Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Boiler Maintenance and troubleshooting

Hello, and glad I found your site!

I have an American Standard hot water gas boiler. I am having a hard time finding information about this type on the web. It is series 4BN SE J2 boiler GPH 135. I have no idea how old it is.
These are my questions:
The upstairs radiators don't heat up towards the top of them. I have tried bleeding them, and air comes out, but eventually the air stops and no water comes out. The next day, the same thing. A little air, no water. I read that I may have to add more water to the system, but there are so many knobs attached, I wouldn't know which ones to use, or how to know when there is enough water.
Also, is there any boiler maintenance that I could learn to perform myself? Where is the best place to get this information?

Thanks,
Jane

You have to find the fill pipe for the boiler. There should be a water line that goes to the boiler in this line the shut off should be on all of the time. After the shut off there should be a pressure regulator and then into the boiler, to fill it with water.
Dont know for your boiler here. But when we put a new boiler in and you go to fill it you start to bleed all of the bleeders and get water out of them.Now if you dont get water out of the top one and there is nothing else wrong you have to turn up the pressure regulator on the auto fill a little till you do get water out of the top bleeder. The pressure in the boiler should be what it takes to just get the water up to the top bleeder. A good www for you is
heatinghelp.com this is where all the so called WET HEADS are;) ED

Thanks Ed. I'm still trying to figure out what all these parts are that you mentioned. Know any place with diagrams? Will look at you "wet head" site.
Happy Sunday,
Jane

One more question....how do I know which of these I look at?


Gravity Hot-Water Heating
Indirect Hot-Water Heating
Diverter-Tee Hot-Water Heating
Loop Hot-Water Heating
Condensate Hot-Water Heating

Learning, learning, always learning.

:rolleyes:

Jane

Dont know if any layout there or not. didnt go that far in to it.
they might be able to tell you how in a diff. way than i did.but look for the water line about 1/2" has a red or green thing a bob regulator on it that should be the water fill. www.heathelp.com ;) ED

Thanks Ed,
I'm on there now, looking at diagrams. I think I have the gravity kind. I'm reading away. Who knows, maybe someday I could hold my own in a conversation about this.( And put everyone to sleep!)
Jane

How old is the boiler?Id say its old ,old for a gravity set up??????;) ED

The house was built in 1923. I don't think the boiler is as old as the house, because there is an unused vent hole in the chimney behind it. There is a tag on a pipe from an inspection in 1980. When a guy came to clean the burners last year (there were lovely explosion sounds every time it lit) he said it was old but in good shape. But, I have no idea how old.