Tekmar Controls

Tim McElwain

I am involved with conducting a survey and need some help from all of you.



What I am looking for is strictly residential use of Tekmar Controls. I am interested in the combinations that you have been installing on systems. I just need control numbers no piping diagrams or wiring needed, I will take care of that on my end.



You can post here or send to my e-mail gastc@cox.net

nicholas bonham-carter

Tekmar survey

I do not use them because they lack the following:

1:wireless or power line connections (such as the old radio shack plug and talk intercoms) old buildings such as use hydronic/steam heat are difficult to hard wire for extra sensors.

2:programmability by connection to a windows or apple computer-most people have familiarity with computer software now, and would be less confused than by learning a new device.--NBC

NYplumber

Misuse

Tekmar controls appear to be improperly used and incorrectly applied from what I see in the field. In fact a lot of the true potential and features are not being used at all. A great example of this is a 667 snow melt control that just had the slab sensor connected and none of the mixing sensors. The home owner asked for a 24hr timer to be installed after we repair a leak. Customer service is also nonexistent (or i dont have the correct tekmar branch phone number).



Tim, what is the study about?

Zman

Tekmar

Tim,

Tekmar is very common in the Colorado Mountains.



It is rare to see a snowmelt system that is not a tekmar. The 664 or it's predecessor is most common. The 667 is incredibly powerful as you can limit the delta t to the exchanger. This prevents the snowmelt from taking more than it's share of the boiler output. The 090 or 094 sensors are always used.



The higher end radiant jobs often go with the TN4 system. The common setup would have a TN4 t stat with a 335 zone control and a 420,422, or 423 boiler/ mixing controller. The 423 is great for multi temp and twin modulating boiler applications.



The only complaint with the above snowmelt and heating controllers is that they do not give each other feedback or priority.You can't' give the heating and DHW 100% priority over snowmelt.



There are a few gateway systems with the mini mac, they are not common.

I have not seen any TN2 home controls yet.



The setpoint, mixing, and multi stage multi boiler controllers are very commonly used in stand alone applications.



Very few of the controls require a computer.



I have had only excellent experience with customer service. They have been helpful with design and troubleshooting.



I had a very demanding customer that owed me a lot of money. He refused to pay any of it until I worked out a couple of glitches. I spend 4 hours with tech support and solved the issue. The customer was happy and paid that job and gave me several more.



Carl

SWEI

Good Stuff Overall

But too many SKUs.  Often seems to take several of them to solve a seemingly simple design issue.  DDC is almost always less expensive.  Wish they offered proportional zone outputs and supported other than floating valve outputs.



Like the new 400 series tN2 house controls.  Really nice to be able to use existing 2-wire stat runs.

Tim McElwain

The purpose is for a manual I am

putting together. I have pretty much covered all the other systems except Tekmar. The problem is there are so many options available that it would fill volumes. I wanted to narrow it down to a few of their systems that are typically used on residential heating, including two stage and mod/cons.

NYplumber

Tekmar 261

Good evening Tim, glad to hear more is in the works. I have also used a Tekmar 261 to control two boilers off odr. It works well on that system. The injection controllers are also used often on high and low temp jobs where a 4way mixing valve doesnt fit the bill.

JohnNY

We use lots of tekmar.

We install 20 or more 269 steam controllers every year. Aside from that, it's the 260-series, or now the 274, for hydronic applications.

Ironman

Tekmar

Very reliable. I can't recall having or seeing a component failure. Tech support has been very helpful and quite often necessary when designing more complex systems with multiple controls. They have extensive literature and some very informative "essays", but quite often a call to tech support is necessary in component selection -especially with the new products.



We use a lot of the 356 injection mixing controls as well as their set point controls.



A lot of Taco's smart controls are Tekmar's made for them.

nicholas bonham-carter

No panacea

Dan makes an excellent point in today's newsletter:

These controls cannot overcome the steam system management problems of badly maintained and out of balance systems (think cruise control on a car with dragging brakes!). In some cases, they may make the situation worse!

In the testimonials of other control manufacturers, the improvements in fuel efficiency, and comfort have been more the result of venting/pressure improvements than the new control installation. Also, they allow encourage the use of short term setbacks, which I believe do not save any fuel, or contribute to improved comfort. --NBC