I have a fairly typical hot water heating system, the main difference being there is a separate boiler for the 1st and 2nd floors of the house (used to be a duplex.) My question is, there is one radiator on the main floor (they're standard old school cast-iron fin radiators) that is fairly cool throughout the top 2/3 of its height. I attempted to bleed it, and air whooshed out for quite awhile, probably almost a minute, with no water coming out. This seemed odd to me so I went downstairs to check on the boiler, and noticed that the PSI had dropped quite a bit. After doing a little research I decided I needed to add more water to the system. I located the valves that connect the boiler to the city water supply and opened them... but nothing happened. One of the valves on the 1st floor boiler was a corroded old screw-type, whereas the valves connecting the 2nd floor boiler to the city water supply were both newer quarter turn (both had two valves with a back flow preventer in between). When I opened the valves to the 2nd floor system, the needle on the PSI gauge jumped, and I could hear the water coming in. So, I'm thinking that the valve that lets new water into my 1st floor boiler is corroded shut.
My question is, is there any way to manually add water to the system to get the PSI back up? The radiators still seem to be heating up OK, but the PSI gauge reads near zero. I'm guessing there is a leak somewhere between the boiler and the cold radiator that I will have to deal with at some point, but for now I just want to make sure the system is going to run OK for the rest of the winter.
Any insight into this situation would be appreciated.
My question is, is there any way to manually add water to the system to get the PSI back up? The radiators still seem to be heating up OK, but the PSI gauge reads near zero. I'm guessing there is a leak somewhere between the boiler and the cold radiator that I will have to deal with at some point, but for now I just want to make sure the system is going to run OK for the rest of the winter.
Any insight into this situation would be appreciated.