I have 2 questions: 1) When bleeding radiators, is it best to start with the lowest or highest radiators, or does it matter? Also, when is the best time - in fall as the heat comes back on, or in the spring after the heat shuts off for the summer? 2) What easy self-maintenance can/should I do for my expansion tank, if any? Do I need to drain once per year? If so, when (fall/spring)? I think I understand how to do it: turn off valve from tank to system, drain expansion tank, turn valve back on. Please let me know if this is necessary, and if so, why. Thanks Marc

Just replaced my coal to oil burning dinosaur boiler to a new Utica gas boiler. The boiler is short cycling because when it is working the water level gets below the safety cut-off and it turns off...10/15 seconds later the level rises and it fires up again. The installer techs were here all this morning and fiddled with everything. They checked all the radiators and changed air vents where needed. They also installed a main vent on top of the boiler, but no main vents on either the long supply line or its return. While the boiler is working the water level gets all jumpy and starts to drop to a point that the safety cut-off shuts down the boiler before steam has a chance to heat the farthest radiators, from it, in the house. The old boiler that I had was a slow dinosaur, took awhile for the heat to get going, but with this one it is almost like instantanious. It fires up and whamm you have heat. I would think that with this type of quicker steam they should have installed some vents on the supply line to let the steam move along faster. I a friend of my cousins take a look at it. He was my original pick to do my job but he was so busy that he could onlydo it in mid Dec. which was too long of a wait for me. He said that the hartford loop was a bit to low in relation to the water level and that could be the reason for the jumpy water. He couldn't axactly explain why the water was going down so low and so quickly. He said that the boiler was making steam faster than the condenced water was returning to the boiler. Pipes were checked by the install techs and were found to not be clogged. So there should be no reason why the water takes longer to return. Should I just call the Utica tech guys and have them take a look at it or do I call the install guys back up? They are getting pissed cause I still have half of there payment and won't give it to them until it is working fine. Any ideas or thoughts on what could it be or what I should do would be much appreciated.