Hi,
I live in an old house (built around 1936) that was vacant for several years (2005 - 2014). It is heated with a gas boiler (bought in 2014), and a combination of cast iron convectors, traditional cast iron radiators, and fin tube units that were installed around 2011). At one point the house was vandalized, with the thieves taking some of the copper piping and some of the cast iron convectors (that is when the fin tube units were put in). When the house was vacant there was no heat, so it is possible that some of the remaining cast iron convectors could have cracked (that said, they are not leaking).
I am having problems with several of my radiators, and I am hoping that someone can help me determine an orderly process for figuring out what is wrong. The convectors and the cast iron radiators worked without problems in 2005. As mentioned above, the fin tube units were put in around 2011; it is unclear whether the ones that are not working now ever worked when they were installed.
1. The radiators on one side of the house:
There are three rooms one on top of the other that do not heat: the family room, a small dressing room above the family room, and the attic (obviously, the attic is not on one side of the house, but the radiator that heats the attic is directly above the dressing room). The family room has cast iron convectors, the dressing room has a fin tube radiator, and the attic has a traditional cast iron radiator. I am attaching photos of the convectors in the family room and the large, traditional radiator in the attic.
When I bleed the radiators, no water comes out of the cast iron convectors in the family room, and no water comes out of the cast iron radiator in the attic. Neither the convectors in the family room nor the radiator in the attic gets warm to the touch. Water does come out of the fin tube radiator in the dressing room when I bleed it, and it gets only slightly warm, but it does not get warm enough to heat the dressing room.
2. Two of the three convector radiators in the living room:
Two of the three convectors in the living room are not heating. My recollection is that water comes out of one of them when I bleed it, but it does not get warm.
3. The radiators in the upstairs den, over the garage:
There are fin tube units in the upstairs den. The room is above the garage. Water comes out when I bleed the radiators, but the fin tube units don’t seem to get very warm.
Can anyone give me any ideas on the steps I should take in order to figure out what is going on in all or any of these rooms/radiators?
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