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Zone Problems with Boiler

I have a gas boiler HW heating system with a taco circulator pump for each zone that worked fine last season. When turning it on for the 1st time this season I found a problem with the boiler not running on one of the zones.

If I turn on the heat to zone 1 I hear the system actuate(clicks and such)and the boiler fires up and runs for about a minute and then shuts down.

If I turn on the heat to zone 2 the system actuates and the boiler fires up and runs fine.

While zone 2 is running if I turn up the thermostat for zone 1 the circulator pump turns on and runs fine for zone 1. But, when I turn down the thermostat for zone 2 the boiler shuts down even though zone 1 is still calling for heat.

I attempted to figure a solution searching online and since it had an old/original S8610U Intermittent Pilot Control Module I swapped that out today with no improvement.

EDIT - PROBLEM RESOLVED!
A shout out to user Intplm for having me look at the most obvious thing that I should have realized to do in the 1st place.

When I turned the thermostat up to call for heat in zone 1(1st floor) the boiler responded, ignited and ran for around a full minute each time. This made me just skip the step of checking the thermostat since a signal was obviously getting to the boiler.
The existing thermostat is a dumb, heat only Honeywell ct87k that is 5 years old. Since the unit was responding to the thermostat I figured it was a long shot but I followed the advice of Intplm and jumped the wires at the thermostat and the system not only responded and fired up, but it kept running normally. I just finished installing a new Honeywell ck87k that I grabbed at Lowe’s and the system is running fine.

Being such a rudimentary heat only thermostat I figured if the system responded and ran for at least a minute the comms from the Thermostat were fine.

Thank you all for your responses and help with this!

heatwanted

1

Re: The last word about c-wire thermostats and wiring diagrams.

Understanding the C wire might be as elusive as understanding some female anatomy. Everyone has a theory and they also think yours is way off base.

Of course you know this but here's how it makes sense to me.

A couple decades ago, the electrician we used to hire to wire our boilers gave me a piece of electrical theory that I've never forgotten: "Everything we deal with is either a power source, a switch, or a load." He went on to explain that we start at the source and end up at the load. In our case, the load was most often a gas valve or a pump. Everything in between was a switch.
The C-wire converts the thermostat from a simple switch to a combination switch and load. It both consumes power (charging, display, integral logic, etc) and allows or interrupts power through it to the burner circuit, terminating at the gas valve. Now, the same can be said of a probe-type low water cut off, and also a motorized vent damper or zone valve. These are combination loads and switches. Simple!

A switch just needs a power wire to one side of it and the switching action opens or closes the circuit to permit or interrupt the continuity of that path to the load.
A load requires a path back to neutral or ground to allow for a constant flow of power. That's the third *C wire.
If someone here can say this clearly in fewer words, please be my guest. My students will thank you.

JohnNY

8

Re: Softener, PRV, Expansion Tank

Is it possible they have set the expansion tank at a higher psi allowing the pressure to rise to 70 even though the PRV is at 58?

SG17

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Re: Heating Pros: Please Help Us With This Quick Survey

Done, I do mostly service work with limited new installs.

So I look at older CI units that are very simple to troubleshoot.....usually.

JUGHNE

2

Re: Heating Pros: Please Help Us With This Quick Survey

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts with us. This was meant to be an overview and that is why it's short. Your feedback has been very insightful and we appreciate you taking the time.

Erin Holohan Haskell

3

Re: New Main Vents

I had a plumber master vent the risers. They taped the riser pipe before the shutoff valve of the radiator with a Gorton #2. This way the entire riser vents quickly.

question

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Re: Softener, PRV, Expansion Tank

It probably is normal -- it depends entirely on the acceptance volume of the expansion tank relative to the volume of the water heater. In your case, I'm guessing that the expansion tank is the cute little thing teed off the water heater. That will tend to reduce water hammer, particularly in the lines connected directly to it, but it's much too small to control pressure variations caused by temperature changes in that big water heater.

Jamie Hall

1

Re: New to oil heat, where do I check level?

OK the tall one is the fill, and that's the one you want to stick. Just take the top off -- since it is the fill, it should come off fairly easilty -- and stick the stick down until it hits bottom (but don't pound on it!). Lift it up and read the oil level on the stick. Your depth chart will give you the amount of oil left in the tank.

Yes, all the above mumbling about potential leaks is quite correct, and they can be a problem. However, sheer panic is a poor response to that. A much better response is to measure the oil level -- and come back some time later when you haven't been running the boiler and measure it again. Should be about the same.

At some point you will want to abandon the tank, unfortunately -- as 1000 gallons of oil is nice to have; I'd venture it might even take you through a winter. The problem comes when you need to find a place to put the new tank...

On modernizing. Before you leap gaily off that cliff, find out how much heat you really do need for the house, and what sort of heat source might work. Your quote for a heat pump (and, by the way, please edit your post to remove the actual dollar value) sounds very very low, unless the house is well insulated and is either low temperature hot water heat or hot air (forced air).

Awesome! Thanks for all the info. I'll try to eat that elephant one bite at a time.

The house is forced air, as in central air, but the unit is old and no longer up to snuff, so the quote I was given was roughly __ for the central air unit, or __ for all of it since the fuse box is quite new and plentiful, and the ducts are already there and such. I'll remove it, is it not allowed? Sorry if so, never thought that'd be a rule.

I wasn't honestly panicking, but it did have me slightly worried. But I sincerely doubt it, as my dad got around 250-400 gallons a year. He got 500 one time since 2013 (earliest records I've found so far). It's a Cape Cod, 3 bedroom with full sized basement built in the 60's or 70's I believe, If that helps for anything.

This may also seem dumb and warrant a response followed by "..." like the other fella wrote (despite me openly saying I'm ignorant to something like this because as it turns out, most people don't study things they don't need to know until they need to know them) - but does the oil also do the hot water tank? There's definitely no natural gas out here, and I know it isn't electric, but was just curious if that uses a fair amount of the oil or just a little?

Droid8Apple

1

Re: Hydrolevel VXT

So I'm back at this as the heating season starts. I just called Hydrolevel and they basically told me to **** off and buy a new one. He said it was probably a power surge! It was a 2 year warranty from date of mfr (which is an odd way of doing it not accounting for time on shelf), so my failure date last winter was already out of warranty. He even acted surprised that there was a replacement valve unit with solenoid for sale at Supplyhouse. Oh, and he basically called HH a bunch of whiney ****.

So that part is $125, a new is $250. The electronics appear sound and this seems a solenoid or valve failure, but who knows? If I want to stay away from them entirely, what's the best competing product? I do not live there, so constantly monitoring level myself is not a good plan!

@Gordo

Are you sure you're not exaggerating a bit?
Sure I am. But when a service tech tells you you're out of warranty and your only option is to buy a new unit, and that people in online forums are complainers, that's how I 'interpret' it. I've had standup companies replace something just months past warranty. This one didn't, and said they didn't even sell parts.
I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure that would be consider libel if it didn't actually happen.

It's also not fair to the company to be honest.

Yes, you're not an expert. "basically" is a phrase well known to mean the writer is paraphrasing. As opposed to "literally".

Jells

1

Re: L8148E Aquastat Not Firing - No power from R to B1

Hello @homeowner1337,
OK, blocked vent / spill switch wire shorted to to the flue or boiler cabinet, that may do it depending on which side of the transformer is grounded.
If you have a S8600 type ignition module it may be hooked up backwards in relation to the Aquastat's B1, B2, see the wiring diagram above. Looks like Honeywell may have wanted B1 grounded (limit switches on the grounded side) to maybe avoid what happened to you. The boiler OEM wiring may be different.
Grounding something that is normally grounded usually does not blow fuses.

109A_5

1