60 outside, 80 inside, How to stop the heat!

Spekiak Montgomery

Hi, We have 4 zones in our home. It's warm outside yet tonight with no zones calling for heat, our oil burner (Riello) is churning away. I lowered all thermostats, turned off 3 of the 4 thermostats (the other one is an analog honeywell) and still heat heat heat. Finally I've turned off the burner at the main switch. Any ideas?

I thank you in advance for your time.

Plumb Bob

You've turned off the main switch and the system is still running? If so, I hate to tell you this, but that's not the main switch.

What kind of system do you have, is it hot water or forced air? If hot water, are all the pumps running and all the radiators/baseboard warm? If forced air, is air coming out of the registers in all zones? Was it working fine all winter?

Spekiak Montgomery

> You've turned off the main switch and the system

> is still running? If so, I hate to tell you this,

> but that's not the main switch.

>

> What kind of

> system do you have, is it hot water or forced

> air? If hot water, are all the pumps running and

> all the radiators/baseboard warm? If forced air,

> is air coming out of the registers in all zones?

> Was it working fine all winter?



Hi,

I turned off the main switch and yes, the system HAS stopped running

It's a hot water system. Peerless boiler, Riello Burner, 4 zones.

Every baseboard and every radiator in the house was very very warm.

It worked perfectly all winter.

Thank very much for your help!





Speziak Montgomery

Nick L. in Vt

recent service?

if someone was there to tune/test system, you may have zone valves in the manual position. or jumpers used to cycle system from boiler. hate it but it does happen. open flo checks also possible.





They call me "Hot Pipe"

Spekiak Montgomery

Thanks Nick, But why would ALL zones be open all of a sudden or why would ALL zones suddenly be in the manual position? Is there anything I can do to check this myself or do I need to call someone in? Do you think turning the system off might have helped or no affect?

No one has been near the system since the autumn

(What / Where are flo checks?

Thanks,

Speziak

rob brown

zone valves?

hi, if your system is zoned with zone valves, i would check that they are not "manually opened". most have a lever to manually open valve. rob (man, you guys type to fast for me)

Nick L. in Vt

zone valves

if you have zone valves they have levers that can be opened to a manual position. if the valves are opened by the thermastat, the lever will move freely. if there is resistance to moving the lever than they are closed. has there been recent service? the last valve i found open was to a small zone and had been left open for about 4 months before we were called



They call me "Hot Pipe"

Nick L. in Vt

manual-damn

sometimes i wish they didn't have the damn levers. more trouble than there worth.






They call me "Hot Pipe"

Spekiak Montgomery

Thanks, I checked the circulators and they are Grundfos, red and have little boxes attached to them with no levers. They connect via what appears to be low voltage wiring to a large gray box, that too has no levers. No levers! Now what?

Thanks,

Speziak

Nick L. in Vt

circs-different story

circs should be wired to a relay box, either blue(amer stablis) or green(taco) but could be other type. more info would be helpful. was there any recent service?




They call me "Hot Pipe"

Spekiak Montgomery

Hi Nick,

No recent service, nothing. Should I open the gray box that the circulators seem to be wired to? Could one open relay make the system think that all zones are continuously calling for heat?

Thanks, Speziak

Unknown

Are there any

flow check valves on the heating pipes ? Can you give us the model number on the circulators ? I'm not familiar with the Grundfos line and I don't know if they make circulators with internal checks .

Nick L. in Vt

relays

if each circ has it's own relay, silver(honeywell?), the thermostats should be completely turned down. the circs should be off. it's difficult to troubleshoot further with out a dmm and a familiarity with the wiring order. how long has the system been off and is the radiation still hot as if it's gravity circ'ing


They call me "Hot Pipe"

Spekiak Montgomery

Circulators

UP 15-42 FC

I think that's the model number. I think!

Thanks very much for your help, I really appreciate it.

Speziak

Spekiak Montgomery

The house is cooling down. Of course the old radiators are retaining heat, the baseboards are cooled down.

But we're down to 76 degrees!

Thanks,

Speziak

Nick L. in Vt

hate to say it.

i would power up system and see what actually runs. the burner will fire to maintain boiler temp if it is equipped. check each pipe above each circ to see which gets hot. if the t-stats are down/off then none of them should run.


They call me "Hot Pipe"

Nick L. in Vt

60 degrees?

man, it's like 35 deg here in south NH/VT


They call me "Hot Pipe"

Spekiak Montgomery

Thanks Nick!

I will fire it up tomorrow as the basement is now occupied and it's too late for me to troubleshoot For now, the heat is off and it's going down into the 40s but rather cold than hot tonight at least.

I just don't think it's a circulator problem as I had every thermostat off or down and all zones were heating up and not stopping.

Our boiler only turns on when heat is called for, it doesn't maintain boiler heat until heat is requested (at least that's my understanding).

Ok, I'll check in the am before I go to work and will post then. Once again, thank you very much for your time.

Speziak

S Ebels

That's what you have to determine

Why is the boiler maintaining temp and why are your circs running when there is no call for heat from the t-stats? I would suspect a wiring problem, a relay stuck in the run position, something like that. You have to try to imagine the "run" circuit and sequence of events that lead to heat, then you will be able to track it down. Going to be tough to do without the right testing equipment and/or experience.

GaryDidier

Flo-check

Hi, My best guess on limited info is The flo-check valve is hung up. This would allow gravity feed of hot water to all the zones that are controlled by this valve causing slow but steady overheating of the system. If the disc is hung up in the flo-check it can sometimes be set right by a good rap with a piece of wood. This worked 2 out of three times in this situation for my customers. The third time the valve had to be replaced. I hope this helps.
Gary from Granville

Spekiak Montgomery

Thanks very much, is the flo valve near the circulator?

You don't think it's the relay box?

Thanks,

Speziak

Unknown

if u have..

If u have seprated zone valves for each zone, chance are that u don't have flo-control valves... I re-read ur post and I betcha its the anlong thermostat is in improper settings for ur system... Disconnect that thermostat first then see what happens... If the system is off with all thermostat satified, bingo.... Let me and the other wallies know the result...

Spekiak Montgomery

Thanks very much,

I'll disconnect it tonight!

Speziak

Alan(OnVacationInOregon)Forbes

Speziak's

system:

A) Is a hot water heating system zoned by pumps (NOT zone valves).

If a zone is heating when the thermostat is NOT calling for heat, check to see if the pump is running. If the pump is running, it's either a bad thermostat or a stuck relay. If the pump is not running, it's a bad (or stuck) flow check and you can take Heatdoctor's suggestion to rap it with a piece of wood. I take it that the "C" in the "FC" means there's an integral flow check in the pump.

This scares me:

"They connect via what appears to be low voltage wiring to a large gray box....."

Pumps wired using low voltage wire; I've seen it done before and it works fine since the pumps are low amps, but it's still not kosher and it should be replaced with proper line voltage wire.

Spekiak Montgomery

Thanks very much Alan. I have the installer coming tomorrow because I saw that the very high tech looking relay box is under a 5 yr warranty. When I get home from work tonight I will take some digital pics which might shed some light on the system. This is a great place, a great forum. Thanks!

Speziak

Techman

Lot of heat

Spiekiak,Some systems require two flow-checks,one in the supply[possibly in the circ] and a second in the return piping.

S Ebels

I may have missed it but

Does the system include an indirect hot water heater?

Spekiak Montgomery

Installer Was Here

Hi,

Well, it's a short in one of my thermostat lines. Of course it's the one with the most difficult run. But at least I have 4 months to address this.

Thank you all for your help, It was greatly appreciated. Most importantly, I learned a lot and you were all so helpful.

Thanks for being great!

Speziak

Unknown

BINGO !

I knew it! Guess 26 years of experince paying off...