My next mission in life

Tinman

is to replace this failed Munchkin and most of its near boiler piping. For some reason the piping, pumps, mixing valve, zone valves, air separator were all installed at ceiling level. The existing P/S piping was closer to being right than most that I see. The new equipment will include a Lochinvar Knight Fire Tube with a 30 gallon buffer tank and Grundfos Alpha pumps. Not even close to Harvey's next project but I'll take it.

njtommy

Cant wait to see the finale pictures.

Tinman

I've got an entire 15' wide X 9' high adjacent wall to work with. Everything is coming down from the ceiling, where it would be difficult to service, to the wall. And the boiler is the WHN wall mount as well.

njtommy

Plenty of room to show off some nice pipe porn.

kcopp

Why did the Munchkin fail/ have issues?
What are the emitters upstairs? CI?

Tinman

My first time on the job was to offer solutions for the replacement. It's 12 years old. HX leaks.

Tinman

@kcopp - 3 fan coil zones and 3 radiant zones.

jpcallan

Is the Munchkin leaking boiler water or condensate?

Tinman

It's not leaking anything now. It was replaced in February. It was leaking boiler water.

njtommy

Well how did the job turn out?

Tinman

Not bad. This is it at about 95% complete. I think I just had to mount the Taco mixing valve.

njtommy

Looks great!

jpcallan

A very polished job. Well done. They should all be so photo-worthy.

Tinman

Thank you! We just found out yesterday that we won Lochinvar's VIP Installation Showcase on another job.

njtommy

That's awesome. I think I saw that on face book.

Paul S_3

beautiful job!!!! @Stephen Minnich

EBEBRATT-Ed

really nice job!!

It's a shame to have to replace equipment that isn't that old. Is this the future?

When I started in the 70s we replace old inefficient CI boilers that had lasted 50, 60, 80 years. Now we are replacing 10-15 year old equipment'

It's much more efficient but what's the point if the mod cons are 10 year boilers??

Guess we will have to wait and see.

Tinman

Mark alluded to it, annual maintenance is a must. Better installations wouldn't hurt either.

Solid_Fuel_Man

@Stephen Minnich if something were ever to happen to me and my family needed mechanical work done....you would be on the short list. I DO NOT say that lightly

Beautiful work as usual, truly one of the bar-setters here!

Taylor

Tom_133

Stephen,

As always looks great! Quick question, I noticed no isolation ball valves after the sentry zone valves, are you doing that because you should never have to remove them? I always have put them there, doesn't mean I need to, in fact I would love to get away from doing it.

Tinman

Tom - in my experience, a very high percentage of zone valve failure is in the head or actuator, assuming the body wasn't cooked when soldering. If it were W/R 1311''s, I'd have valves everywhere
: )

NY_Rob

Stephen- as others have already stated- beautiful job!

I noticed you have both Alpha's in "Auto" mode... does this work out for you normally?
I'm still trying to dial mine (alpha w/HTP UFT-80 mod-con) in and have been experimenting with different modes on the Alpha.

If you don't mind me asking- what kind of flow were you seeing at 10-11 Watts? I'm seeing 2gpm at 14 watts.

Thanks...

Solid_Fuel_Man

And...why is the actuator off the i-series 3 way? Inquiring minds must know!

I still love to see soldered copper as opposed to press, looks cleaner, as well as the strut and cushion clamps.

Taylor

Tinman

As I said earlier, the mixing valve wasn't mounted yet because the job wasn't finished yet when I snapped that pic. It just happened to be the first picture I saw when someone asked to see it. LWCO wasn't connected yet either. And yes, Auto has worked well for us across the board.

NY_Rob

^ thank you!

Solid_Fuel_Man

Oh whoops I didn't even see that you wrote that in your post...I was too enamoured with the install pic

Taylor

hvacfreak2

Fantastic job , looks well thought out and executed for real .