I have a Dunkirk oil burner. When we went to turn it on last night, the heat worked fine in the sexond floor (we have two heating zone, two thermostats), but nothing on the first floor. The first floor thermostat is in fine working condition--I reset all the settings, checked the wiring and put in new batteries. What could this be?
First, it is not the burner. That just heats water.
Most likely, the circulator pump of the first floor zone is not working. The thermostat switches a relay that turns on the pump. You should be able to feel it running.
If you have a single pump, it could be a defective zone valve.
Could be you need to bleed your lines also. What you can do is turn the thermostat up so that you know it will call for heat in that zone, go to your basement and track the plumbing for that zone.... You'll find either one main pump on the furnace or two smaller pumps one of them should be running (make sure the other zone isn't calling for heat, and give it a few minutes to shut off)... If the pumps won't run, that's your problem, if the pump is running and the pipe is warm in the basement but there's still no heat upstairs you have an air lock and the pipes need bled. Or the the other option is that the zone control valve is stuck, you can tell this by the fact that the pipe is hot up to that control...
Had the same problem with my furnace when we first fired it up this year, mine just need bled to remove the air...
Good luck!!!!
Yes, could very well be the zone valve. Usually they have a lever on the side of them that you can move down to open them manually. If you do this and have heat then that's the problem.
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