System 2000 w pri-sec piping ( Ron Jr. )

Tim_41

Great looking job. It looks like an outside chimney, did you reline or use stainless chimney?

Unknown

A real nice upgrade

from this dry base boiler . 1 of the 3 zones had a significant amount of convectors and water volume , so we used EKs large water volume kit . The piping is fairly simple . The wiring ? Well , it gets involved with the post purge function . I called EK and spoke to Jim Hankinson . Great guy and he understood exactly what I was asking and walked me through it with ease . Thanks Jim .

Leo_35

Give me a break Ron

Give me a break Ron. There is WAY TOO MUCH ROOM for that to be one of your jobs.

Betall the room spoiled you.

Leo

Leo_35

Double Post, sorry

Unknown

Haha

I have been getting spoiled by recent jobs . Yesterday we installed an EK in a wide open garage . 10 feet from the work trucks . If they were all like that I'd be a happy camper all the time ......

R Mannino

All I Can Say is

PARALLEL LINES! I like it!

hot_rod

Always nice and professional

installs, regardless of the space allowed!

Check with EK or the HX manufacturer I think that is an incorrect mounting for the HX? They can trap air up inside in that position and performance will be reduced. Hard to purge out unless you have some serious flow through them.
Here is a page from FlatPlate's installation manual.

hr

Robert O'Brien

HX location

That's the way EK supplies it,itks also used as a bypass

KevinCorr

I see it pictured that way on the EK website model units. I would not expect it to trap air having a circulator on both sides moving the water.

We did not do it that way when I was an EK dealer. We put them on the vertical. They seem to think that new way makes it more compact.

It seems to me the old way made it easy for me to install valves and drains for quick easy cleaning of the exchanger in place, instead of removing it to clean.
Many customers had water quality problems and constantly clogging exchangers so we had to change them to an indirect tank. Personally, my exchanger is 25 yrs old!

I always install an expansion tank with the pipe up so it does not trap air.

KevinCorr

Ron "...wiring...it gets involved with the post purge function..."

I don't know what you mean. The System Manager is not programable.
The post purge is hard wired into the solid state board. You have no options but how many thermostats pair to put on the left and how many zone pair you connect to the right.
The only option is if you want to jump one of the thermostat pegs to the priority peg (screw). Usually you would choose #1, hot water which does not allow the other zones to open as long as there is a hot water thermostat call.

"...we used EKs large water volume kit..."

What is that?

When I was an EK dealer what the factory recommended and supplied for large volume systems was replacing the regular boiler return aquastat with a "triple aquastat" which did not let the power to open the zones until the return water was up to the set temp. A simple solution but I heard that they quit doing that because of unreliability. Is that correct?

John Marran, the creator of the System 2000 was a prince of a guy. Brilliant but humble. A true gentleman and a pleasure to work for. Sorry that he passed away.

Unknown

Kevin

The large volume kit consists of a 007 circ with pri-sec piping incorporated into it , a circulator relay and a fan relay . What EK recommends to do is have the circulator for the large zone run anytime theres a call for heat in the zone . But it has to be integrated into the Heat Manager also for post purge function . Hence the extra relays .

Here's an EK2 we installed last year . Had 2 pri-sec zones . And the relays .

KevinCorr

That is getting more complicated.
That volume system appears to me to be addressing a different problem, ie volume.
The triple aquastat on the return was intended to prevent the boiler from running cold and condensing. As a low mass steel boiler it is designed to sit at room temp and jump to operating temp in 1.5 minutes. That keeps it dry and prevents condensation. You cannot run the boiler at low temps!
Your main problem with large volume is that it takes the boiler too long to come up to temp.

Unknown

It's addressing 2 issues

The larger volume of system water can be an issue with a boiler that holds only 2.5 gallons . The extra controls integrate the zone into the heat manager . Without the controls , you wouldn't be able to have the extra circ run without the zone valve for that larger zone open . So the zone would sit idle longer , might short cycle more .

A triple aquastat on the return defeats the purpose of the whole system . Are you talking about the older EKs ? The new ones work different . The system zone valves will not open till the boiler return water temp reaches 130 to 140 degrees .

Do you work on newer EKs Kevin ? Have you been to their class ? This setup come straight from them . I've been to 2 EK classes and they never mentioned using a triple aquastat for any reason . They did go into detail about when to use the kit ( which I did not pay enough attention to , thinking we'd never use it , lol ) . They also explained when to use the " card " if the Heat manager went bad . But that's a temporary fix .

Unknown

Yep

Every EK I've installed comes with the flat plate mounted like that . Every once in a while the plate will trap air on startup . But they conveniently pipe a purge on the bronze circ .

Thanks alot Hot Rod and Ron and Bob .

Unknown

The bronze circ

comes with a purge piped into it . Makes backflushing a snap . Orientation of the expansion tank is a personal preference . I try not to hang them down after seeing a coworker crush 2 fingers spinning out a waterlogged #30 . And besides , I've seen more tanks fail mounted in the " proper " position than mounted threads down ........

Unknown

No other choice ?

The house was fairly new . The liner was clay and in pretty decent shape . We piped right into it . The chimney actually goes though the interior of the home . Thanks Tim .

KevinCorr

EK

Ron: "...A triple aquastat on the return defeats the purpose of the whole system . Are you talking about the older EKs ? The new ones work different..."

Yes, the old system "back in the day". The special aquastat on the return did exactly what you say: "...The system zone valves will not open till the boiler return water temp reaches 130 to 140 degrees."
It did not defeat that purpose, but let the boiler run above condensing temps as you say. It was EKs first solution to that problem and was ok but I heard later that it was not reliable. I don't know why since it was a honeywell aquastat.

I have not worked with the new EK's since I quit being a dealer back almost 18 yrs ago! I was the 1st dealer west of the Mississippi! I got them started here in Alaska which was not easy because when people face the possibility of -60+F BELOW ZERO they are not big on gambling on a new unknown product. I am not bragging about being a great mechanic, but I did break the ice and sell those boilers. It was a formidable challenge.
'Back in the day' everyone had heavy oversized Burnham and Wiel Mclain boilers so I had no competition energy saving wise. The challenge was to convince people to try it out. Once I had a few in town (including my own grey colored one, now about 25yrs old), business started to pick up. There were no modulating nor condensing boilers. Eventually someone started selling a Teckmar or similar electronic. Ironically, that helped us because it made electronic system managers more accepted and routine. We were not alone out there in that.

Some of my competitors started using Reillo burners on the big heavy hog boilers promising big fuel savings, which of course did not work. Plus that also helped us since EK offered the Riello option already. The Riello is very good but it gets exactly the same % AFUE as the Beckett and Carlin.

John Marran was constantly working to improve the System and I am not surprised that it has evolved with many new ideas. There were no classes at the time so John Marran was my personal tutor. We consulted on the phone regularly and at length. He had an extra interest with me being the only one in the State. I went to visit him and the factory back in the late 1980s.

Ron: "...They also explained when to use the " card " if the Heat manager went bad . But that's a temporary fix...).

Just as important, the bypass card also comes in handy, as a quick and simple way to prove to a '911 heat out service call' that the problem was NOT the electronics. Funny but so many burner service guys would have a circuit in their own brain short out when they saw the Sys Manager. In their fear, ignorance or prejudice they would automatically assume that the Mgr was at fault, even though everything else was standard honeywell controls, and Beckett, Carlin or Riello burner.
One time I had to go out and save a service tech who swore the Mgr was out. It took me 5 minutes to install the Mgr bypass card and find that the TT wire to the burner was not connected. Such an elementary problem, impossible for some guys to find until you eliminate the Mgr from the equation. That guy is still working commercial burners for the biggest building group in town.
In fact after that, I showed every customer how to do it. They could do it before they even called heat 911 and prevent a short in the burner man's head. I put one with every system without exception.

Good luck Ron, you could not find better people to work with than EK.

KevinCorr

I know what you mean Tim. depending where you are even a non-condensing, hot boiler like EK can have a big chimney condensation problem. Here where it is below 0 for months, and 30 to 45 below not uncommon, you have to have a warm chimney. Most builders put in a 6" metalbestos type insulated ss stack thru the roof. We simply run a "5 stack up through and plug both ends with a 6" plug with a 5" hole cut in it. It doesn't have to be ss because the main one is and the inner stack stays hot with the air space sealed.

chapchap70_2

another change not mentioned

Hi Kevin,

The reason the flat plate is on top of the boiler instead of where it was when you were a dealer is because they changed the pressure vessel around. Both the supply and return tappings are on top.

I'm not sure if you noticed this change by looking at the EK website. If you weren't aware of the changes, I suppose you would be asking how the boiler is supposed to be vaced with the back of it being so close to the wall.

The new boiler called the "Frontier" is not cleaned from the back. The front of the boiler swings down which is why no piping or controls are there.

Nice install Ron, as usual.

KevinCorr

chap- Interesting. Lots of changes! That seems to be the trend with the front hinged door. The Burnham LE for example.
I just took the back off an EK yesterday and vacuumed it out. They are easy to clean.

Jim_139

New install

Nice job as always, Ron.

EK checked with the plate exchanger manufacturer before changing the piping layout a few years ago. There have not been any issues with air being trapped in it since both sides have forced flow.

The so-called triple aquastat that was once used in conjunction with the Classic manager to prevent condensation was a White Rodgers 11C30 dual aquastat since replaced with a Honeywell L4081A.

The large water volume kit we offer makes it easy to pipe and wire a primary/secondary system. The advantage of using this configuration is that heated water is being delivered to the radiation from the onset of a call. We also have an additional control package available for multiple zones on the same primary or multiple boilers in parallel that enables the post-purge feature of the system manager to be fully utilized.

We still produce the Standard boiler design with rear cleanout that works well in a crawl space situation where headroom is an issue. The majority of our sales is the Frontier mostly due to the easier access for cleaning the flue passage.