Radiator

It’s been getting cooler (actually it got colder rather suddenly). That means it’s time to figure out the boiler and the radiators. I’ve had forced air my whole life, so this is a bit new to me. The first step was to wash the radiators, since I knew that if fired them up still caked in dust it would likely going be a smelly ordeal. Sarah tackled that, and I assisted her.

Boiler

The boiler was installed some time in the eighties, so it’s not ancient, but it’s hardly new. It has a standing pilot that we had shut off when we did the bug bombing. I got the model of the boiler and the pump and looked them up online. Eventually I found maintenance instructions and started by flushing out the rusty water from the pump “blow down” valve and the drain for the system. The boiler itself also has two drains to get the gunk out. After trying to drain the water feeder so I could remove the filter I eventually discovered the water line wasn’t shut off (turns out the valve was just tight). After that I got the strainer basket cleaned out and reconnected the thermostat (after cleaning the roaches out of it) and mounted it on the wall upstairs.
Gas control valve

With that done, I tried to light the pilot. The reset button was stuck, which is a bad sign. But with some persistence (and no tools) I finally got it lit without burning the house down.

I did a test firing and everything seems to work fine, but the pump didn’t start running to circulate because I’d turned off the circuit weeks ago. At least that was a simple fix. Now that everything is ready to go the weather got warm enough that we don’t need any heat! Oh well, in a week or two we’ll start it up for real and hopefully it will work as expected.