I just converted an integral garage into a bedroom. the garage had an existing hot water blower unit in it and I converted it to baseboard. It has a dedicated line from the boiler and is its own zone. A problem developed. After I did the conversion it worked well, NOW two other zones in the house do not work. Is there air in the system that caused a lock? Any help would be appreciated, thanks
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Zone valves or pumps? The first thing I would do is bleed the entire system. During
the conversion, the pipes were disconnected. This will cause air in the lines. If there
are zone valves, water will go to the pipes with the least amount of resistance. So, if
the new BR zone has less resistance, the water will go there first and most. I
personally feel that the system works better with individual pumps. It is more
expensive but it will run more efficiently. If you have a zone control box, there is
typically a primary zone tab that you connect the line from the valve/pump to. So this
zone will be satisfied first and then the others will soon follow. You could try to move
the zone that is lagging to this tab.
"It is what it is."
Along with what Mike said about water taking the course of least resistance we used to put in shutoff valves at each loop so we could help adjust some of the resistance by playing with it. I think the guys who really know boilers and pump systems might have a problem with that but it seemed to work for years. I know if you create too much resistance it can hurt the pump. We used to measure the temp going into each loop and again as it came out. We were looking for a specific range of temp drop. I forget what that was but it wasn't a lot.
roger