How to replace a Honeywell zone valve with a different manufacturer's valve

HomerJSmith

Entran rubber tubing, you say?
https://www.hubbellmech.com/entran/entran-remediation-options

Santa Fe, NM Entran remedial options.

HomerJSmith

If the 2 amp fuse keeps blowing and it is the correct value established by the manufacturer, then replace it with the same value in a slo-blow fuse instead of a fast-blow fuse. That may solve your problem. If the slo-blow blows then look at my earlier post on the fuse problem.

mcho

Hmmm. Once again you are quite right @HomerJSmith. I am a moron! I should have seen that because it is so obvious. I thought I had two brain cells left but apparently I am down to one. I was confusing the transformer in the schematic with the auxiliary 40VA transformer that has no fuse and only powers the valves. I need to concentrate a little harder. Maybe some medication would help...

I have already ordered slow (time delay) fuses and I also ordered a small breaker box for a DIM rail that I can attach to the boiler (same specs as the fuses). Good to have when I run out of fuses on the coldest day of the year. Better than the aluminum foil that I had to use last time! I also ordered a new relay yesterday as well.

Someone has really butchered the wiring. I did not notice previously that someone has cut the wires to the damper and they are simply tied in place. The boiler is not supposed to work without that but I see a jumper where there is not one on the schematic. I am going to ask the technician to rewire everything back to factory specifications.

The damper box looks awful because the furnace has run at the wrong temperature (too low because of the lack of a secondary system and bypass valve) so long that everything is almost corroded away and probably not working and thats why they jumpered it. I will have to order one of those as well.

By the way I have Entron 3 not Entron 2.

HomerJSmith

Entran 3 link

http://www.classactionsnews.com/consumer/goodyear-tire-defective-radiant-heating-system-class-action-lawsuit

Leave the customer broke and crying is my motto! hahaha

mcho

@HomerJSmith Yeah I saw that a few months ago and talked to the head attorney in charge of the law suit. They lost that law suit in a summary dismissal because there was not enough evidence to support the claims. And I have had no problems that I know about yet related to the tubing.

HomerJSmith

Get the boiler bypass working by all means especially if the return water is less than 130 deg.

The way I do it is: I use a Taco I-series mixing valve with a fixed setpoint and sensor. I set the valve to 135 deg. and power it off the transformer running the ZVs. The connection is made between the pump outlet and the boiler return.

HomerJSmith

If the vent damper motor wires are cut it is probably because the vent motor isn't working. If the vent motor doesn't open the vent the boiler won't turn on.

You don't really need a vent damper. It just there to trap the heat energy in the boiler rather than sending that energy up the flue. Saves fuel costs.

mcho

LAARS says to do it as in the attached picture. Would I use two of those TACO valves as in the diagram?

i

I have seen on pictures of systems here that have circulator pumps on each zone. But I do not see any control valves. Can circulator pumps be used instead of a control valves? Because I think that would really improve the the heating in a house this big. Would I still want the mixing valves? I do understand the electrical consequences of so many circulator pumps and I would not do that work myself.

mcho

Actually never mind. I have to have all this torn out and we need to start over. They have the entire system reversed. I just realized for the first time that the circulator is pushing water into the outlet instead of the inlet of the furnace. Everything else is also on the wrong loop. Water is flowing through the boiler in the wrong direction!!

My guess is the installers could not read English. None of the knuckleheads that are supposed to be experts that came out here noticed it or mentioned it either while they replaced parts for 6 times their actual cost.

A few years ago I tried to find the builder so I could take some sort of legal action (not just because of the heating). Its against the law and a crime to not build according to the code if you are a licensed general contractor. It took me about 4 months but I eventually tracked him down. He had sold his company and was now a priest to atone for his past evilness. Naturally I did not sue him!!

These are stories that can only happen in the land of enchantment!

HomerJSmith

No, you would only use one. Forget the balancing valves. In this picture the I-series would be bridging between the outlet of the boiler and inlet to the pump with the sensor on the outlet of the pump.

Do you have a primary/secondary system as portrayed in the drawing? How are you regulating the temperature in the secondary piping? 110 deg return water seems low to me and promotes flue gas condensation.

This is really a baseboard configuration and not an infloor radiant configuration that runs on lower temperatures. Some- where, I think, there has to be a mixing valve to create the low temps. With infloor, you can't configure your system based on this drawing.


Also, the primary system must be separated hydronically from the secondary system. In the drawing it is done with closely spaced tees. The closer the better.

We have no idea how your sys is set up.

HomerJSmith

Look, I don't know what the pressure loss thru your boiler is, but I suspect it is very low being like a mini-fin, so it probably doesn't make a lot of difference if the pump is on the supply side or the discharge side. It just need to pump in the correct direction thru the boiler. It make a difference on the connection of the supply and return of the boiler as to how it is connected to the secondary sys piping. How the supply and return of the secondary is pumped (direction) in relation to the closely spaced tees.

mcho

That is the one that most closely matches (but not exactly) what I have except that I added a ball valve between the inlet and outlet.

The specification for Enron 3 is that the water temperature be no greater than 130 degrees but preferably around 120. So they had set the temperature of the boiler to 120 degrees. I raised it to 150 degrees because I was aware that that was too low a temperature for the boiler. The exhaust stack and the flue damper are completely rusted and falling apart from the condensation. Don't worry I have a CO monitor in the room and it is reading zero. The boiler as a lovely flame since I replaced the burners and orifices with the correct ones.

None of the name plate for the boiler can be read anymore for the same reason.

I'll send an update after the NATE-certified tech comes out and takes a look at it. Hopefully I can get Keefer Radar to come out and look at it also.