I'm going to be looking at a piece of property next week, and the cabin on the property has hot water baseboard heat with a natural gas boiler. I know next to nothing about hot water heating systems as every place I've lived has had forced air as the primary heat source. To the best of my knowledge, the property has been empty since at least last summer. I don't yet know if the system was drained before winter, left to run while set at 45 degrees or so, filled with some type of anti freeze, left as is to freeze solid and self destruct, you get the point. I'm not sure what I should be looking for, short of checking for a drain valve near the boiler and see if anything comes out when opened, unless it's already open and dry. I thought I'd heard at one point that having the systems drained and void of water for long periods of time wasn't good for the system, but maybe that was only for systems with cast iron radiators. From the pictures I saw, I believe these are copper plumbed/finned baseboard heat exchangers. I'll know more Tuesday, but if there is anything I should be aware of ahead of time I'm all ears.
When you go to see the place, turn the furnace on and crank it up. It should do one of 2 things. Work perfectly because it had antifreeze in it and make the place warm fast (I'm guessing this would be the case for a separate cabin on a property for visitors once in a while), or the agent won't let you turn it on because the sellers know there are issues. If it froze last winter, it'll be obvious... would leave quite a mess. Either way, the sellers won't be able to sell the place until it's determined that the heating system is fine or they have to drop the price enough so you can make the system 100%. If you decide to make an offer, it can include a thorough inspection of the system by a furnace tech. BTW, I'll bet you'll like HWBB heat vs hot air... a lot. We've had both. Quite a difference.
Thanks stinny. I'm hoping the gas is still on so I can give that a go. The agent said "all is in working order", but I heard that years ago when I was looking for my current house.
It can be in "working order", yet still leak like a sieve. Let the buyer beware. We went into a place that had been "winterized" to fix a bunch of leaks because it hadn't been done early enough. Finally found the last leak inside a wall after water was seeping out. Did another one where the guy turned off the system and was staying with his girlfriend. When he hit the t-stat, water was everywhere. I would insist on being able to turn the system on, and hanging around for a while to see if water shows up in places it shouldn't be. That's me though.
Yep, I'd second the "hidden" issues thing Dave. If any of the heating lines go inside walls that are not accessible for inspection, I'd sure look for any sign of water stains in odd places and if I still wasn't happy, I'd insist that an inspection "hatch" be made so it could be checked. Most piping is above or below floors anyway but... you never know. I'll be checking back to this thread to see what 343 finds.
I'll find out more tomorrow when I see it in person. I'm hoping for 'it survived all last season', but you never know.
If the water is on in the house then you can pretty safely assume that the place didn't freeze, or they took care to winterize it so that nothing froze. Pilot light on is a good sign too. You definitely want to let it run for a while as said. If there are multiple zones make certain that each zone valve opens up when you call for heat. You most likely will hear the pipes gurgling because there is some air in them. That would be nomal, if there is too much air it won't circulate pr0perly. It might have an automatic air bleeder so it is possible there is no gurgling in the pipes at all. There is a pressure diaphram/tank that is about 5 gallons in size and pressure relief valve next to the boiler, another reason to get it hot, they will let you know if there is a problem. The cold water feed remains open, there is house water pressure against the hot water system and some kind of pressure/flow vlave to maintain pressure on the heating system and to keep it from back flowing into your drinking water (at least that is how mine is). If the water feed to the heating system is off I would question it. It is not like an old steam system that you maintain proper water level manually with a sight glass and valve.
I used to leave my fill valve open until one day the water pressure spiked and it caused the fill valve to stay open. I woke up to a soaking wet carpet in my bedroom. Boiler is in garage and if that corner gets wet it seeps into the house (yeah... really awesome setup ). Anyhow boiler had around 60psi (woah!) and was leaking out of the over pressure valve. Normal pressure is 10psi. No reason to keep it open that I can think of.
Well, the system was running and warm. Good thing it's only 54 and rainy where I am as I was able to crank the stat and make sure things were happy. The records were there from the service call last fall and this spring (service tech checked the freeze point of the fluid and replaced the low water cutoff). At least that part is out of the way.
"If the water is on in the house then you can pretty safely assume that the place didn't freeze, or they took care to winterize it so that nothing froze." I don't presume or assume much of anything. People forget things, even after doing them 50 times. The guy I referenced earlier left the water on but turned off the system. Recipe for disaster, especially last winter. The other one I referenced had it winterized, but after it got cold enough to pop the pipes.......pointless, and we fixed a whole bunch of leaks after temping in a forced air system to heat the place. Just my 1/2 cent.
I'm with Dave I don't assume anything. I bought my house as a repossesion with hot water boiler. Fired it up and found a couple leaks as sure enough it had been left to freeze. So now I thought all is well, wrong, once the dead of winter hit and it started running hard especially late at night it would spring a leak as a lot of the elbows had loosened from freezing. That first winter was a real bear but after a couple midnight surprizes I got pretty good at shutting down, draining, repairing and filling off the hot water tank so it was preheated water and back up to operating. When Spring came I cut and fixed anything that looked even remotely to be a problem.
I'll be having an inspector come in and take a look at things if the ball keeps rolling in the direction that I'm hoping it will roll. I spent some time checking things out when I was there and most things look good to my DIY eye minus a few cosmetics, but I don't know everything to look for. I'll know more Monday as to what my next steps may or may not be.
