler. Heat is distributed through baseboards. I have 3 zones with 3 circulating pumps, no zone valves.

This is used to heat the basement, ground floor and the attic. There is a separate heater for the second floor.

The tridicator was dirty and old and I replaced it with a new gauge. The Bell and Gossett PRV (pressure reducing valve) is FB-38 and it was old and pressurized the system to 20 psi, so I replaced it with the exact same PRV. However, the system still pressurized to 20 psi. The counterman at the plumbing supply store informed me that even though the PRV is factory preset to 12 psi, it depends on the psi coming in, and will not necessarily yield 12 psi out. This made sense to me, so I tried to adjust the PRV down to 12 psi, but was unsuccessful. Then I called Bell and Gossett and they informed me that the pressure in does not matter within a reasonable range (30-60 psi in) and that the PRV should have reduced the the water pressure to 12 psi.

How long does it take the PRV to reach the reduced psi setting, when filling in an empty cold boiler?

I tried to bleed the system, by isolating each zone by following the procedure below:
Turned off shut-off valves to two zones above and below circulator pump on inlet side
Turned off shut off valves to two zones on outlet side.
Connected hose to drain above open zone and opened faucet.

Now this is the problem. It seems that if I didn't use the prv override handle, the boiler would lose pressure faster than it was filling up.

Am I doing something wrong. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
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Dana

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What he said.

The expansion tank has to be pre-charged for 20psi to run it there though.
 
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