I need to drain the boiler for winter shut down

This sounds like sludge in the system . It needs flushing out Drain down system , Add inhibitor to the system as you refill bleed all the rads of air with the pump off . bleed the pump of air . refire system and let it run bleed rads of air as needed .

could be but if the boiler has low water it should be running. i would shut water off to toilet, you are running money down the drain. call for boiler service.

Did the boiler winter over with the heat turned off and no winterization? If so, then the boiler may have frozen and cracked. Replace it.
If it WAS drained down and winterized, and you just filled it with cold water before firing it, it may be condensation.

Draining is the easy part. Isolate the water feeder (shut off). Open hose bib @ boiler, & open the expansion tank valve to pull air in to allow more water out.
Refilling- let the water feeder fill -should be around 12 Psi, then go around the building to all the baseboards or radiators & open the bleeder key valves to let the air out until you get a steady stream of water. Most of the air should work its way to the expansion tank. Turn the boiler on & test your new pump.

As I understand your question, you have a boiler with a 'summer/winter' hookup for domestic hot water.

Your boiler should run all the time, i.e. not be shut off by you. Your boiler provides hot water for baseboard heat in your home ... possibly through several 'zones' each controlled by an individual thermostat and circulator. Yours may be a steam system. If this is the case, you have radiators not radiant baseboard heaters and no circulators.

Your summer/winter hookup provides a constant supply of domestic hot water. It does this by taking cold water from your water main and passing it through a copper coil which sits inside your boiler and then to your hot water main in your home. Since the coil sits in the hot water at the top of the boiler, it is constantly being heated. This coil may be in a deteriorated condition in your case or it may be too small for your needs.

Several years ago, I did a small upgrade to my mid 1950's era American Standard boiler. The summer winter hookup in my case was mounted on a 4 inch cast iron boiler plug. The coil was 12 feet long (folded up to a package about 1 foot long). I was very afraid when the plumber came in with what amounted to a 10 foot long pipe wrench. My fear was I would have a pile of broken cast iron at the end of the day. All is well that ends well. He got the old one out and replaced it with a coil that consisted of 20 feet of copper tubing 3/4 inch in size (the folded tubing was about 20 inches long and fit nicely into the boiler). We now have all the hot water a household consisting of one guy and three gals would need in all but the extremest of times..

I think you r answer is here ... replace your summer/winter coil with a new, bigger coil.

Something else I did. My kitchen is 60 feet (pipe wise) from the boiler. It takes a long time to get hot water there. I put in a small electric hot water heater just under the kitchen. I put a timer on it so it runs for a couple hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon. The hot water line from the boiler serves as the cold water input to the heater. I now enjoy the convenience of quick hot water in the kitchen with the relatively low cost of oil heated water from the boiler as a relatively small cost of electricity.

My winter settings are 160 - 200 and my summer settings are 120 - 150 which seems adequate for our needs.

Thanks for your question at FixYa.com. I hope I have been of assistance to you today.

After you pressure system do you bleed the rads then top up again .

The boiler drain is in the drain box, under the drain tray hidden beneath the black safety cover with the 4 small screws. There is a plug in the box, using a 17mm open end wrench you can open the plug to drain machine. It is also a good idea to drain the exchangers by disconnecting the fitting and letting it drain out, you will notice the 2 pipes going up at an angle to the exchangers.

pull the three (or so) drain plugs in your heater ... use a shop vac (without the filter in it) to blow and then **** out any remaining water.

hopefully, your pressure and suction pipes lead away and down from the boiler. Make sure you **** out those pipes as well.

You know how to drain your filter(s) and pumps ... right?

I hope this helps you

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is there a pet **** on the bottom under a plastic cap? you might have to take the cover off and I would recomend putting some boiler drains in the line for future draining,, all units of water heaters have drains and looking at the picture I see something sticking down on the bottom see if thats not the drain