What is happening with my thermostat?

[lengel]

Last night, DH came to me and asked if I thought that the radiator in the bathroom was running really hot. It seemed like it was so I looked at the thermostat and it was set for 64 degrees. Looked at the thermometer on our clock and it said 76 degrees. DH went to bed and I kept track, noticing that the furnace was running way too often and the radiators were not cooling down.

I turned the thermostat down to 52 degrees and finally the radiators started cooling off. When I went to bed, the thermometer read 64 degrees. Just now looked at it and it was down to 59 degrees which is a little cool so I turned the thermostat back up to 60 which may trigger the furnace running near continuously again.

What is happening with the thermostat?

 

[jnjross]

the little coil inside the stat has worn out (like wafer stats do) you can replace fairly easy , you should be able to find a new one at lowes .

 

[maplesky7]

so it's a boiler?

ok...either your thermostat is bad...or the little switch thingy that calls for heat is bad.

when my guy comes out he has a little electric reader he connects to the thermostat to see if it's that. I've had 2 out of 3 that needed to be replaced.

then the mercury switch in the front of the boiler box that calls for heat went bad...but they no longer carry mercury switches because of the mercury so they had to revamp it...cost about $600 to revamp it.

what does the dial on the side of your boiler say?

Is it set for somewhere like 220* and has about 12 lbs of pressure? That's about normal.

If the lbs of pressure are below or above that...then you have a problem and need someone to come out.

another thing that happened with ours is the water release valve was broke so, water was not being added so it didn't have enough water and it overheated and it steamed up and blew the pressure relief valve...scary noise for sure.

another time a guy screwed up after revamping it for the mercury switch so it kept heating and heating and heating until it overheated and shot hot water and steam out the pressure relief valve...scary scary...

and i have 3 pumps too...and 2 have been replaced. the little gears inside have basically disintigrated...they broke up into little peices and were gone, no where to be found...but if you felt the pump...it felt as if it was still running but the gear in there was gone...only once they shut down the system and took the thing off...did they realize the inside was gone and it needed to be replaced.

I'd say it's time to get it looked at. Now mine is old and they had the water temp up to 240* at one point because of poor insulation and long runs... I just went and looked and last they were here which was recently they turned it down to 200* but it's warming up and doesn't need to be that hot because we shouldn't get any more sub zero temps.

I had to keep messing with my therms because one week it would be really cold so I would have it set at 73*...just to keep the pipes from freezing though it wasn't really 73* in the house. Then there was a warm up and it fulfilled the 73* and then there was all this radiant heat...so then it climbed up to like 78* because the weather outside was warm and it had all this radiant heat it had to displace out of the pipes before it would cool back down...so i had to set the therms back to 60* to get it back down to 68*.

So definatley, the weather warming up affects it. And if you've lived there a number of years and have never experianced this...I would suggest looking at some of the above reasons why my boiler "acted" up.

me,
g

 

[lengel]

We have three "zones" in the house and the other two are well within the temps that were set on their thermostats so I don't think it can be the furnace. We'll look at replacing the coil.

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.