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It's actually normal, arguably good, fairly standard practice to leave the valve to the pressure regulator closed, because the only reasons you should need to add water are to make up for all the dissolved air coming out of solution you'll need to bleed out having just dumped a bunch of new water in there, and leaks. And leaks should be fixed, not allowed to keep leaking and automatically get refilled.

From the shutoff valve downwards, you have a backflow preventer and a pressure regulator and an additional valve to permit changing the regulator and backflow preventer without draining the loop. The toggle on the top of the pressure regulator is what you're calling a "fast fill device" unless you're calling the whole pressure regulator that (which would be incorrect.) With the shutoff valve open that will make water go through the regulator faster. If the lever is not actuated, the regulator will regulate the pressure, unless it's broken.

A closed heating loop should not leak. If it does leak, your cast iron boiler and pump keep rusting (because you keep adding oxygen with each addition of new water) which is something that the standard practice of using cast iron boilers and pumps assumes won't be the case - in a leak-free system the oxygen gets used up making some rust, you don't add more water, with no more oxygen, no more rust forms.

Also, if it's leaking you have water going somewhere out of the heating loop, which can rot parts of your house.

So, if the pressure in your system drops, and you have to open the valve to refill it, you would then NOTICE (one hopes) and take corrective action. Or, you throw the valve open, ignore the root problem, and you have bad things happen after some time passes due to corrosion and leakage.

You should check for the presence and proper operation of automatic air bleeders on your system. Normally there's one on an air scoop over your expansion tank, but it's just out of the picture so I can't be sure it's there.

It's actually normal, arguably good, fairly standard practice to leave the valve to the pressure regulator closed, because the only reasons you should need to add water are to make up for all the dissolved air coming out of solution you'll need to bleed out having just dumped a bunch of new water in there, and leaks. And leaks should be fixed, not allowed to keep leaking and automatically get refilled.

From the shutoff valve downwards, you have a backflow preventer and a pressure regulator and an additional valve to permit changing the regulator and backflow preventer without draining the loop. The toggle on the top of the pressure regulator is what you're calling a "fast fill device" unless you're calling the whole pressure regulator that (which would be incorrect.) With the shutoff valve open that will make water go through the regulator faster. If the lever is not actuated, the regulator will regulate the pressure, unless it's broken.

A closed heating loop should not leak. If it does leak, your cast iron boiler and pump keep rusting (because you keep adding oxygen with each addition of new water) which is something that the standard practice of using cast iron boilers and pumps assumes won't be the case - in a leak-free system the oxygen gets used up making some rust, you don't add more water, with no more oxygen, no more rust forms.

Also, if it's leaking you have water going somewhere out of the heating loop, which can rot parts of your house.

So, if the pressure in your system drops, and you have to open the valve to refill it, you would then NOTICE (one hopes) and take corrective action. Or, you throw the valve open, ignore the root problem, and you have bad things happen after some time passes due to corrosion and leakage.

You should check for the presence and proper operation of automatic air bleeders on your system. Normally there's one on an air scoop over your expansion tank, but it's just out of the picture so I can't be sure it's there. That's the normal and "a lot less fuss" way that air bubbles should come out of your heating loop before they grow so large that you need to do what you just did.

It's actually normal, arguably good, fairly standard practice to leave the valve to the pressure regulator closed, because the only reasons you should need to add water are to make up for all the dissolved air coming out of solution you'll need to bleed out having just dumped a bunch of new water in there, and leaks. And leaks should be fixed, not allowed to keep leaking and automatically get refilled.

From the shutoff valve downwards, you have a backflow preventer and a pressure regulator. The toggle on the top of the pressure regulator is what you're calling a "fast fill device" unless you're calling the whole pressure regulator that (which would be incorrect.)

A closed heating loop should not leak. If it does leak, your cast iron boiler and pump keep rusting (because you keep adding oxygen with each addition of new water) which is something that the standard practice of using cast iron boilers and pumps assumes won't be the case - in a leak-free system the oxygen gets used up making some rust, you don't add more water, with no more oxygen, no more rust forms.

Also, you have water going somewhere out of the heating loop, which can rot parts of your house.

So, if the pressure in your system drops, and you have to open the valve to refill it, you would then NOTICE (one hopes) and take corrective action. Or, you throw the valve open, ignore the root problem, and you have bad things happen after some time passes due to corrosion and leakage.

You should check for the presence and proper operation of automatic air bleeders on your system. Normally there's one on an air scoop over your expansion tank, but it's just out of the picture so I can't be sure it's there.

It's actually normal, arguably good, fairly standard practice to leave the valve to the pressure regulator closed, because the only reasons you should need to add water are to make up for all the dissolved air coming out of solution you'll need to bleed out having just dumped a bunch of new water in there, and leaks. And leaks should be fixed, not allowed to keep leaking and automatically get refilled.

From the shutoff valve downwards, you have a backflow preventer and a pressure regulator and an additional valve to permit changing the regulator and backflow preventer without draining the loop. The toggle on the top of the pressure regulator is what you're calling a "fast fill device" unless you're calling the whole pressure regulator that (which would be incorrect.) With the shutoff valve open that will make water go through the regulator faster. If the lever is not actuated, the regulator will regulate the pressure, unless it's broken.

A closed heating loop should not leak. If it does leak, your cast iron boiler and pump keep rusting (because you keep adding oxygen with each addition of new water) which is something that the standard practice of using cast iron boilers and pumps assumes won't be the case - in a leak-free system the oxygen gets used up making some rust, you don't add more water, with no more oxygen, no more rust forms.

Also, if it's leaking you have water going somewhere out of the heating loop, which can rot parts of your house.

So, if the pressure in your system drops, and you have to open the valve to refill it, you would then NOTICE (one hopes) and take corrective action. Or, you throw the valve open, ignore the root problem, and you have bad things happen after some time passes due to corrosion and leakage.

You should check for the presence and proper operation of automatic air bleeders on your system. Normally there's one on an air scoop over your expansion tank, but it's just out of the picture so I can't be sure it's there.

It's actually normal, arguably good, fairly standard practice to leave the valve to the pressure regulator closed, because the only reasons you should need to add water are to make up for all the dissolved air coming out of solution you'll need to bleed out having just dumped a bunch of new water in there, and leaks. And leaks should be fixed, not allowed to keep leaking and automatically get refilled.

A closed heating loop should not leak. If it does leak, your cast iron boiler and pump keep rusting (because you keep adding oxygen with each addition of new water) which is something that the standard practice of using cast iron boilers and pumps assumes won't be the case - in a leak-free system the oxygen gets used up making some rust, you don't add more water, with no more oxygen, no more rust forms.

Also, you have water going somewhere out of the heating loop, which can rot parts of your house.

So, if the pressure in your system drops, and you have to open the valve to refill it, you would then NOTICE (one hopes) and take corrective action. Or, you throw the valve open, ignore the root problem, and you have bad things happen after some time passes due to corrosion and leakage.

It's actually normal, arguably good, fairly standard practice to leave the valve to the pressure regulator closed, because the only reasons you should need to add water are to make up for all the dissolved air coming out of solution you'll need to bleed out having just dumped a bunch of new water in there, and leaks. And leaks should be fixed, not allowed to keep leaking and automatically get refilled.

From the shutoff valve downwards, you have a backflow preventer and a pressure regulator. The toggle on the top of the pressure regulator is what you're calling a "fast fill device" unless you're calling the whole pressure regulator that (which would be incorrect.)

A closed heating loop should not leak. If it does leak, your cast iron boiler and pump keep rusting (because you keep adding oxygen with each addition of new water) which is something that the standard practice of using cast iron boilers and pumps assumes won't be the case - in a leak-free system the oxygen gets used up making some rust, you don't add more water, with no more oxygen, no more rust forms.

Also, you have water going somewhere out of the heating loop, which can rot parts of your house.

So, if the pressure in your system drops, and you have to open the valve to refill it, you would then NOTICE (one hopes) and take corrective action. Or, you throw the valve open, ignore the root problem, and you have bad things happen after some time passes due to corrosion and leakage.

You should check for the presence and proper operation of automatic air bleeders on your system. Normally there's one on an air scoop over your expansion tank, but it's just out of the picture so I can't be sure it's there.