Polaris water heater... What's their deal?

wcs5050

New customer called about failed ignition. Honestly I have never seen one of these in person. He says it does heat and hot water. I suspect this is going to be set up open loop to a hydronic air handler. If so, should it have a circulator exercising relay to prevent stagnation?

Did Polaris ever make a divided Combi unit with separate water sides or were they always a single tank?

Are blower and board failures common on these?

Unit is ~12 yrs old. Anyone know where to find lit/wiring schematic?

Model#. Pdg102-345100-2n ??? Think I got this wrong. No good hits on Google.

hot_rod

Typically they were used in combo DHW/ heating systems.

As a dedicated heater to radiant they worked very well, before we had modulating equipment, their tank capacity was the buffer. Price was reasonable also.

True they had some electronic and ignitor glitches, the factory had great phone in tech support and they always sent upgraded components, often at no charge. Maybe because we had a good dealer that sold hundreds of these to commercial jobs, they kept up to date on issues..

I don't recall a combi unit, occasionally they had plate HX retrofitted to them.

Did you try the tech support call line?

12 years as a DHW and heat source, may be time to come up with a plan B?

wcs5050

Agreed on plan b. However I think people are likely to bite on a 25 yr replacement than a 12 yr. Have not visited job yet. Owner seems confident and knowledgable about what he has, but needs diag to avoid parts changing. He did mention there was good tech support. We'll see what I find. Thx

hot_rod

I have a pretty good troubleshooting guide I could scan and e-mail. It's 2001 version, maybe it still could help. About 10 pages.

Ironman

Could just be a bad HSI. If so, make sure the tank is not leaking down onto it. If that's the case, the party's over.

Harvey Ramer

Check the flame sensor as well. Sometimes all that is needed is to gently clean it and everything returns to normal.

wcs5050

It was a loose 1/4 inch stake-on neutral wire connection from blower to board. It was like it floated right off from blower vibration. Of the 30 or so similar terminals, 5 were wiggly. Blower neutral was only only with no bite at all. Once it fired off I couldn't believe how quickly it satisfied. It did 34 gallons to 140degF in 5 min! Thx for the tips because I'm sure I'll be back. First open loop heating set up I've seen. Not popular here in MA.

OuterCapeOilguy

When I lived in St. Louis County, Mo., I installed one of these in my house. 50-gal. Polaris, with the side taps piped to a coil in the 1960 Afco hi-boy furnace (with a cracked hx, gas burner taken out of service) for main floor heat and to a coil in a home-made air handler for the basement studio and office, powered by a salvaged B & G 100-series pump. The system worked flawlessly, and in 15 years had one problem-a bad hot-surface ignitor, which failed after 14 years. At the time I moved, the combustion blower bearings were starting to get noisy. When I switched from direct gas heat to the Polaris, my gas bills dropped by 1/3.

OuterCapeOilguy

I should add that the only flaw in this "flawless" system was my choice of B & G zone valves; the end switches made very poor contact resulting in occasional chattering of the circulator relay. I've never used them since.