Heating Help

gorton #2 leaking air in blow test?

I just tested 2pcs Gorton #2s with a mouth powered blow test. In the upright position, they vent fine. In the upside down position, one of the vents seems to leak a small amount of air .. the other vent does not leak air. Should there be any air leakage? Is it defective?

FYI, Since I've been blowing valves all day...the air leakage is certainly less than a Gorton #5 vent. (I didn't blow any #4s.)

Thanks.

Ummm...that doesn't sound good.

you may want to hook it up to steam and see if it closes when heated..i've had defective ones from time to time..they are very good at customer relations tho.

i'll try on steam...

as I mentioned, it's not a large leak, but a leak nonetheless. Otherwise I will give ken @ gorton a call .. his number has been posted here previously.

one more question about pressure .. once I get up to about 12oz. and the fire clicks off, i drop down to 4oz fairly quickly, within a 30sec to a min or so.. should pressure hold longer or start to drop immediately? please note that this drop is after all rads are hot all the way across with new vents.

well, yea its normal

because your completely shutting down, which i dont like or agree with..ideally in the world according to gerry (hehe) the boiler would drop into low fire once it hit your 12 ounce target setting, then stay there for awhile till it slowly dropped pressure before returning to high fire..you know, kind of like the original coal boiler.

ok normal works ..

yeah in an ideal world a burner with a low-fire setting would be great .. I don't think mine does that .. picture: http://picasaweb.google.com/jpf321/Fitzgibbons400Boiler#5407071601085816562 ..

It's labeled as a RWB Beckett "SR" Series Gun
Primary Controller: R7184A-1075 Honeywell
Pump: Suntec A1VA-7112
Igniter: 746001

What parts could change to provide me a low-fire option? Is it even possible?

Thanks.

Time To Cut In?

I have a problem with leaking vents which I posted in a separate thread. My time from 16 oz. cut out down to 4 oz. cut in is only about 1 min. I thought that this short time period was because of my leaking vents. But if jpf321's system was free of leaking vents shouldn't it take longer for his/her system to drift down to the cut in?

With just a 30 second off period, won't the boiler (both jpf321's and mine) be rapid cycling in the "boiler off" phase of operation? It would seem to give the automatic vent damper and other hardware a lot more wear than if the system took more time to drift down to cut in.

What would you expect the time to be for a single family home system to drop from cut out to cut in when using a vaporstat?

Thanks.

CPH on Stat?? Stat recommendation?

I don't have a stat with CPH capability (cheap home supply store digital type) .. however, does CPH solve the problem that SteamHeat and I are having with v-stat triggering and then dropping back down fairly quickly and refiring within a minute?... with a CPH stat will the boiler remain off for a certain length of time before firing again? Or will it do it only x CPH times in an hour?

In general, what type of stat is recommended for a residential 1-pipe steam system? (No cooling on this stat needed) What should CPH be set to?

People here on the wall seem to throw a few un-quantitative terms around quite a bit. So for my own scientific information .. how "short" is a "short-cycling" boiler?

Thanks

Same Situation Here

CPH on the stat won't do a thing.  The stat will still continue to call for heat and the boiler will still cycle off the pressure limit switch.

My boiler was short cycling off the pressure limit switch too.  On mine, the intermittent pilot igniting sequence causes about a thirty second delay between the time the switch closes and the burner actually fires up.  If the "on" setting is lower than 1/2 psi, then the system actually starts sucking a vacuum before the boiler starts steaming again.  Conversely, since my boiler is a little oversized, once everything is hot, it builds pressure rather quickly.  I don't want the system to cycle like crazy, or have to re-vent air every time the boiler cycles.  To make that happen, I wound up setting the Pressuretrol to cycle between .5 and 2 psi.  It's higher than the ideal, and it does make the vents hiss a little, but unless I decide to make major gas train modifications or buy a new boiler, that's what seems to work best.

OK . . . Flame suit on . . .

so what does CPH do?

so what does CPH on a stat actually do? 

Cycle Per Hour

The CPH setting controls the maximum times per hour the thermostat will call for heat.  Within each of those calls for heat, the pressure limit switch (Pressuretrol, Vaporstat, etc) may or may not cycle the boiler based on pressure.  If the boiler only needs to run a short time to satisfy the thermostat, then the upper pressure pressure setting may never be reached.  If the thermostat is coming off of a long, deep setback, then a properly sized boiler will almost certainly run long enough to cycle off of the pressure limit.

If your boiler is a little oversized, like mine,  then it may hit the high pressure limit more often.  That wastes a little energy and wears things out a little faster . . . but everything still works.  If your boiler is way too small, and can't generate enough steam to EVER raise the pressure, then your system is probably never completely full of steam, and you'll have  temperature balance issues.  That can REALLY waste energy.  The best situation is to have a modulating flame in the boiler . . . high fire to heat things up quickly, and low fire to maintain steam at a low pressure for the rest of the cycle after everything is warm.  However, many residential sized boilers have burners that are are only on or off, and they cycle that way..

My Big-Box Lux digital stat doesn't have a CPH feature per se either.  It has some other type of thing, like a degrees per hour maximum drop, or something like that.  Either one can be adjusted to accomplish the same thing . . . to delay the time before the next call for heat, sacrificing a little comfort for economy, by making boiler fire less often and stay on a little longer each time.

thanks very much .. i get it now ..

sounds like someone should make a CPH or perhaps even a restart-delay for pressure systems...although I'm not sure how useful those things might be.

to be honest, I'm working under "test" conditions where I get the boiler firing by cranking up the aquastat, perhaps in real-condition situation, the pressure and stat will be more harmonious. 

Timing relays

jbf321-  I played with a timing relay a bit last year. I got mine from Allied Electronics  http://www.alliedelec.com/  (Edit: I don't know why this link produces an error - Hit "Home" on the page and it will take you on)  It was a model made by Amperite  [url=http://www.amperite.com/]http://www.amperite.com/
though I don't remember the model number or in what box in the basement it now resides. I think it has possibilities though the model I had needed a more adjustable (longer) delay.
You might also want to take a look at the literature for the Tekmar 279 as it has info that  relates to cycling.   http://www.tekmarcontrols.com/literature/acrobat/d279.pdf
- Rod

had a look...

I had a look at the different relays. I'm going to have to poke around with my multi-meter and determine my electrical requirements. I see that most of them are fairly short delays, there is one upto 8mins however, it only supports 40mA. I'll post if I find one which is suitable.

The Tekmar 279 system, while appealing, is a bit more expense that the household can support.

Thanks.

Wrong Relay

jbf321-  Sorry I gave you the wrong relay. All my relay info was on my old computer which went to the "happy hunting ground" last spring. The one I used for the boiler was made by ICM Controls  http://www.icmcontrols.com/   When you mentioned the short delay time, I  knew I gave you the wrong name as the one I used was settable to a max of 10 minutes.

I've been looking at the Tekmar 279 for a while. I referred you to it as the literature and graphs are interesting regarding cycles. While the 279 is indeed expensive according to some of the pros on here they definitely can save fuel  though most of the ones mentioned have been used  in multiple unit dwellings.
- Rod

maybe this one ..

looks like maybe you had gotten this unit.. http://www.icmcontrols.com/products/product.php?prod_pk=94 .. ICM102/102F .. interesting idea .. now I wonder how I can wire it into my v-stat cycling only .. and not my t-stat cycle...i'll have to give it some thought (and better understand my electrical processes)

thanks

Contactor Is A Fancy Name For Relay

Look at the application guide diagram.
Substitute your Vaporstat Contacts for the T'Stat contacts in the diagram.

Connect those wires which originally went to the Vaporstat instead to the Contactor so that when the relay closes it will turn on the boiler.

DO NOT CONNECT THE POWER TRANSFORMER TO THE CONTACTOR CONTACTS FOR THE BOILER. YOU DO NOT WANT TO APPLY POWER TO THOSE BOILER WIRES (WHICH WERE ORIGNALLY ON THE VAPORSTAT).

Keep in mind that this will add the delay to evey startup including cold starts.
If you're okay with that, it should work.

Will this work?

I don't understand much in electricity, and I won't be trying this at home myself, but just a thought. If there existed such a timer that breaks the load after a specified time (let's say 15 minutes, but should be adjustable), and we had this 'breaking timer' in parallel with a standard delay-on-make timer, then it seems that during the first 15 minutes the delay-on-make timer will have no effect because the 'breaking timer' keeps the circuit closed anyway. So, there will be no delay on cold start and any occasional vaporstat cut-outs during the first 15 minutes. Then the 'breaking timer' breaks, and it becomes up to the delay-on-make timer to close the circuit, so the delays will be present. Isn't this close to what we want? Alternatively, instead on breaking on time, the 'breaking timer' could break on high enough temperature of the return pipe, for example. Sorry if this does not make any sense...