Zone 2 - no heat

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hows.it

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Since it is getting cold here in PA very quickly this year, I need to get my current situation fixed. My wife and i have noticed that the upstairs zone is not activation when we turn the thermostat up a few degrees to get heat and is now pretty cold during the night. I have searched around in different forums as well as the internet and have concluded that I may have a seized cartridge in my Taco oo7-F5 circulator. Since I am incredibly inexperienced with any sort of plumbing, I figured I'd come here and try to get a few questions answered. Here goes:

1. When I turn the downstairs (zone 1) thermostat up, I can hear a slight click in the switching relay box (SR503) and the boiler fires up and send the water to to radiators. When I try this same process for the second floor (zone 2) the relay will click just like zone 1, but then almost immediately click back off without the boiler ever firing. This would lead me to believe that the impeller is stuck and that the relay switches back off to prevent overheating. Is this thinking correct?

2. This may be a wiring issue. The indicator lights on the switching relay box stay lit and this does not seem correct to me. I could be totally wrong and ignorant, but I would thinks the lights would go on if either thermostat is calling for heat rather than what is currently happening -staying lit constantly and turning off when they are activated. The only light I would say should continuously stay on is the green power light.

3. If the cartridge in the circulator is frozen and I need to replace it, I feel fairly confident that I can complete the work myself. My only question is about bleeding my system after the cartridge has been replaced: How do I locate the bleeder valve and how can I be sure that all the air has escaped so that it does not cause the impeller to seize once again? I thought that the plumber installed an automatic bleeding valve when he installed the new system two years ago.

Any help on these issues would be greatly appreciated. Its getting cold quickly here.
Thanks in advance.
 

Dana

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Find the circulator and feel the motor end of it. If it's turning it should be pretty warm/hot to the touch- if the motor is seized it should be downright hot to the touch.

Also feel the plumbing leading to & from the pump body a foot or two up/down stream. If there is any flow at all they should be hot and roughly the same temp.

If the pump motor is cold it may not be getting power, or the motor windings are toast, drawing no power current. If that's the case you need to be able to work a volt-0hm meter to really debug it.

Impeller cartridges can erode as well as seize. Best case is that it has eroded to where there isn't much flow rather than a seized or burnt pump motor since that's a cheaper repair, but either way it's DIY-able and not going to break the bank.

Most baseboard or radiator systems will have one or more bleeder valves on the system located at the radiator or baseboard, and not just an air-scoop or air vent. They come in several form-factors, but the procedure for bleeding is the same for all: Crack the thing open and wait until the hissing goes away, with only water coming out. You'll need to have something to catch the drips/spray, and you may have to do it more than once to keep flow going on the loop if a lot of air gets in, but it's not hard to do, just tedious sometimes.

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