Hi All,

My apartment's heating seems to be a little picky...When we set the thermostat only the living room's baseboard gets warm...All the others are room temp or cold. I can have it set to 80 and the thermometer will read 80, but no where in the apartment is it 80. All the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen radiators are cold...

I saw this Taco valve on the kitchen radiator and moved it to "open" versus the "auto" setting. All the baseboards are now warm...

I'm curious if setting the Taco valve to auto is advisable? We are in a building with multiple apartments so I am worried it could screw up something in the rest of the system, though I think each apartment may be a zone in itself...

Just curious what the experts out there thought about my situation and current solution.

Thanks for the help!

 

There are wires on that valves terminals, yes ? (there should be)

Those valves are normally to be operated in AUTO ... they are supposed to be controlled by the thermostat, and open when there is a call for heat.

I doubt you'll mess up the other apartments heat by opening that valve manually, but if it doesn't open automatically, then there's something wrong.

Since you are renting, you really can't do anything to the system as far as working on it ... but I don't see where opening a zone valve manually could be considered "working on it" ... you want heat in that apartment that you pay so much rent for !

You landlord does have a legal obligation to provide properly functioning heat in your unit ... so ask them to get it working ...