laars endurnace ebp modulating combo boiler

joe600

I work for a housing auth.and we have the laars endurance boiler in some of our apt's,they have worked great for years but there always is a but,we have had them lock-out,when you reset it works fine for a couple of months,ohm out the ignitor and thats fine,I was thinking it might be the gas valve,you smell a hint of it when you get in the room with it,but goes away,the book says go to the gas valve calibration,and you must use a magnehelic pressure gauge,is this something that we might need to do to all the boilers in time,and does anyone know the best brand of gauge to use,also another thing we have had at times when the boiler fires it act's like it is blowing up inside the tank and blows the vent pipe off from the roof,not very often,but once you reset it,it goes good for years,any thoughts thanks for any help  joe 

canmar

maintanence

when were these units thoroughly cleaned last?  When troubleshooting any system, look for simplest of answers.  In a case like this where there is a such a long stretch in between issues, I would like at the simple things.  Is the flue passage clear of all debree?  Is the unit getting a proper amount of fresh air to burn clean?  Have the heat exchanger been looked at?  all the little things.  Once you have gone through these you more often than not come up with a cause to the problems. 

Tim McElwain

Joe 600 I have a

suggestion for you. I would get in touch with the folks at www.laars.com and get some training on the Endurance, they can be a little tricky sometimes to diagnose unless you have had training.



What is your location?



As for a digital manometer for testing (instead of a magnehelic) Testo has a good one.



While we are talking about this how are these units vented? Do they get there air for combustion from outdoors or from within the boiler room? What kind of vents are on the units plastic or metal?

Plumdog_2

check the vent

It's possible for concentric vents (particularly the old-style) to blow apart the inner (exhaust) and then draw combustion products in through the outer (intake) shell. Sometimes the Endurance is a replacement for a Heatmaker that got troublesome, and the venting is left as it was. Before I tired of working on them, I used to drill a hole in the outer pipe and test the combustion air for exhaust contamination.

Mark Eatherton

TIm...

Unless I missed something along the way, this product has always used a metal venting system. I met the orginal inventor of this boiler (John Blackadar) who had actually invented it as a means of generating steam for propelling automobiles back in the 70's and 80's. They ran into problems of coming up with a propane storage system and decided not to go down that street, and realized that they had a hot water boiler of fairly decent efficiency (comparitively speaking, back in the 70's).



The original company was called BGP, which stood for Boston Gas Products.



The original name was Heat Maker, which eventually was changed by the trade to Hate Maker, or Hate Monger :-)



It was an idea that was WAY ahead of its time. It has gone through numerous different manufacturers configurations and reconfigurations, and currently resides with the good folks at Teledyne Laars.



I don't think they ever had it approved for use with plastic venting, but I could be mistaken, because there was a long time that I quit paying attention to the product.



Now, you probably know more about this product than you needed to :-)



Plumdog is correct, in that they had a LOT of problems with concentric vents causing cross contamination from improper installation. They require the product to be set up with a combustion analyzer, which very few contractors carry or know how to use (true even by todays standards).



ME

Tim McElwain

Thanks Mark

Let me chime in with when  came on board with Heatmaker units. It was when I was with the gas company a gentleman who I believe was associated with MIT brought a unit for Providence Gas (my company) to look at with the possibility of distributing the product. It had a Honeywell RA-890 control on it and we at that time classified anything with electronic Flame Safeguard controls as light commercial equipment or commercial. We did not take them on as a distributor



They went to Boston Gas and hence BGP products, a move that Boston Gas regretted for years.



During these years some Heatmakers actually got installed with plastic "Ultravent and Plexvent" here in New England. We had a major incident in fact a few years back in a college dorm at I believe Dartmouth college. This was why I mentioned the flue in my posting. We are still running into Plexvent and Ultravent here in my area even though the recall was years ago.

When Trianco took over we worked very closely with them, in fact I am the one who developed the HP model for them as a direct replacement for Paloma Paks.



The Endurance I am told was in the lab awaiting go ahead for distribution when Laars bought out the rights to Heatmaker and also Endurance.



In 1994 when I was downsized from Providence Gas I actually interviewed for a training job with Trianco when they were still distributing Heatmaker. I lost out to a young man named Jody Samuel who is now an instructor for Viessmann.

Mark Eatherton

Sounds like your experience goes back further than mine...

The use of Plex Vent sounds like an experiment gone bad...



I too run into it on occasion, along with other products that have been totally recalled (Entran 2), and it makes me sad that it was missed, but I guess it is no the consumers job to know of everything there is in their house.



Thanks as always TIm.



ME

Tim McElwain

The deal with the Plexvent

and Ultravent meant that air for combustion came from within the room. We had all kinds of problems with that adaptation.

Tim McElwain

We have not heard back

from the original poster. If you are reading this I would encourage you to get some combustion testing done as soon as you can.

joe600

thanks for the help

been busy,thanks for all the help,my location is southern Illinois and I do understand that training is the best solution,often what happens in a housing auth.they my have the best 1-minute workers,because they think they have the problem solved after 1-minute they see so many things repeat themselves,but when it comes to other things, workers don't really no what they are doing just enough to be dangerous,but the boilers do work great for water heater and heat for years,thanks for all your help