Heating Help

Vitodens

Here are a couple of shots taken during cleaning of our Vitodens 6-24. Not in any particular order. The condensate trap was to illustrate the rusty brown color well upstream of the marble chips. I had originally suspected some iron particles in the marble chips, "brought out" by the acidic condensate. Not so, apparently. The "ash" in the bottom was very gritty and took some care to get it out. I used Citri-Surf 3050 as a solvent, a nylon scrub pad, gloves and a credit card for the detailing. EDIT: I missed the specific question, but that accumulation represents about a year and ten months of operation. I did let it go longer than I wanted to but am keeping to an annual schedule now.

Nice

Thanks, those are great photos. My units are all about 200' or less above sea level. Gas is roughly 1000 btu per cu. ft. All these boilers were installed prior to new regulations and are vented with 3" solid ABS. No sign of excessive flue temperatures. Here's a couple bonus shots for you. The first one goes with T 35 and the second goes with H 11. T 35 set @ 170 deg F. used for heating domestic water. H 11 was a replacement for a failed heat exchanger (5 yrs) and looked like that after 11 mos. doing radiant heat max 140 and indirect hot water max 150 Thanks for your help. Ken

vent terminations

Our experience shows that the concentric vent and the stainless vent termination kits are the worst for recircing flue gases

Steve

What are your thoughts about the Viessmann Vitodens termination? Short of going to the roof, that is what we have to work with. Our vent is about five feet off the ground on the side of the house. I imagine a lot of the gritty ash we get is burned grass and pollen from the neighbor's yard. A little vacuum work and scraping and it came right off, but working with a cut credit card (HD! :) ) between the fins was a challenge, trying not to force debris further in.

Heatboy, nice looking job. Are you still using press fittings. I

still can't bring myself to it. Tim

It has been more than 5 years now........

..... and thousands of fittings later, and I don't think I would ever switch back to soldering. Still have to solder a few things, but more than 90% is press. I have only used Viega and since I haven't had any issues, I don't think I would use anything else as long as Viega is available in my area.

Some do, some don't

as far as build up in Munchkins, I've found some have quite a build up on a yearly basis, other open up to revel only a small pile of deposits. Gas quality?? Many are LP in my area, they tend to be the dirtier ones at yearly service. LP users in my area tend to buy from multiple suppliers throughout the year, just as they shop for gasoline, based on price. I think the blending and quality of LP varies widely. I've not seen as much deposits on natural gas, that includes Munchkins, Lochinvar, Prestige, and Ultras I have installed and serviced. MY worse one was plugged in less than 6 months and locking out! It was in a feed store with a gravel (dirt) parking lot. I think it was inhalling too much crap. We rerouted the intake and exhaust high on the roof, instead of sidewall and this handled the issue. hr hr

Here it is guys, page 12. Would have only attached page 12 but don't really don't know how to do that.

OOPS

My mistake! We don't install the coax venting arrangement because of freeze ups of the grilss and combustion air inlets. We have redone a number of installations installed by others that had the coax venting arrangements. In our area, Montreal, we have some of the highest humidity cold weather in NA. Things that work in Alaska and Minnesota, don't work here. As an example, Bradford/White Eforce condensing hot water tanks get drowned flue passages. We are the only area where this happens.

condensation

I know where your coming from, I'm originnally from Timmins, way north! Often we do things one pipe because of freezing, I here Montreal is a hard place for venting. As for the brown crud, is there a drier vent on the same wall? Kind of looks like a mix of lint and drier sheets. I have a 100 that gets that often, drier vent is 12+ feet away but seems to travel past the boiler vent, unbelievably I moved the drier vent and it has been fine.

High humidity in Montreal.

That is interesting. Keeps the manufacturers on their toes!

Bacharach 300, old, heavy,probably has vacuum tubes in it! works wonderful but doesnt like being cold. Has nox also, kind of interesting to see. Buying a Systronic from KWelectronics, nice machines.

My Testo 327 has been great.

excessive cycling?

i wonder if many of these problems are due to excessive cycling?

recent heatxchanger replacement

here is a Quietside QVM-9 after 5 years with no service....

ultra

eeeww I didn't know they had quietside boilers installed on the Titanic! Here are some pics from a 5 yr old Ultra I came across. Not sure how a guy is suppose to get back in to clean the pins toward the back of the hx??

Installation and Maintenance

The Ultra looks quite good to me, dry, brush-able clinkers if you will. I see no deterioration of the heat transfer surface and the boiler is still working. They make brushes to clean between the fins. This looks like a nice clean burn and great for 5 years of neglect. After I do a combustion analysis I look for the start-up sheet in the manufacturer's installation manual. Seven brands and I have not found one filled out in the last 4 years! I don't think anyone really expects something for nothing, but they sound like it once in awhile.

ultra firebox insulation

does the boiler manufacture sell the brushes to clean or where can I find them? Also here is a picture of the insulation on the backside of the cover. Is that normal? I had to get the boiler back operating but figured on bidding replacing it next time it needs cleaned.

ModCon boiler service

I find the brushes at my local hardware. Sometimes called radiator brushes. http://www.drillspot.com/products/439238/Tough_Guy_1VAK6_Radiator_Brush This picture shows evidence of too much heat (perhaps over-fired. I would clock the meter, the gas pressure and the delta T across the boiler. I would end by filling out the installation startup sheet. The factory would be a good place to go for more feedback.

combustion analyzer

Curious to know which ca you use. Have had lots of service issues with my bacharach. Thanks

My Bachrach (PCA2) displays the wrong year but otherwise OK. No field adjustment but it goes back in for calibration this spring anyway.

Viessmann never supplied a grill. Therefore, the installation is not done as specified in the manufacturers certified instruction manual. For the US it is 9.1.1.2 in NFPA 54. It is a gas code infraction. Here in the Great White North, we have very high humidity with our cold. I have seen many blocked air intakes and flues with ice. I have even seen sidewall unit heater vents that were ice blocked because some dumb twit put a guard around the vent termination.

Vitodens grill

Looks like the factory chrome grill that comes in the vent kit box, have some in stock. It is up here anyway. Ugly thing isn't it, I know north of here we do a vent alteration as per viessmann vent instructions because of the cold. To me the factory cover always looked like the boiler would suck in some of its own exhaust.

Henry....

That IS the grill supplied by Viessmann. I installed three of them on one job. ME

The grill is too big for frosting ( a bit of cold weather an high humidity here in Minnesota too). But dumb is as dumb does ;).

I recently had a no heat on a Vitodens 200 i installed 2 years ago. Had to replace the radial fan (strange). Anyhow i observed the same "crumbs" on the bottom. Is this the "mouse poop" you guys refer to? Also alot of brown staining on the target wall but i think that is staining from condensation because it is a "wet" condensing wall. I have installed a dozen Vitodens 100s in the past year and have yet to be back.

Two things; combustion analysis and re-circulation. I have been doing a combustion analysis on every "working" condensing boiler I serviced in the last couple of decades now. This is the first thing I do when I get on site. Without it, you don't know what your doing. Second, I go out and look at the termination. Many of the manufacturers have it wrong (lacking experience) and insist on varying degrees of separation (when near proximity is better) of intake and exhaust. Some insist on both being on the same load plain (though their explanations for this are nebulous). Contamination from other equipment can be a factor also. My experience has led me to install (while carefully following the manufacturer's written instructions) the intake at the same height or lower than the exhaust. I like the intake to be up wind (prevailing out of the west in most N. American locals in winter) and I find an elbow close the load plain for the intake, and a straight exhaust a foot beyond, make re-circulation very unlikely. When installing the old full-fire condensing boilers and furnaces I think the issue has been less a problem (though common and serious) then with a modulating burner/blower, likely to barely blow the combustion gas beyond the eve of the house when in low-fire mode. This Viessmann had been in for 4 seasons before I took over service. Combustion was right-on by the way.

The grill over the vent terminal is illegal and can cause a vent blockage when it ices over!

There was another guy in another thread, may have been

in Perry's record setting thread who said their company has installed thousands of Munchkins and they go back after 3 yrs and hardly any build up???? I responded with a ??? to that. I have yet to see one that did not have quite a bit of build up in it yet. I can't remember who the guy was but I wish he would post here w/ pics. That did not make sense to me. Tim

Not my install, looks like factory product, hasn't frozen up in four years (blocked from all but morning sun) here in sunny MN. Please define "illegal".

mouse turds

In 2005 I posted a picture of my 1-year-old Munchkin's innards, and called the mysterious deposits "mouse turds". Apparently this was news to many people here at the time, because that thread ran to hundreds of posts. After several weeks, HTP came in with an official statement saying the pelletized deposits were not a problem. Subsequently the whole thread was inexplicably deleted...you can't find it by searching today. Now some of the pictures in the first post are far worse than my mouse turds, but probably because it is more than one year's worth. My Munchkin continues to produce little deposits, but I clean it each year and it hasn't failed (yet). Although the 'stainless' coils are discolored just as shown in the pictures here.

I find it amazing that some of the pics I have seen with the

Giannoni heat x have been in pretty good condition but most are really poor. Some of those pics that Ken showed are boilers I am sure have not been maintained properly, be that said, we open up the ones we work on every year and there is still a lot of mouse turds to clean and flush out trap etc. I find if we let the boilers go over 14 mos or so a breakdown is on the way but with regular cleaning they are fair as far a keep working. I am worried about the failures of heat xrs I have seen although, a little more time will tell!! We only installed 5 of the giannoni's but we are servicing many more than that. We do combustion checks on all!!! Tim

I have a propane fired Vitodens......

..... that I installed 5 years ago and has yet to be opened. Repeated tries to get the owner to hire me for service have gone unanswered. He told his neighbor, who is also a client of mine, that it's gas, it doesn't need to be serviced. I hope he is sitting down when he gets that first service call invoice from me. I will most assuredly post pictures of the HX when it gets opened after all of these years. This is a picture of the install. Paid big money for this, but has deep pockets and short arms when it comes to maintenance. Go figure.

Hb, I'd do a freebie

just to get a glance inside that unit :) Does the model fall under the O-ring recall? Tell the owner you need to drive by and check if it does. hr

Beautiful work. I have the same problem with my customers. Flyer every Feb. to save $50.00 on clean and check. 2% response.

Install

Nice looking install.

beautiful

beautiful install, like the finger duct for the wiring! How do you like the press fit fittings?

CO

people are fools that do not get condensing equipment like this serviced rarely do they wake up to complain guess you could call it natural selection

IBC condensing boiler

Attached is a photo of an IBC boiler opened today. I have also included shots of the control log and the combustion analyzer print-out prior to opening. This is from the same area as the plugged up Giannoni's I've been posting here. I've contacted the gas utility and their tech group is going to look into the problem. There is a common thread here which is eluding me. Anyone have experience with these boilers when they are close to the ocean. All are within four or five miles. For those who want to power wash their heat exchangers, check out this link: http://www.sks-sotin.de/sotin-gb/Katalog/Heizkessel/Heizkesselreiniger4.htm By the way, this heat exchanger is made with 316Ti stainless steel. Ken

Cleaning boiler

Ken, I looked at this German website. Do you know of any USA based distributors of this or a similar product??

cleaner

Buzz I found that on the NTI website at: http://www.nythermal.com/ Maybe you can source it from them. Ken

Is yours fired......

.... with natural gas or LP, Brad? The LP units seem to accumulate more debris on the HX than the natural gas fired ones do. hb

Natural gas, HB!

I think that the gritty ash we have is from foreign bodies sucked in the combustion air intake. The mouse poop condition has not hit us yet, except in our pantry. :)

I've found......

..... the grit with both fuels, although the LP is in greater amounts. When servicing, I first get the boiler hot and I remove the drain and install a valve. I then fill the bottom of the HX with hot diluted (3 to 1) 3050 after I vacuum as much of the grit as possible. I use a scrubby, as you do, to clean what surfaces I see with a spray bottle. After 10 minutes, or so, I clean the gaps where all of the grit lays after it's been softened somewhat. Viessmann must have a cool little do-dad to do this with instead of an old card? After I use up the 3050 I have, I may try something a little stronger like Antox to see if it cleans up nicer.

Pictures worth many words

I had earlier complained of 'rust' in the neutralizer with my Knight, but on looking at the crud in those HXs shown in this thread, I really wonder if it is rust at all? Seems to come from the gas itself doesn't it?

That was my conjecture

In discussing this off-line with Paul Rohrs, it was initially thought that the marble chips had some iron embodied within them. (They yet may of course.) But you too are as surprised as I to find the rust colored liquid in the boiler trap itself. I meant to capture some and put it in a jar and see what settles toward my stock of rare earth magnets :)

Mod/con boilers

Looking for pictures of modulating/condensing boilers opened for service, any brand. Some of mine using Giannoni heat exchangers are attached. The file names are months in service. All are in the same area and burn natural gas. Ken

Question Ken...

Can you tell us what the minimum and maximum temperature ranges of the pictures represents? i.e.G 34 mos = 140 min, 180 max, and so on... With your permission, I';d like to incorporate the pictures in to some presentations I make on mod-con boielrs. THanks ME

Question?

Ken what type of vent termination are you using? Looks like your recircing flue gases. Do you have any pictures of these vent terminations? It also looks like some of those maybe overfired. Are you setting these up with a cumbustion analyzer?

semi failed mod/con

Here is a photo of one that was five years old and never serviced. We got called in because it started hopping around on high fire. Partially plugged HX. Can you tell which coils?

plugged

Mitch Are those coils burned to that color? Was that photo taken before cleaning? If so, are you close to the ocean (salt air)? As you can see from some of my photos, I'm having a lot of problems. Ken

burnt coils

Ken The picture was taken before cleaning. This boiler is fueled by natural gas at 8,800' ASL in Colorado. Why it was so clean is amazing. This boiler replaced a cast iron one with staple up poly. The original installer probably didn't flush the system good enough. My guess is that one section of the HX got plugged. The local rep gave the owner a brand new boiler. Everyone is happy now.

Ken, does that German maker of the boiler cleaning equipment have an American distributor??

Miniature trees...

Sean from our company found this one. By the way, effective in four minutes, I'm no longer an employee of this company. Thanks for the 10 year run guys. It's been great! ME

Presentation

Mark Will compile something for you in the next few days. Still negotiating with the manufacturer so will keep the brand anonymous. Expect to be opening more of them next week to see if the pattern remains consistent. Also have three of a different brand in service, will try to get a look at one of those that's been in service since last fall. Take a look at the message and attachments to Dave Stroman above. Thanks, Ken

The first 2 are a before and after cleaning on a 6 year old boiler. Cleaned up pretty good I think. No sign of any over heating. The 3rd one is a 2 year old burning propane. Just a little bit of green coating. Much better then I expected. After looking at your photos again, it sure looks like too hot of a burn. At this altitude, our gas has less Btu's. Wonder if that could have something to do with it. Has any of your boilers shown any over heating on the PVC piping? Dave Stroman

My contributions

this is my Gianonni after around 2.5 years of no service. My max temp is around 160. ME

vent

Steve Some of the units have vertical concentric vents, some are sidewall with more than 8' vertical separation and others vent separately through the roof. Most were out of the box and this is the first time opened up. Did not check with combustion analyzer. Did check after cleaning and most were within factory specs. Ken

Hot Water Boilers components and parts.

Looking for pics of a hydronic hot water boiler that list all it's parts.

Brad, how old?

How many years has your Vitodens been in service and what sort of average operating temps are you running?

Vito

was first started in early November, 2006 so has been running just over two years now. Edit: The cleaning photos were taken at 22 months of operation, last September, I had to check. My bad... I am on an annual track now. I have the curve set at 1.0 with a peak design water temperature of about 135 degrees when it is at design here (+6F). Edit: I just downloaded my data loggers and have better data details: When it was just below zero out recently, the water temperature was about 125.5 F. That sucker is learning :P Right now it is about 28 degrees outside and the water is hovering at about 105 F. We have over-sized CI radiators and TRV's on all but two.

We have installed several hundred Knights. We openned a whole bunch last summer after over two years of operation. NONE showed any signs of rust or ANY crud! They run for about 200 hours at over 160F. They run 1000 hours each winter below that. We keep the delta T around 35F. On the the 500 and above, we have noticed that the recommended pump had insuficient head and the delta T was over 45! We now size every pump for 35F for all capacities. We will now try some Laars as they come prepiped with an internal pump and cost less. Also the the connections are on top making it an easier install. They are coming out with a kit to move the pump outside the boiler for indirect hot water. This was an oversight from Laars!