I live on the 14th floor of a 30 story apartment building and so far, I’ve been bleeding my radiators myself.
This usually worked and after bleeding I had a fully functioning radiator, 100% filled with water.
However, last time I tried bleeding, it would only fill up to 25% of its volume, it’s like there’s no pressure in the circuit.
Am I doing something wrong?
Having lived in a house with radiators, bleeding registers is like a once every 5 years type of task. There’s a much larger leak in the system, you should talk to your apartment manager.
Plumber here.
It’s a closed circuit. When you’re bleeding out air the pressure in the system drops. When there’s no sufficient pressure the water wont reach the upper floors.
Under normal circumstances the system is bled of air once and then they add more water untill the optimal pressure is reached and that’s it. You shouldn’t need to bleed air or add water ever again. The fact that you keep bleeding it indicates that new air is introduced somehow. Usually this means there’s a leak and someone keeps topping it up with fresh water which contains air that then need to be bled out again.
Alternatively the issue could also be non-plumbers like yourself who keep bleeding the radiators on their own and then the maintenance keeps adding more water and wondering why the pressure always drops again. In my part of the world it’s forbidden for the residents to bleed their radiators for this very reason.
Also, the radiator lines are usually steel. The reason they don’t rust is lack of oxygen. Now with constantly more water and thus air being added to the system the corrosion keeps on advancing.
I’d expect that the person to ask would be the building manager.
How do you know how much it’s filled?
Also, hot water heat works differently than steam, and many steam systems have been converted to hot water, so it’s not easy to know just by looking at a radiator.
As other people have said, let the maintenance folks handle it. They know the system.
That depends entirely on how the system is set up. I would only ever consider increasing the amount of water in the system if I was absolutely certain that my apartment was on a completely separate and closed circuit than the other apartments. You should contact the janitor or whatever it’s called.
Usually, at the
heatingboiler, there is a junction for a hose with a valve and close by a pressure meter. If the pressure is too low, the janitor (not you) should fill up the heating system with water until the pressure is sufficient. Ideally, the pressure should be checked again after bleeding the radiators.Yup, that’s how it’s done when there’s a heat exchanger.
However there’s a reason why the boiler room is usually locked off in a 30 story building. Bleeding a radiator might be relatively harmless, but there’s no way of knowing what the pressure is supposed to be without knowing the entire system.
Some (lower) buildings might even have direct district heating without an exchanger, which is absolutely no go to even bleed.
However there’s a reason why the boiler room is usually locked off in a 30 story building. Bleeding a radiator might be relatively harmless, but there’s no way of knowing what the pressure is supposed to be without knowing the entire system.
Exactly. That’s why either the janitor knows the correct pressure or they need to call a technician. Definitely not something to have hands on oneself in a building that’s not yours.
There needs to be space someplace in the system since water expands when it warms. Sometimes that space is in the radiators andso bleeding needs to not let all the air out, for this reason you should get maintenance toefix the problem if one exists so they can balance the system.
That’s what expansion tanks are for. There shouldn’t be any air in the system itself.
Older systems have been known to use the radiators as the expansion tank. this would not meet modern code but plenty of old systems exist.
I have only done it with steam type and honestly I felt it was one of those more art than science things. buying the adjustable valves was nice to control temp a bit.
