QUESTION FROM Fred in NJ

Hi, I have a gas fired hot water baseboard heating system. It is 9 zones as it is a lorge house. The other day, water began dripping from the valve on one of the zones. Is there something I can do or do I need to call a technitian? Thank you, first time here, great site!

ANSWER FROM POLICY-Wizard™

Dear Fred in NJ:

. . . thanks. Which of your valves is it? Does it look like it is one of your manual zone isolation valves? In other words, does it look like one of the valves that you would shut when you wanted to close off the flow to one of your heating zones? If you haven't already, you might want to look at our online tutorial video: http://www.home-wizard.com/Baseboard_Heating_101.asp , which describes the different types of valves in a typical baseboard heating system. If it is indeed one of your manual zone isolation valves, then a couple of things: 1) the lever for the valve should be either all the way open, or all the way closed (depending on what the valve is supposed to be doing). But it shouldn't be in an "in-between" position. The "closed" position is usually where the lever is perpendicular to the pipe, and fully "open" is when the lever is in line with the pipe. 2) and regarding fixing the leak, here is a webpage which has pictures and describes how to tighten the packing nut on a leaking manual valve: http://www.rd.com/19637/article19637.html If you valve is not a manual isolation valve, or tightening the packing nut doesn't stop the leak, just let us know, and we'll try to figure out something else for you.

Hope this is helpful.
Home-Wizard.com

FOLLOW-UP FROM Fred

Hey again, Sorry for the ambiguity. I'll start again! It is a 15 yo unit, with 9 zones. Coming from the heater, are all the pipes leading to the 9 "zone valves" (they are "Taco" brand). Above each of them is a "spigot"", then the pipes continue (I assume....) to all the parts of the house they are supposed to go to. Each "zone valve" has a lever that slides back and forth depending whether the heat is on or off (I assume) for that zone. The one "zone valve" to a section of the second floor began "dripping" a day or so ago, and now is a bit more. The heat is working fine in that area of the house, and there is none of the banging, etc that happens with air in it (we have had that before). It seems every time the heating company comes out, it is $300 to $500, unless I book them "off season" for the annual service. I am just wondering if this is something I can address myself. On the "handy-scale" from 1 (low) to 10 I'm probably a 6 or 7 (as long as you allow me to exclude woodworking!) so I could probably address it, unless it requires materials, etc, I do not have. Again (yeah, i guess I'm kissing up a bit) your site is far and away the best I found after 45 minutes on the internet and your response time was unheard of. From a career perspective, I am launching a new business along with a consulting company, and am developing a "file" of "blog" concepts, and I would also like to reference/use you on the one I plan to do on "customer Focus" if it's ok with you. Thanks again!

ANSWER FROM POLICY-Wizard™

Fred:

. . . now I'm with you, it's your Taco zone valve, not one of your manually operated zone isolation valves. I assume that this Taco zone valve is soldered into the pipe that it's in, right? If so, unfortunately you can't just unscrew it and replace it with a new Taco valve. However, since is sounds like you are fairly handy, what you can do is purchase another identical Taco valve and then "rob" the internal parts out of this new valve, and then put them into the existing body of the Taco valve that is leaking in your system. Before taking your existing Taco valve apart, you will want to isolate this section of your heating system (you will use the manually-operated zone isolation valves that we discussed before), and then you will need to purge out any air when you are done. Glad you like Home-Wizard.com. We are in the process of working on some significant upgrades to the site and our software, and hopefully you will like it even more with the improvements! And yes, feel free to reference our site for your "customer focus" file.


Regards,
Home-Wizard.com