No heat on second floor but heat on first floor...all one zone

I can’t find this question anywhere online. I have an oil boiler with baseboard heating. My hot water also comes from the boiler and is “tank-less”. If I bleed the radiators, do I need to add more water to the system or is that done automatically (since the water line is hooked up to the boiler)?

I am getting no heat on the second floor while the first floor has heat. Both floors are on the same zone. A second, albeit very small, zone also has heat. The first floor radiators make a lot of noise when hot (pinging, dripping, etc.). My first attempt is to bleed them.

What’s strange is the second floor stopped having heat since a plumber came in and drained/fixed an issue with the second zone. I don’t know if this is related or not. He also told me the second zone had dirty water in it.

Any suggestions?

 

Don't go through what I went through, make sure that the fill valve works before you start to do anything with your boiler.

Chances are if the lines were full of dirt the fill valve is also.

I would open the valve before the fill valve and then open the boiler drain valve at the bottom of the boiler and let the water run out for a while - if no water comes out - then you might suspect that the fill valve is not working.

I would then shut off the water before the fill valve and take out the drain cap on the bottom of the fill valve and clean out the screen and try it again and see if it lets the water go through.

You could try to clean out the diaphragm area inside of the fill valve, but if it is old, chances are that everything is corroded and it will fall apart as soon as you take it apart.

Make sure that the boiler is full of water before you turn it back on.

Once the boiler is full, turn it on and turn up the thermostat and go to the second floor and bleed the system until you get all the air out of it and until you do not hear any more noise inside of the pipes.

 

Please don't go disassembling your auto-fill valve just yet. You could end up with NO heat, and water squirting everywhere, and end up having to call a plumber for an emergency visit, which won't be cheap.

There's a pressure gauge on the boiler that will tell you almost everything that you need to know.

Please read that gauge and tell us what the pressure AND temperature is FIRST.