Heating Help

faulty gas flex

@ December 4, 2011 3:32 AM in Older Honeywell residential gas furnace controls?

1. Beside what John Mills said, the flex connector itself is dangerous and should be replaces ASAP. http://www.archive.org/details/gas
   

radiator valve

@ December 3, 2011 11:06 PM in radiator valve

I had a job on Friday replacing 7 radiator valves on cast iron radiators. I had to remove one toilet to get to a valve and the job was going great until the last one. Stuck the spud wrench in to remove the union tailpiece and it just spun around, the nubs were wore out inside the pipe. I tried my 18" pipe wrench and was only able to get it on the edge of the union and deformed it slightly. I probably need to sawsall the nut off to get a better grip with a pipe wrench but that scars me since I already deformed it,  It was a small rad so I capped the heat lines off and brought the rad home in my truck to work on it.  Any ideas or tips to get it out? Would an internal pipe extractor get it out? It's 3/4 by the way.

if not air..

@ December 3, 2011 1:15 AM in Radiant Floor Heat NO Flow

If its a new start up, the lines may be crossed at the manifold. Drain down the manifold and if you have compression fittings on the radiant tubes, disconnect but the supply and return on the tubes with no flow, blow on the tubes and make sure they are hooked up correctly. I've seen a supply tube with its return hooked up to the supply as well. Heck, I think I've done it myself once.

no way to tell

@ November 29, 2011 9:57 PM in Airing out radiant loops

There are so many different piping arrangments it would be almost impossible to tell you the procedure. I guess you could post a bunch of pics and maybe someone could talk you though it. If you have air in the system there is something wrong, air eliminator could be clogged, bad expansion tank, bad fill valve or clogged screen on the backflow prevent or they could be in reverse order. Doing it wrong could cause you more troubles. It's probably best to call in a professional especially if you haven't had it serviced in years and they could show you how to do it and figure out why air got into the system in the first place. Don't be afraid to ask for their most experienced boiler tech or better yet, check out 'Find a Contractor' at the top of this page for someone in your area. Good luck!

replace it

@ November 24, 2011 2:36 PM in Forced air Furnace fails to restart

All of this over a 30 year old furnace that should have been replaced 10 years ago??? Besides dealing with mercury you have a inefficient furnace compared to today's standards. Don't waste anymore money on that beast and get something that can give you way more comfort with better safety devices and save money in the long run.

Happy Thanksgiving  : ) 

baseboard ?

@ November 23, 2011 1:04 PM in Triangle Tube Prestige heat exchanger cleaning

Hey Dave, Colorado here also. The unit that needed cleaning, is it a high temperature baseboard application? I would think if it was it wouldn't condensate like a low temp app. and would need some occasional attention. Did you do a combustion test before cleaning and realize a problem? I've found with the Gionnoni heat exchangers if you're out  in the country with dusty dirt roads, they definitely need cleaning annually.

you get what you pay for

@ November 15, 2011 12:03 AM in new TT Solo 60 propane, yellow flame?

You may well be a retired hardware/software engineer but you're not a trained and qualified Triangle Tube Prestige boiler installer. You took the gamble trying to save money by installing it yourself without training and without proper tools like a combustion analyzer and you've lost the bet. Now you're crying sour grapes and Triangle Tube doesn't owe you anything. It clearly states in the installation manual: Installation and service must be performed by a qualified installer, service agency or the gas supplier.
Bite the bullet and get a qualified service tech and they'll solve the problem. It's not exactly rocket surgery.

Tee & flow direction

@ November 3, 2011 9:03 PM in Did I get what I paid for? P/S Piping

Your drawing looks like the Prestige schematic to me. I've seen the flow from from the boiler (primary) loop going the same direction of the system (secondary) loop and it seemed to work fine. I believe its been talked about on here but can't recall the consensus.

Hot water?

@ October 30, 2011 8:44 PM in Buderus GB142 - not circulating to baseboards/indirect HW fine

Do you have hot water?

check heat exchanger

@ October 28, 2011 5:25 PM in Laars Mini-Therm JVS160 short cycle

the flame rod being bad or dirty the flames would go out in 3 to 5 seconds. You might get an inspection mirror and look at the heat exchanger. A lot of Laars mini therms aren't piped correctly and the heat exchanger will clog from flue condensation. This will cause problems with the burner flame and cause the flame to lift off the pilot and shut it down. I've seen problems with ignition modules that would cause a similar problem. Good luck and keep us informed.

manual vs. tech support

@ October 27, 2011 10:32 PM in Did I get what I paid for? P/S Piping

Ironman, did you happen to read my earlier post? Just curious to your thoughts on my situation. As Ironman said, they made an attempt to primary/secondary pipe and pump it and it is wrong atnd they should make it right. Good luck!

Unusual?

@ October 24, 2011 10:38 PM in Continental Drift theory meets Snowmelt PEX...

I've never seen anything like that. Was there any settling anywhere on the driveway? Is that an expansion joint running perpendicular to the cracks? Could that have anything to do with it?

it's not right but....

@ October 24, 2011 10:31 PM in Did I get what I paid for? P/S Piping

No, as Ironman said its not correct.

 I did a service call last year on a Prestige with the problem being a noise like a low hum of a fright train in the distance. It wasn't primary/sec piped and I think it was 8-10 zones of baseboard.  Also, I could tell there wasn't a combustion analysis done. I told him I could do the combustion setup at that time but we'd have to get the lead guy out to do a bid for pri/sec. After setting up the combustion, the noise went away but the customer still wanted it done right after I showed him the installation manual. Meanwhile he calls the factory support and they tell him it doesn't need to be primary/secondary piped on a baseboard system because it only needs 1.7 gpm through the heat exchanger. My superior goes out and told him the same thing making me look like an idiot. I agree there are situations when pri/sec isn't needed but you better be darned sure and do some testing beforehand. I've seen really long zones that have been reduced to 1/2 in places, zones with towel warmers with TRV's inline and so on. It just makes sense to pri/sec pipe it and it doesn't take that much more time. I was upset with the support guy telling that to the customer and my boss should have given him the price to pipe it right because the customer would have done it. Sometimes I hate this business, I'm just out there trying to do the right thing. BTW, I no longer work for that company.

I wouldn't

@ October 19, 2011 8:55 PM in condensing furnace in attic

Thats a lot of work, building a structure around it in an attic to pick up a little efficiency. Typically furnaces in attics are in large homes and only heat the upper floor with another unit in the basement doing the main level and basement.  Upper floor furnaces don't run as often as the lower floor since most of the heat rises.  So the payback with a higher cost of the 90%er and the extra work would take  a long time. A 80% furnace with 2 stage gas train and a variable speed blower is a darn good option.

no recommended

@ October 19, 2011 7:21 PM in condensing furnace in attic

Not sure which post to answer but I would not recommend it as service guy living in Colorado. I've been to many a no heat in the middle of the night during a deep freeze with the condensate trap frozen solid. You could use heat tape but thats another set of problems; fires, power outages making it useless, tape failure. My .02

oops

@ October 17, 2011 8:07 PM in Wanna finish my system?

Tracey,

I'm very sorry because I'm the one who originally said the mixing valve was installed incorrectly. I've installed Honeywell, Taco, Watts, Zurn, Cash Acme and Caleffi mixing valves and they all have the mix outlet opposite the dial. I should have said to double check the arrangement of the cold, hot and mix outlets instead of being a know-it-all. After 25 years in the biz, I'm still learning stuff.

Wow!

@ October 13, 2011 5:39 PM in Do you laugh or do you RUN!!

Where was the CO coming from? What happens to the vent connector when it goes into the clay? The expansion tank is doing a lot of good on the relief line The pump is pumping the wrong direction. So what was the end result of this call?

there ya go

@ October 4, 2011 10:49 PM in Wanna finish my system?

You got it right now!

Thanks Ichmb

@ October 4, 2011 10:36 AM in Wanna finish my system?

thanks for supplying a pic of what I was talking about, much better than a drawing.

dirty ones

@ October 4, 2011 12:46 AM in Show me your worst!

I attached a couple Munchkin dirty heat exchangers, both natural gas and over 5 years of service and probably never had combustion set ups. The last pic is after a cleaning using a lot of CLR and elbow grease.                   

also

@ October 3, 2011 4:26 PM in purging air from the basement

Indeed, what Chasman said. Also, shut down the pressure differential valve when purging and you may as well leave it off because its not doing anything the way it is. Hopefully the circulators came with IFC's and  are sized correctly for each zone. Pressure differential valves are used when one large pump is used for multiple zones to meet proper flow rates. Also, the closely placed tees of your primary loop to the boiler are too close to the elbow of the secondary loop, I'd move the tees up to right below the ball valve. You want a run ideally of 12" on each side of the tees to hydraulically isolate the primary loop from the secondary loop. Dan.s book, Primary/Secondary Pumping Made Easy that is sold on this site, beautifully illustrates the principal. Consider a low loss header to get rid of a lot of that piping and it can provide pri/sec and air elimination.

not piped correctly

@ October 3, 2011 2:03 AM in Wanna finish my system?

You don't have the mixing valve in correctly. You have the mix outlet of the mixing valve on the return from the manifold that tees back to the return on the boiler.  You need to pump out of the mix outlet directly into the supply manifold and the return manifold tees into the cold inlet of the mixing valve and back to the return of the boiler. Close but no cigar. And yes you do need a switching relay to make that work and most conventional T stats will work.

If you're in the surrounding Denver area and do need help finishing. I'm between jobs and could help you.