I recently converted my steam heating system from oil to natural gas, so brand new boiler plus they also put in a new thermostat. Lets say I have the thermostat set to 68 degrees during the day. The house will heat up to 68 just fine, but right now the temperature outside is just enough to keep the house at 68 without any further heating. However, the thermostat continues to kick the boiler on but only for a minute or two. No where near long enough to produce any steam. I could see this making sense in a forced hot air system, where you get hot air blowing almost immediately so turning it on for a minute or two to maintain the temperature at 68 and keep a more steady temperature in the house. However with steam ... you get no heat until the water starts boiling and the steam makes its way to the radiators. Is it suppose to do this? Is it doing this so the water in the boiler never gets "cold" and thus takes less time to boil when heat is actually needed? Or is it just wasting gas? In the old oil system it would also turn on periodically for a few minutes, not quite enough to make steam, then shut off. It would only do that a few times a day though (3 maybe 4? really don't remember). It would do this regardless of if the thermostat was set to "heat" or "off", I would flip the emergency off switch to keep it off. It seems to happen a lot more often now with the gas system though, but only if the switch is in the "heat" position.

Do I need power hooked up to a Taco Zone valve to have it manually open? Basically I have a zone valve on our system of our extremely small house. It isn't necessary. Plumber fixed something on boiler over summer and disconnected the wiring and said to just leave it in the open position. Heat isn't circulating this year and I can hear the circulator running. So I am wondering if there is a way to determine if that valve isn't staying in the open.