Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - heating inconsistently

Hi. I own a home in Brooklyn, ny and have a 3-zone hot water heating system. the lowest floor the basement which is actually only partially below grade never gets warm enough. i may set the thermostat to 75 or 76 and the temperature never goes past 74 all day. the other floors get warm when the outside tempwerature is not that cold. but when it gets really cold i get the thermo's rading only 70 deegrees. at times it seems as if the thermostat is not communicating with the boiler. sometimes when the heat should be on for about 2 hours already i turn off the thermostat and turn it back on right away and begin to hear the water swooshing in the walls. i really dont know what the issue is. it sound like mmultiple issues. i will provide a list of all the equipment i have.

 1 Weil Mclain boiler converted from steam to hot water running on natural gas. Model#: EG/PEG 45 (150,000 BTU/HR) also provides domestic hot water through coil less tank
 3 zones – 3 Armstrong ASTRO-30 circulator pumps
 1 Elbi diaphragm expansion tank Model#: XT-30
 1 ARGO ARM-4P control with priority
 3 TACO 218 universal flocheck
 1 McDonell low water cutoff
 3 LUX TX9000TS thermostats
 Ball valves on both sides of each circulator pump and a drain valve
 Pressure – 25PSI and Temperature – 200 degrees
 In Brooklyn, NY
 Brick 3 story semi-attached home
 Bedrooms on top floor
 Living room, dining room, and kitchen on middle floor
 Office, play area, boiler and bath on bottom floor – this floor is ground level at front of building and ½ below grade in back of building
 Gas hot water heater added to system but only used during warm months when heat is not needed and boiler is shut down.
any insight would be appreciated. also the axctual radiators are i think convectors. there are two copper looking pipes running through some aluminum fins and they are semi recessed into the wall with a heavy metal cover that has fins cut in them at the top only. there are no obvious valves on the rads to release air from the system. only the valves at each circuklator pump.

thanks

What is your boiler pressure and temps?

when i last checked it was Pressure – 25PSI and Temperature – 200 degrees

Those reading seems a little high..

15psi and 160 to 180 water temps.

Does each zone have thier own shut off valve and drain?

there is a ball valve above each circulator and a spigot below the circulator followed by another ball valve

i will share some photos soon...

djpetedagreek - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://photobucket.com/djpeteheatingphotos)

Looks like someone did a nice neat job of installing that system. That generaly suggests someone who also is competent at doing the job, which is GOOD!

the flochecks were added a a later time because i was getting heat at the top floors when other zones asked for heat too. i think you guys call that gravity feed or something or other also one zone was incorrectly wired, but then again that was the electrician's fault. i had many people working on this conversion and install including two plumbers and 2 electricians i hoped everything would come out great but i do have the issues i mentioned below

today all the thermostats read 67 degrees and they are set from 73 to 75 :(

should i have automatic or manual air valves at each convector in this kind of system. i will get a photo of the convector area soon:confused:

today all the thermostats read 67 degrees and they are set from 73 to 75 :(

With that kind of consistency, sounds more like a common problem rather than zone issues. Like air in the line. An auto vent is located at or above some bladder type tanks, from what I have seen. (i'm not an installer, but I do have my opportunities to be first person to find things wrong.) Other radiators have manual bleeders on them. Gurgling would indicate trapped air.

is that valve thingy looking thing on top of the expansion tank an auto air vent. see my photos link below

I believe it is. But you still need to physically get trapped air out of radiators. Bleeding radiators can be time consuming as you have to make sure pressure does not drop, when bleeding, to point that water can no longer push water to highest floor. One trick is to overfill boiler up to say 20-some psi, then bleed. (Note that 30 PSI trips temp/pressure relief valve) Then when all done, then lower the auto-fill valve back to where it was set, or otherwise make it so you are at about 12 -15 psi for a 2 story house.

Here:

boiler auto vent - SHOP.COM (http://www.shop.com/+-a-boiler+auto+vent-p131975746-q-k24-skipn-st.shtml)

Scroll to bottom of that page to see a picture

what is the proper procedure for bleeding the air out of my system since i dont have air vents at the convectors. system on or off. ball vaves open or closed on which side of circulator do i somehow isolate a zone from another? etc etc