why the half *** design

Big Will

I installed my last munchkin four years ago. After two years it started showing lots of debris in the heat ex. At the yearly maint. On year three it shut down before the maint. Came up. It passed due to a pin hole about a week ago. I know it is due to vapor from the pool equp. That is in the same room. It gets its combustion air from the outside but with the cabnet design why bother. After year two we started taping the cover every time we touched it. This abvously did not help enough. I know that they put a gasket on them now with buckles. But when we had the new one out of the box we found huge holes around the flue outlet and the condinsate drain. If you look at the inside the back of the hollow cabnet has a large cut out for the back of the heat ex. We spent an hour fumbling with sealing these holes with what was on the truck. After all that the door gasket leaked. On high fire you could feal it sucking air all the way around the door. Im sure it would have leaked more withou the new design but it ceartanly was not enough. We added a secon foam gasket to the door and called it good. Despite all this I would not be surprized if it failed again inside of ten years. I hope someone from htp reads the wall. I will never by anything other than a phenex solar from then and then under protest. Great technoligy great customer service crapy product. I now use lochinvar and some times TT. I under stand saving a dime in pvc so you don't have to derect couple the intake to the blower. How many dimes did that warrenty boiler cost. Make a nice munchkin and a budget version for those that don't care.

Steve Whitbeck

door leakage

I agree with what you said.  But when the combustion air is piped directly to the blower everything goes through the blower and into the burner.

icesailor

Munchkin and pool chemicals:

Where in the Munchkin manuals does it say it is OK to install any gas equipment in a room with pool chemicals?

Big Will

no pool chemicals

Only pumps. And they do leak when they service the filter. I have to say that the whole point of derect vent apliances is to control the air quality and pressure that the burner and components are subjected to.

Big Will

Hoof in mouth

The space must be provided with combustion/

ventilation air openings correctly sized for

all other appliances located in the same space as

the Munchkin boiler. The boiler cover must be securely

fastened to the boiler to prevent boiler

from drawing air from inside the boiler room.

This is particularly important if the boiler is located

in the same room as other appliances.





copied out of the install manual for the boiler.



nothing about setting it up in a room with pool equipment.



Just making sure my foot is not in my mouth.

icesailor

Happy Feet:, Smiling Toes:

Not having  Munchkin manual in my hot hands when I wrote that, from reading other manuals, it has been burned in my ancient brain that poo; chemicals are a very bad thing around combustion equipment. Chlorine being the worst around aluminum. Restaurants have a particular problem when cleaners spray bleach based cleaning products into the areas under the top where there are a tribe of aluminum tubes for pilot gas lines. After a while, they corrode and leak. I have read the warning about locating equipment in pool chemicals far too many times to not take the issue seriously.

Older Munchkins were not all that tight in the cover department. They will easily leak air.

The Vitodens exhaust manuals cover intake/exhaust in salt environments. So much that they recommend not taking combustion air from outside. The chlorides in the air will seriously degrade the boiler and controls. Where I work, it is a serious problem with boilers that take their air from outside and are close to the salt water.

It matters not to me how you do it. I was only commenting on something to look at. As I remember, you were concerned about corrosion. I just know that Chlorides are a source of corrosion.    

Big Will

Agreed

about the pool chemicals and other corrosives I have seen things like that eat many machines. Unfortunately the basement mech. room has the boiler a furnace and the pool equipment all in the same room. I was thinking of telling the customer that we need to dig down the wall on the outside and core a hole into the basement for a ducted exhaust fan. The fresh air comes through a 30" X 60" louver but all but the pool heater are direct vent so I don't think it will pull the room negative.



All things said I think if I had used a Knight there would have never been a problem.