I'd be interested in help with possible diagnoses, to help me recognize whether the company I call has the expertise to correct my boiler problem, since the first two have failed.
SYSTEM
We have a Peerless Purefire condensing boiler, roughly 12 years old from about 2009. 3 zones - old iron radiators on the first floor, newish baseboard copper in an upstairs addition when the previous owners added both the boiler and the upstairs itself, and some sort of air blower across an in-wall heat source for the 3rd zone, which is almost never used. We've lived here for 7.5 years with no problems till recently. We have an outdoor temp sensor and the system is set to a mode that uses that sensor input to modulate.
One afternoon more than a year ago I noticed was the house was cold. Thermostats calling for heat. Boiler not coming on. When I went to explore, I found that the control panel wasn't lighting up, and there was some water on the floor. Perhaps a half hour later, the heat came on, and going forward, it didn't fail to ignite again. The panel was still dead.
I went to the Peerless site and found recommended repair companies. The first company we called missed their first appointment with no excuse or call. We rescheduled and they sent someone who confirmed we needed a new control panel and said they'd get me an estimate. Six weeks later, after several attempts, I still got no estimate from them, so I found another company. The 2nd also missed an appointment, but did let us know. And then the covid lockdown came, and my wife wouldn't let anyone in the house.
Finally over the summer the 2nd company came, diagnosed the panel, ordered a replacement, and installed it. It was 88 degrees when they replaced it, and nobody asked me to bump the thermostats to 90 to test! Tough time to get the heat cranking. When the heat came on in November, there was more water on the floor. They sent out a young guy, who I don't believe looked at the panel and its troubleshooting codes. He said that the pressure release valve was old and bad, and replaced it. He mentioned he didn't have all his equipment, and ended up borrowing a pipe wrench! Honestly, I have no intention of doing this repair. I've never used this pipe wrench, which was my dad's. I just mention it because it seems like having to borrow a wrench from the homeowner is a bad sign, no?
When the heat came on, there were significant vibrations through the system, sending a buzzing through the house. I texted him, and he said that air might have been introduced during his repair, so give it a few days for the air to bleed. But I then also noticed some wet piping above the boiler. He came back, said two dielectric unions had gone bad, and replaced them. Weirdly, in the course of this repair, we heard breaking glass, like a lightbulb. Not sure what that was about.
After this visit, the vibrations continued, and I found more water on the floor under the relief valve. Through various visits from this young tech and then the company's owner, they replaced the expansion tank twice, the relief valve a second time, the pressure reducing valve. At some point, I started looking at the control panel, and let them know that it showed a High Return Temp blocking error. At some point, I'm hazy on when but after at least 4 visits, the relief valve was no longer tripping, no more water on the floor. But the vibration continued, and the High Return Temp fault continued to appear.
By then, I also noticed that the return temp is almost always within 5 degrees of the supply temp. That seems like a low differential for this kind of system. The return temp goes up almost immediately as supply goes up, which implies to me that too much water is following the shorter path through the double T connection (I don't remember what you call that connection - the spot where the supply and return pipes are connected). Is that the "primary loop" vs. the secondary loop for CH? To me, that seems like a sign that the pump isn't pushing enough water through the CH piping. In fact, Peerless advises that if you see the High Return Temp error, you should check whether the pump is installed backwards!
I suggested a pump issue to the company, but they had called their Peerless distributor, and assured me that the problems were caused by a dirty heat exchanger. They came this week and cleaned the heat exchanger, ran some sort of cleanser through the system, said that the liquid started coming out dirty, and came out clean by the end, that flow seemed better. We turned up all thermostats for them (on a 63-degree day), and they said there were no system vibrations after maybe 10 minutes, and they said we could turn the thermostats down, we shook hands, paid ANOTHER bill.
With temps returning to the 30's, the vibrations are back. I guess the difference would be that it was on longer and reached a higher temperature than during their brief post-repair test.
I looked at the control panel -- blocking error 49 minutes ago for High Return Temp. During operation, return temp continues to track closely with supply temp.
QUESTIONS:
1) What are some possible problems that would cause this? Does the Return Temp issue point to a pump issue or low circulation through the secondary loop as most likely cause?
2) What questions should I be asking of an HVAC company to let me know they're competent to diagnose and repair this? (Is expertise in Peerless Purefire important, or should any company with experience with modulating condensing boilers be able to figure it out?)
3) Shouldn't someone be able to tell where the vibration is originating? whether the boiler or one of the pumps is causing it, or what?
4) Is it normal that replacing a valve like that would lead to the failure of 2 dielectric unions? The tech insisted they were old. But it's unlikely they were more than 12 years old, when this hydronic boiler was installed. If that's not something that happens, it makes me think he was really jamming those pipes in some way, and that he may have caused a problem with the pump.
Thanks in advance. I'm a few thousand in and wasted an entire heating season without returning the system to normal, so I want to be more confident in whoever I call next.
SYSTEM
We have a Peerless Purefire condensing boiler, roughly 12 years old from about 2009. 3 zones - old iron radiators on the first floor, newish baseboard copper in an upstairs addition when the previous owners added both the boiler and the upstairs itself, and some sort of air blower across an in-wall heat source for the 3rd zone, which is almost never used. We've lived here for 7.5 years with no problems till recently. We have an outdoor temp sensor and the system is set to a mode that uses that sensor input to modulate.
One afternoon more than a year ago I noticed was the house was cold. Thermostats calling for heat. Boiler not coming on. When I went to explore, I found that the control panel wasn't lighting up, and there was some water on the floor. Perhaps a half hour later, the heat came on, and going forward, it didn't fail to ignite again. The panel was still dead.
I went to the Peerless site and found recommended repair companies. The first company we called missed their first appointment with no excuse or call. We rescheduled and they sent someone who confirmed we needed a new control panel and said they'd get me an estimate. Six weeks later, after several attempts, I still got no estimate from them, so I found another company. The 2nd also missed an appointment, but did let us know. And then the covid lockdown came, and my wife wouldn't let anyone in the house.
Finally over the summer the 2nd company came, diagnosed the panel, ordered a replacement, and installed it. It was 88 degrees when they replaced it, and nobody asked me to bump the thermostats to 90 to test! Tough time to get the heat cranking. When the heat came on in November, there was more water on the floor. They sent out a young guy, who I don't believe looked at the panel and its troubleshooting codes. He said that the pressure release valve was old and bad, and replaced it. He mentioned he didn't have all his equipment, and ended up borrowing a pipe wrench! Honestly, I have no intention of doing this repair. I've never used this pipe wrench, which was my dad's. I just mention it because it seems like having to borrow a wrench from the homeowner is a bad sign, no?
When the heat came on, there were significant vibrations through the system, sending a buzzing through the house. I texted him, and he said that air might have been introduced during his repair, so give it a few days for the air to bleed. But I then also noticed some wet piping above the boiler. He came back, said two dielectric unions had gone bad, and replaced them. Weirdly, in the course of this repair, we heard breaking glass, like a lightbulb. Not sure what that was about.
After this visit, the vibrations continued, and I found more water on the floor under the relief valve. Through various visits from this young tech and then the company's owner, they replaced the expansion tank twice, the relief valve a second time, the pressure reducing valve. At some point, I started looking at the control panel, and let them know that it showed a High Return Temp blocking error. At some point, I'm hazy on when but after at least 4 visits, the relief valve was no longer tripping, no more water on the floor. But the vibration continued, and the High Return Temp fault continued to appear.
By then, I also noticed that the return temp is almost always within 5 degrees of the supply temp. That seems like a low differential for this kind of system. The return temp goes up almost immediately as supply goes up, which implies to me that too much water is following the shorter path through the double T connection (I don't remember what you call that connection - the spot where the supply and return pipes are connected). Is that the "primary loop" vs. the secondary loop for CH? To me, that seems like a sign that the pump isn't pushing enough water through the CH piping. In fact, Peerless advises that if you see the High Return Temp error, you should check whether the pump is installed backwards!
I suggested a pump issue to the company, but they had called their Peerless distributor, and assured me that the problems were caused by a dirty heat exchanger. They came this week and cleaned the heat exchanger, ran some sort of cleanser through the system, said that the liquid started coming out dirty, and came out clean by the end, that flow seemed better. We turned up all thermostats for them (on a 63-degree day), and they said there were no system vibrations after maybe 10 minutes, and they said we could turn the thermostats down, we shook hands, paid ANOTHER bill.
With temps returning to the 30's, the vibrations are back. I guess the difference would be that it was on longer and reached a higher temperature than during their brief post-repair test.
I looked at the control panel -- blocking error 49 minutes ago for High Return Temp. During operation, return temp continues to track closely with supply temp.
QUESTIONS:
1) What are some possible problems that would cause this? Does the Return Temp issue point to a pump issue or low circulation through the secondary loop as most likely cause?
2) What questions should I be asking of an HVAC company to let me know they're competent to diagnose and repair this? (Is expertise in Peerless Purefire important, or should any company with experience with modulating condensing boilers be able to figure it out?)
3) Shouldn't someone be able to tell where the vibration is originating? whether the boiler or one of the pumps is causing it, or what?
4) Is it normal that replacing a valve like that would lead to the failure of 2 dielectric unions? The tech insisted they were old. But it's unlikely they were more than 12 years old, when this hydronic boiler was installed. If that's not something that happens, it makes me think he was really jamming those pipes in some way, and that he may have caused a problem with the pump.
Thanks in advance. I'm a few thousand in and wasted an entire heating season without returning the system to normal, so I want to be more confident in whoever I call next.
source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/threads/2227393-Tech-can-t-fix-high-return-temp-fault-from-condensing-boiler?goto=newpost
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