Radiators Not Heating

When this becomes an emergency

• The same upstairs rooms stay cold every winter while the main floor overheats.
• A radiator sits stone cold although its supply pipe is hot right up to the valve.
• Water spits from a vent onto the floor or the wall behind it during a run.
• The whole loop went cold after work was done anywhere on the system.

What a pro does

Which rooms fail tells you most of what you need. A pattern that follows height points at distribution, so on a one-pipe steam system a tech starts with venting rates: the main vents on the horizontal runs, then the individual radiator vents, since steam simply follows the path where air leaves fastest and starves everything slower. Get the mains venting properly and rooms that have been cold for years often come back. Pitch is the other steam question. A radiator or a runout that has settled out of level over a century of a house shifting traps condensate, and that both blocks steam and creates the hammering people live with. On circulating hot water the questions change to flow balance, a seized valve, a circulator that's lost its impeller, or air collecting at the high point of a loop. Zone valves and their end switches get checked too. None of this requires touching the boiler.

Frequently asked questions

Radiators Not Heating?

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