Help! Vent Damper Failed - Can I override to get us through the night?

Nick_37

A quite tale of woe as a result of my three year old son turning our boiler on and off and managing to kill the vent damper. Obviously we now are without heat. Is there an easy way to override the damper so we can have some heat to get us through the night. The damper has four wires going into our Penco boiler. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Captain Who

I would imagine you could disconnect the motor from the shaft and manually open the damper and secure it in the full open position. You would lose some efficiency but I think that should work.

BobC

Have you tried plugging and unplugging the molex connector, it might just be a loose connection.

Also you might be able to manually open the damper and allow the system to operate with an open damper, NO NOT TRY AND DEFEAT THE DAMPER SWITCH WITHOUT LOCKING THE DAMPER OPEN!

Hopefully someone will jump in and tell you how to safely open that damper.

Bob

Fred

I think if you look under the boiler hood, there should be a spill switch that should have a little red reset button on it. Follow the wiring from the Damper and you should find it. If it has a reset on it, push it and it just might reset the Damper. It goes without saying, it's not safe to let kids play with any boiler controls or the Thermostat. "I'm just sayin"

Robert O'Connor_12

What kind (brand damper) is it?
If it's a FieldControl , manually rotate the damper to the open position. There is a manual hold open switch on the side.
if your looking to make sure that's the problem, with it held open, you can jumper 2&3. If it fires, then that's the problem.
If it doesn't fire, then the motors bad.

ChrisJ

Robert O'Connor said:

What kind (brand damper) is it?
If it's a FieldControl , manually rotate the damper to the open position. There is a manual hold open switch on the side.
if your looking to make sure that's the problem, with it held open, you can jumper 2&3. If it fires, then that's the problem.
If it doesn't fire, then the motors bad.

Hi Robert,
How do you manually rotate a FC damper? I have one and want to know just in case I end up in that situation.

Robert O'Connor_12

Your really not suppose to force it open but if it doesn't turn when giving it 24v, you simply (and gently) turn the blade till it's parallel with flue. Many times it will keep turning endlessly round & round which is clear indication it's bad

gennady

Usually vent damper gets hot and common from transformer to power it up, then one of the wires is the 24V from the thermostat, and another wire is to power boiler limit circuit. Also there is switch on the damper motor, auto/open. move it to open position and if you are lucky, you will have heat. if not post here and you can reconnect some wires to get you trough the night.

Captain Who

Yeah like gennady said. Mine is a Effikal Model No. RVGP-PC-7BKF and it has a switch on the back of motor housing. There is an Automatic damper operation setting and a Hold Open setting.

Robert O'Connor_12

If I'm not mistaken, Effikal is FieldControls
so basically the same thing.

Captain Who

Apparently there was a recall of some of these Effikal vent dampers. You have to check the serial number to see if yours is affected. Apparently it was on ones that were sold in retail stores around 2007 - 2008. Since mine was installed around 2004 it is not affected:

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2009/Gas-Vent-Dampers-Recalled-by-Effikal-Due-to-Carbon-Monoxide-Hazard/

Captain Who

Here's a link to a manual and there is a troubleshooting table:

http://fieldcontrols.com/pdfs/46352700.pdf