Lochinvar 085 problems

keyote

I bought one of the early versions and think its a lemon but loch seems reluctant to admit anything.since im more of airside guy i have allowed them to send me an numerous wild goose chases that made no sense troubleshooting the numerous problems.
The first problem was this noise it made on starting a run, it didn't make it the first year that i noticed and seemed to increase in frequency and intensity as the second season began. first they said i had air in my system despite having vents at the manifolds the DHW indirect the supply and the return near boiler pipes including one being a monster caleffi dicalmag. after a week of replacing and moving etc there was never any air noise continued. By accident i caught it doing it when my hand was near the vent tee on the condensate discharge and realized the noise was flue gas being pushed out the condensate vent. So after i insisted to them this was actually happening ( which they still insist is impossible but i have on video) they said i needed to do annual service, now i knew i probably didn't because we have excellent city gas and water and its only run one low temp radiant manifold for a few months then summer hot water, but i dutifully spent a couple hundred on gaskets and ignitors etc and tore a 11 month old $5000 boiler apart after watching all the service videos and reading and rereading the manuals. It was clean as a whistle. but i brushed it out and blew out the $200 stainless soupcan "burner" and checked all the numbers for flame volts and flue to water temp etc. noise continues along with other problems that had also been increasing. Then they said it was a bird or mouse in my vents so i took it all apart and no, then they said my vent was not the right length but it was. then they said i had not primed my condensate trap which was retarded since it primes as it runs and once its been running and emitting condensate which it did it was primed and because i had primed it at commision according to instructions but i took it apart again and found the sticky tape gasket had disolved and i glued it on with silicone and hoped the gasket floating was really the problem keeping hte ball from repeating, but that wasn't the problem. But it did get me thinking hard about the design of this ball floating on a circular waterfall and the force of the fan and combustion air and flue gas and how that's a stupid design and might be the problem. then i heard many said the range of combustion analysis was way too broad and the real number was dialed into about the exact center (9.2-9.5) and asked them to please confirm the whisper number but they wouldn't, But did say the revision A manual that shipped with the unit was now up to revision J band the range had tightened half a percent. Even so the setting I was shipped with was still withing the range though near the cusp. i was I also knew they had shipped many with a bad factory setting early on but back when I did my first analysis they also wouldn't confirm that was so and maintained that if it was within the range in the manual it was good so i left the sitting alone since it seemed to operate fine while other boilers i knew of were having problems out of the box. But with these problems developing I began to wonder if maybe it was the analysis but like i said they wouldnt encourage that train of thought, instead they said it was probably my gas pressure. Again like the annual service i knew this was unlikely as we have excellent gas here ans the unit is the first branch off a 1/1/4'' line. But I dutifully bought a digital manometer and tested it under static pressure under load and under load with other high BTU appliance running ( tankless DHW) the pressure across unit was well within specs.
By this time i had heard rumours of bad gas valves and bad computers and had had such horrific experience with their conxus technology i wasnt surprised to hear their computer module might be problematic, i tried delicately to get them to confirm this was a possibility but of course they wouldn't. So I bought a combustion analyzer and did a new analysis and found i was still reading the commission numbers and still technically within spec but on the edge, and while i couldn't figure out how the mix being off could cause the condensate trap to not trap i decided to adjust to the whisper number right in the midpoint of the range. Voilla the noise cleared up. or so i thought actually it cleared up 99%. since i now had the less problematic problems with the boiler to work on i turned to them and am still on them sand think they are all related but cant really trust loch at this point.
hers the other two problems also that didnt happen as far as i know the first year. flame fails. it will make four attempt then lock out and needs to be manually reset cant use the $1000 conxus for that or much else actually. but usually what happens is it will lock out again and again 4- 8 times thats 16-32 flame fails in a row. watching it do it it seems to be the voltage either doesnt ramp up as soon as it ignites or does and then quickly decreases causing it to go out. Not really clear how that works but watching it seems like the igniter is supposed to remain hot or high volt and instead drop and the flame dies and ignition is failed.
this problem will happen regularly say every evening just as im going to bed several days in a row and then it wont happen at all for a week or two or three then begin happening again.I suppose it could also be the gas valve. the igniter by the way was fine during maintenance i bought new parts but it was fine so i merely wiped it a tad with a scrubby hardly at all.
this problem is further complicated and exacerbated by another problem also that wasn't happening as far as i know last year. delta T lockouts. last year this unit was great it would mod down to the teens no problem it would delicately dance its modulation as the incoming and outgoing water temps changes as the water flowed through the loops. now what happens is after its been idle for a bit the water cools and when it gets the heat call it will take several minutes to circulate to the fourth floor through all those loops and back down. now the boiler decides to immediately mod up to close to 100%and as the DT starts climbing it doesn't modulate hardly at all, sometimes towards the last couple seconds it will mod down to say 85% meanwhile the DT is flying past 25 30 40 45' and finally past its trigger for a lockout which it sometimes exceeds by 20 degrees its heating so fast and ignoring the dt its dt 60 before it gets what going on and begins to sloooowly mod dn and bang dt lockout.this all happens in less than a minute so incoming water is still 70 80 even 90 it repeats this about six times until the heated water finally makes it all the way back down to the cellar. now when this happens during a period when its also doing flame fails there's no chance. i have taken to having a shower when it flame fails so the first call it has to meet when its trying to work out its flame fail problem is at least a long steady 100% mod call, so it only has to deal with one problem at a time.

keyote

Continued ...
I suspect its true they had some early problems with the gas valves and the control modules early in the production cycles but don't want to be on the record admitting this.But Im at a disadvantage this being my only modcon experience.sadly i really loved this boiler at first and would have totally understood a new model having some bugs to work out if they had been up front about them.if i had had a plumber do all the work I have done trouble shooting this it would have cost more than the boiler since three had no idea what a combustion analysis was and the fourth wanted $600 to do one i went ahead and did my own work. Theres nothing wrong with my install which i posted pics of and obviously none of these issues has a thing to do with piping and it once worked fine. I am also afraid these issues have hurt my burner though cant be sure i blew and vacuumed it as instructed but none of their literature was clear about what to look for and since its $200 i put it back in. the flames color is ok when its not acting crazy but i think its a bit ragged and didn't used to be but i could be getting paranoid in fact im sure this boiler has me totally paranoid at this point its scary but i dont have 5k to replace it right now and its winter in a couple weeks i will and winter will be over, thing is i havint gone ape sht on loch yet because im unsure of myself but from what i'm watching i think it has both valve and control issues and they are lying about the combustion numbers having a wide margin of error.I think possibly the burner is now a bit worn prematurely and would not feel thorough if it too wasnt replaced frankly having the HX DT running at 60 degrees six times for every call cant be doing it any good so thats practically the entire boiler has been damaged or is malfunctioning. But loch seems to have the attitude that they are perfect and all problems arise form others stupidity and if you want to argue that with them then you must pay their approved plumbers thousands of dollars to confirm this to them maybe. it will be cheaper to be a Veisman and spend my life putting loch out of business with videos of its boiler doing its thing. But maybe I really am an idiot can anyone fault something i have done, something i have not checked, something anything?
Here's a question how can any boiler be designed so it will pump flue gases into your home every time it starts up ( I Assume because) because its combustion mix is off a bit. Oh i understand how the mix can produce bad gases and all. but in a sealed mod con with the combustion air and flue pipe penetrating the outside of the wall I would think the worst will happen is poor or no operation and bad gasses outside the house, not the gases being able to bypass the condensate float system. Think about that because the mix is off what? the density of the flue gasses changed and the calculation of the static pressure of the fan the gas pressure and the weight of the float ball all got out of balance and the flue gasses were then able to get under the ball floating on the circular waterfall of condensate? thats a crazy design then if that can happen.

Tinman

I didn't read your entire post(s) but got the gist of it.

I have a boatload of Knights installed from KBNs to KHNs to WHN 5:1s to WHN 10:1s. Not a single problem. Maybe a second set of eyes on it would help?

keyote

Thanks for the look at the problem. yes i have read many of your and others here i respect opinions on knights and as i said was very enthused until i had to spend most of my winter in the cellar. Been pretty broke this winter but got desperate enough once i realized i was dealing with flue gas on one issue, but then had several "plumbers" look at me like cows when i asked about doing a combustion analysis. Im a tin knocker foreman of the skyscraper variety so while not a plumber i spent thirty years at mechanical job meetings and know enough to be dangerous one guy loch suggested wanted $600 for just a combustion analysis i had done the first one with an analyzer i borrowed but at that point loch was insisting it was the annual maintenance and i just feared i was going to drop 2k i didnt have into it with no clear answer and frankly wanted the experience of doing the teardown when i learned they expected this annually with mod cons. seriously whats economical about a boiler that needs a $1500 annual maintenance.

yes steph i think soon i will be getting a pile of money and will probably pay whoever lochinvar nominates to be the arbiter of whether its a lemon or im an idiot. but meantime thought id give one last try at asking the wall for any thoughts.

One thing i could ask you is about the burner inspection. Loch university was not specific about what exactly one is looking for when inspecting it. I assumed i would notice if it looked bad and it seemed ok. it did seem to be a bit denser than i would have imagined and wondered if it had built up deposits that were hard to notice. I mean after blowing and vacuuming the hell out of it nothing much seemed to be coming off it but looking through it for light while there was light i thought there would be more light. it was so expensive i decided against replacing it without having a good reason to same with ignitors looked fine like a spark plug on a well tuned engine light coloring only.
frankly im a bit paranoid also because self installs a a big nono around my little town unless youre a licenses plumber

Rich_49

Maybe one of the guys from The rep agency would come by and throw an analyzer on it for ya . Try to make that happen . i believe Wallace Eannace reps Loch and the guy's name may be Jerry Katz .

keyote

Thanks rich to you mean a combustion analyzer? Not that im an expert but i did re set the mix with an analyzer after the annual it seemed to help one issue. but yeah im going to have to get someone Loch trusts to arbitrate this, they have been pretty obstinate they do no wrong thus far.i bought it online through supply h..... so maybe im an orphan. but thanks im going to lok into that angle