Time spent on Mod/Con maintenance

Tim McElwain

How much time are youspending on annual maintenance on Mod/Con Boilers? What I am asking is according to required annual cleaning and maintenance on these units what kind of time is it taking you?



I know we do not talk price here so I am not looking for a number, do you charge your normal hourly rate for these cleanings or are you offering some kind of maintenance contract? Sorry to post this again but my other posting got caught up on testing relief valves.

Plumdog_2

Time allowance for mod-con maintenance

I figure three hours for a pull-apart, heat exchanger cleaning, re-assembly, check and adjust with analyser, re-set the maintenance schedule if needed, and check over the system components. About the same for a good cleaning on a fin-tube or cast-iron boiler. It's done by the hour, parts additional.

kcopp

That's about...

right... for me too. It also depends on the boiler. The giononni type tend to be faster than say an W-M ultra. as the cracks and crevices are much tighter. Of course if the HO doesn't call you or puts it off...well that could be messy.

meplumber

Ditto

I usually allow 2 1/2 to 3 hrs for an annual service. That also depends on how long it has been between services. I had a guy open a Giononni the other day that looked pretty bad. He had 4 hrs on it and he is a quality tech.

hotpipe

most are done complete in two hours.

For units that are set up well, and documented already, then two hours is generally all that is needed. That is for the cleaning and inspection of the exchanger and burner components. Combustion analysis is included in that. Gas pressures are only checked if an inconsistency is found, although I usually check inlet psi out of habit.

One leaky relief valve tho can throw a wrench in the whole deal!!!

Steve Whitbeck

mod con's

It takes me on site about 1 1/2 hours. That includes disassembly and cleaning of the heat exchanger, calibrating the burner settings with a combustion analizer, flushing the drains and checking all of the controls. with the HTP and Lochinvar boilers I connect a laptop and check all history of operation. This is assuming a boiler that has been maintained last year. The smaller boilers take less than say a 399,000 BTU model.  I can't imagine spending 3 hours on site unless the boiler was plugged. I recently had to clean an ULTRA that had not been serviced in 8 years. It took me 4 hours.

Al Corelli_2

Same Same

About three hours.

Full disassemble, clean and setup with  the analyzer.

Munchies and Pinnacles get an appointment with the laptop for history lesson.

Gas pressures always checked, drains always flow checked.



Always. I hate going back.

lchmb

same here

Between 2 to 3 hours depending on the make of the unit, and whether it was done properly the year before...

Rod

Bump

Bump to the top

tim smith

maint on condensing boilers

2 - 3 hrs sometimes more if ignored on Giannoni or alum style heat xs,  1.5 to 2 on vertical fire tubes style in smaller residential versions say up to 200mbh.  Clean heat x, condensate traps, check expansion tank charge, clean fill strainer, check system pressure, flush burner, clean flame rod/electrode. Check combustion with analyzer. verify venting as much as feasible.  Check electrical contacts. Quite often clean lwco probe.  Fire up and test. spot check rads for air.

scott markle_2

Geononi

Is it realy necessary to open these things up once a year?

Most of my experience is with Viessmann wet back matrix burners and I find enough deposits in most of these to justify an anual cleaning, I recently opened a

Munchkin that had been neglected for years and found it to relatively clean. The munchkin is much trickier with it's fragil refractory and awkward burner assembly. I feel it could be doing more harm than good to open the combustion chamber unnecessaraly. I'v notice that lochinvar bases the cleaning interval on a delta between flue gas and return temperture. I like that they are providing a specific metric as opposed to a general recommendation. When the TT fire tube mod con first came out the word was it was self cleaning, I wish this was true because it looks like it's not very easy to get in to this thing and I've heard stories about the bolts snapping off and easily damaged refractory, not to mention that you need to leave a generous amount of space above the boiler to remove the burner. What kind of brush would one even use on these tubes, I think you would probably have to flood the chamber with acid to clean the tubes, my feeling is that initially there was a general lack of education and information being provided by some of the manufactures with regard to cleaning, perhaps they wanted to play down its importance so as not to scare off potential customers for these "new" machines. Seems like a lot of contractors completely ignore routine miantenence on mod cons.



My experience has shown the Viessmann single pass flattened coil (burning lp)requires annual cleaning (perhaps more so than the two pass style giononi hx or other burners) but it's built for serviceability (same with the gb, but I'm not sure how long these will hold up) on the Viessmann I use a phosphoric/citric acid past by stellar solutions the credit card trick (courtesy of mark e) schotch brite pads a water spray bottle and lots of elbow grease (tried a water pick last time but it seemed unnecessary) it takes me a couple of hours not including a combustion test.

kcopp

You make a good point....

about the annual cleaning. W/ some (munchkin and Smith GT to name just 2) have that refractory that could be damaged.... I have found that you don't need acid to cut the crud. just some elbow grease and a stiff bristle plastic brush w/ warm water. The Smith GC160, aka Embassy Onex/ Peerless 160Combi specifically instruct to use only water and no chemicals. I have one LP mod/con boiler out there that is going on 3 years and is going to get cleaned this spring...Ill get back to you on how that looks. If its on Natural gas every other year would work in most cases.

Plumdog_2

frequency of cleaning

I've been making judgement calls about the recommended period between cleanings based on the time elapsed between the last cleaning (or more frequently the date of install) and how badly plugged the exchanger has gotten. Saw one that had an inch of "coffee grounds" on the bottom third of the coils, moderately plugged between coils. Saw one (used for pool heater, setpoint 150, runs 25/7) nearly like new after several years. Some look pretty clean until you take a mirror and bright light and inspect the gap between the coils; and these can be clogged 70-80%; resulting in flooding and other no-heat situations. I'm talking Gionanni-based exchangers. Wall-hung units are far easier to clean than the floor units. Some installers take every available short-cut to hasten time on the job, creating major headaches for future service. Been getting a lot of re-pipe and control work as a result of servicing these units. Saw exactly ONE perfect install so far, a beautiful job done by one of the luminaries here at the wall!