Triangle Tube 110

Eileen Olive

So, from what I can make of this change in parameters is that my lowest water be pumped through the system would be 110* and the max would go to 186*. Yes? What change will that have on my heat/system?

Eileen Olive

Triangle Tube 110, change parameters

I have a TT 110 (2007 model w/last-years control board, no dot on the board) and want to change the parameters for heating, from the factory settings. Living in Staten Island, I believe the factory settings are a bit too cool for my house. We have CI rads & base board, and right now using thr ODR the boiler reaches about 140* when called for heat. I would like to go up another 10*, to about 150*. And as I understand it, with the ODR the boiler will not high-fire until temps outside drop below 0*
What would my best setting be for this area?
How do I change the parameters?
Thank you for taking the time to address these issues.

tim smith

Call your installer and ask if he would come by and tweak the

settings. If it is not heating the house properly he would probably do this for free as a courtesy if he sold you the boiler. This is done in setup menu and suppose to be done by certified contractor.

Eileen Olive

thanks, but

I installed the unit, being a pipefitter by trade, but not a service guy; the piping was no problem, the tweeking is another story. The boiler runs fine, but as you said, I'd like to tweek the settings to obtain optium efficiency and comfort. Piping is fun; tweeking is a learning experience for me.

Tony_23

Parameters

Setting the parameters is covered in the install manual.

tim smith

Not all of them! You may have to call a cert. installer for this

boiler to have them do the setup unless you call TT and they give you the unlock code. I was sworn to secrecy.

Wayco Wayne_2

Boost feature

There is a boost feature that can be enabled that raises the water temp setting after a programmed time interval. You decide the time interval when you program the feature. This lets you keep the outdoor reset curve low to gain higher efficiency and gives you a backup if it has to recover for some reason. Get help from the manufacturer. WW

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Unknown

EJ

T he best thing to do is call the factory, parameters are not givin in the install manual. They are in a book called control supplement. On the newest Prestige they not only cgange the access code but also the arrangement of the parameters plus added some new ones. Tell them who you are and if they feel you are qualified in a short conversation im sure they will PDF you a copy. They are great people to work with and I am sure you wont have any problems.

Eileen Olive

Thanks, Tony

Tony, they did send me a copy of the Control Suplement manul. However it did not print-out very well. Where it gives examples such as, the read out will say xxxx xxxx, the examples are blank due to some sort of eror on my end. I could call them back, but figured you guys have the tech experieence with servicing these boilers, knowing what works and what does not, so I decided to come here first. I am presently tied up doing an HVAC reno at a college in Brooklyn and we have to get the steam lines finished so they can put the heat back on (the refrigerent lines can wait) so I really don't have time to call TT from work, and they leave before I do. Thank you very much for your imput.

Tony_23

Short term

Until you get time, just disconnect the ODR wires from the harness. It'll run to limit (Parameter 4) every call for heat and it will at least keep up with demand.

Eileen Olive

Thanks, Tony

It's not that the house does not get warm enough. I believe it would run more efficiently if I increased the cut off temp to 150* rather than the factory-set 140*. And as I said, I figured you guys would be my best source for accurate info as to tweeking the controls for best efficiency. I have spoken with TT Tech support and they too feel the factory parameters might be increased, but calling them from work (no time, too many distractions, bad signal, being put on hold indeffinitely,and the boss does not care for seeing the men chatting on cell phones while working) is not working well for me. I'll try changing the parameters on my own, I guess. Thanks for your imput though, Tony.

Tony_23

EJ

If the house is getting warm enough at 140, why change ? The cooler the water you run to meet demand, the less fuel you use to do it.

Unknown

I'll do you one better. If you're keeping up now, turn it down until you don't, then bump it back up a hair.

Eileen Olive

I guess you are right,

but I am trying to lower the t-stat temp to where everyone is comfortable, yet the boiler is satisfied running less often. It was suggested that by up-ing the hi temp cut off to 151* the circulator would keep the house warmer longer and keep the t-stat setting satisfied. Sound reasonable?

Tony_23

No

Unknown

You might have a boiler with a regular boiler, but not with a a modulating/condensing boiler.

If you dial this in perfectly, it will run 100% of the time when you are above its minimum modulation rate. Below that, and it will cycle as needed to replace your lost heat. Of course outdoor reset is not quite perfect but still, the boiler should run. A lot.

Raising its temperature to make it run less often lowers your efficiency. this is a condensing boiler: it loves running cool. As a modulator, you can't gauge it based on "run time" because it can run a little or a lot.

Eileen Olive

Alright, I see your point, but

It does run regularly for lengthy periods of time. But it also modulates the burn rate. At time it runs on high fire, then slows to a lesser rate. I can see and hear this from watching the exhaust. At times you can hardly hear it running, quieter than a clothes dryer. It seems to reach its set point (140*) then circulate this temp water for a given period of time. What I wanted to do is raise the set-point to 150* and let it circulate the higher temp water for a shorter time frame. Make any sense to you?

Unknown

No, you want to maintain setpoint as long as possible.

Overshooting it will kill the heat demand and you'll just have to cycle again.

again, perfection would be constant circulation, no stops, perfect all the time modulation. that's the goal. You won't get there, but you don't want to make the boiler cycle more.

Eileen Olive

Thanks, but

I just want to raise the set point, and leave the rest alone. Will that work better?

Unknown

EJ, I'm not sure how else to phrase this to be any clearer, I apologize if I'm missing something, but let me try again:

You want the boiler to target the coldest water possible that will replace your lost heat. If 140 degree water will keep your room warm, you want the boiler to produce 140 degree water.

In other words: do not raise your target.

i presume the boiler has the outdoor sensor on it, which varies that setpoint based on how warm or cold it is outside. So when it's warmer out, the boiler targets a lower water temperature than when it is cold out. If you do not have an outdoor sensor on the boiler, get one installed.

It does not help you to make the boiler run hotter, unless your rooms are cold. Your goal is to get the boiler to run as much as possible on low fire: that means matching the water temperature requirements of the system, with the water temperature being supplied by the boiler, as closely as possible.

Overshooting your setpoint. does not help this. raising your temp will make you cycle off and on more: that will make you run at lower efficiency more: that is not what you want to do.

Gordy

Cruise control

What Rob is trying to tell you EJ. Its like cruise control on a car. Once on the highway it gives just enough throttle to keep the vehicle at the desired speed. What you want to do ends up being like driving in town, speed up slow down. Is this more understandable?

Gordy

Eileen Olive

Thanks Gordy

I don't mean to be thick, but I seem to be viewing this entirely differently. The factory setting appears to be 140* using the ODR. The factory tech says I could increase the set point to 150*, considering my particular house and radiators. Factory settings also keep this boiler from running at high fire until outside temps drop below 0*. He suggested changing that parameter to, say, 20* before switching to high fire, considering where I live. Honestly, this ability to actually alter the boiler set points is fairly new to me, and it seems truly limitless. As I understood it, by changing the parameter to 150* the house would stay warmer longer, once the boiler slowed the firing rate and circulated the warmer water throughout the house. Please try to point me in the right direction with this. Thank you all very much.

Gordy

Comfort

EJ, You have to ask yourself some questions.

Did you do a heatloss for your house?

If yes then is your present radiation sized big enough for the heatloss.

Are you able to get to room set point?

Once it gets to set point does it maintain it?

Have you made improvements to your home? If that answer is yes, that would mean if the radiators were sized for the old envelope then they will be able to run cooler water temps now. If they were sized right to begin with.


What Rob is trying to tell you, is the way to get the most efficiency out of your new boiler possible,yet maintain comfort. That is why you bought a TT 110 right?


Gordy

Unknown

If you run water hotter than you need, your zones will turn off faster. This increases the amount of cycling your boiler will do, which reduces its efficiency.

imagine you only need 100 degree water. You send out 180, which dumps heat into the room faster than you need to replace what you are losing: the room heats up more quickly, and shuts off. If you've charged up a bunch of radiators, the room will overheat to some degree, staying off longer, before it turns back on.

In effect, this is treating your radiators as a buffer tank. You can do the same thing with the boiler's differential or "hysteresis" settings without messing with the setpoint too much, but there shouldn't be any need for that. the mass of the radiators should be doing a decent job of buffering for you already and going further won't help that much.

your boiler will run at high fire depending on how far from its calculated setpoint it is. you'll be in low fire, for example, if it's targeting 100 and you return 99, or if it's targeting 150 and you are returning 149. it is not directly related to outdoor temperature, except in how outdoor temperature increases your heat load.

In the end, you want to run this boiler as cool as you can, at a reasonable differential, all the time.

Eileen Olive

Ok, Bob

So, for practicle purposes, I am better off leaving the factory set point at 140* rather than upping it to 150*. At the moment I appear to be holding a 20* delta, most of the time. My house is definitely over-radiated, having been built in the 1930s, and prior to the storm windows, blown-in insulation, being enclosed in siding, ect. At the moment we are keeping t-stat fairly low, at 65*, all day long. I don't know if it is worth using a programable stat or just leave it alone, since everyone seems to be fine with it. I am eargerly awaiting any suggestions though. It is a 2-story wood house, with 9 stand-up rads and 40 feet of CI baseboard, being heated by a TT-110, and 2" headers running across the fully-enclosed basement. Thanks, again for taking the time to explain things to me.

Buzz G.

As a homeowner it was initially hard to understand that heating with the coldest possible water is best for efficiency with ModCon boilers. Once you see that you are circulating warmed water twice as long, but at a lower temp and the condensate is flowing down the drain at a steady rate, you can grasp that. The itch to up the water temp is natural, but actually you want to lower it if possible depending on heatloss and design temp. If steam is coming out of the vent, you are losing heat it took to make it vapor rather than liquid.

Eileen Olive

Thanks, Buzz

But, woah, I certainly do have steam blowing out of my exhaust tube. Isn't that supposed to happen??? Even when firing at what seems to be "low," steam blows out, just quietly and slowly. Should there be NO steam?

Tony_23

That's not steam

It is flue gas with some vapor in it. Big difference.

Uni R_2

Lowest load possible...

EJ, with a condensing boiler, their efficiency gets higher and higher as the return temps and flue temps drop further and further.

The MCBA has a very simple 4 point plotting. You give it a fairly mild outside air temp and the coolest water temp needed for that and also your coldest outdoor temp and the maximum water temp you need for that.

It's actually a bit challenging to get the curve dialed in perfectly, but if you want to maximize your savings it is fairly straightforward.

I would use a plotter, and put in your current settings.

http://boilerbuff.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=87.0;attach=344

Go into your MCBA controller. Hold the Step down. While holding that key down, press and hold the menu key until the Access Code appears. Put in the required access key that and then press Store.

P4 shows normally, but now P5 P6 P7 etc. will show.

Put P4,5,6,7 & 10 in the plotter. Raise your t-stat to 75 or so, and if you have a programmable maybe setback a degree or 2 over 11am to 3pm to keep things flat for solar gain, otherwise expect it to be maybe 3 degrees warmer.

Then monitor the temps inside the house vs outside the house, especially at night. If it gets too warm when it is mild but it is just right when really cold outside, then lower the beginning of the curve, so that the curve rises steeper but you pivot it from the P4/P6 intersection point. If it gets colder in the house, the colder it gets outside, raise P4 just enough to get the inside temps to where you want them, even though the tstat is jacked up.

Use the plotter to adjust the curve to where you think it should be. Keep a few iterations so you know which one was closest. When you have a curve you want to try, do the access code, change that parameter and then press store and then see how that curve works.

A good curve will cover you from mild to freezing with just enough water temp to satisfy the heatload.

Once you have the curve dialed in to maintain desired inside temps reasonably well, then put the t-stat temperature back to 65 or wherever it was.

The only downside to a dialed in curve is that when you need some added recovery, maybe you were away a week and left it at 60, it just won't be there. It's not too hard to raise P4 to help recovery and then put it back to the economical setting you know once the house is back to temp. Another option would be to program in boost, or just tap the max test a few times an hour. ;-)

If you finalize the curve in late February or March, it probably will be too cold for November December when there is a lot less solar.

Jason_25

when I install a tt with baseboard or radiators I change the minimum temp parameter 5 from the factory set 86 degrees to 110-120 what this does is when its mild 50-60 degrees out the boiler fires at the increased minimum setting as running 86 degree water through doesnt amount to much radiation so what you are doing is reseting the curve to run between 110 to 186 degrees depending on outdoor reset. I havent had any issues since changing this parameter.

Unknown

86 degrees would be the target at a 65 degree outdoor temp I believe (or perhaps whatever your WWSD cutoff is set to..?). by 50 outdoor you should be up to about 100 degrees.

you don't need much radiation at this end of the spectrum anyway.

with convective baseboard though, I do run a 95 degree minimum, up to whatever the design temp max is (hopefully nowhere near 186 degrees!).

CV

delta t

Overheating your home with a higher temperature will not only limit the condensate production of the boiler it will also cause your home to lose that added heat at a faster rate. When you increase the temperature difference between the inside of your home and the outside you create a higher rate of heat loss per hour. So you actually lose that added heat at a higher rate than you would if you were to maintain setpoint with the minimal settings.

Unknown

you would lose a lot of efficiency during the coldest half of your winter.

the only reason to run hotter temps is if you are NOT KEEPING UP.

If you are keeping up, do NOT run hotter temps.

186 is, frankly, a ridiculously hot max temperature in today's day and age.