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Henry
Henry Member Posts: 998
in THE MAIN WALL
I got an aggravated call from a contractor rebuilding a school. It has two boiler rooms as it was expanded in the 80s. We replaced the boilers with FTXL 600. We changed out all the rads and put in Danfoss thermostatic valves. We did not put the heads on as the walls were not rebuilt. He was winning two weeks ago about the heat in the construction offices. We sent a plumber to install two heads with remote sensors. He was very upset today so I went there myself. One sensor was hidden under some plywood and the other on the concrete floor. The Gyprock guys just ripped them out. I fixed both and nearly got burned on the piping. It was 55F and the boilers should be around 90F. As I drove off, I saw that they removed all the brick in back of the school and were the boiler rooms were located. Bingo, they tore off the outdoor sensors! I told the contractor to shut the systems and we will be back to install new sensors once the new insulation and brick is up, at his costs.

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  • GroundUp
    GroundUp Member Posts: 1,909
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    Oh boy.... Hope they don't give you any grief! Had some laborer disconnect a system sensor during demo and let it hang in the 75 degree mechanical room last winter over the weekend. Arrived on Monday and did my daily walk through, noticed the piping was unusually hot so I walked down to talk to the boiler operator and got into the automation to see what the heck and found the system sensor was reading 75. Ran up to the penthouse to find the dangling sensor reading room temp and the temp gauge reading 228 degree water (140 setpoint, tube and shell exchangers off 12lb steam with the controls wide open). Once it cooled and contracted, every single grooved coupling in the entire system was cooked and leaking. 2 entire floors of an occupied hospital. That one cost the GC just a shake over half a million bucks to fix everything that one guy ruined by pulling the sensor. Originally was installed in the 80's and relied on a single sensor to operate the whole system, so needless to say the new system we installed has a lot of redundancy and alarms
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,545
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    @GroundUp ,

    The older vic stuff was rated 235 some of it now is rated 250 I believe.

    I have had the same situation anytime vic goes above 200 your heading for trouble. It always happens on jobs with converters. Boilers you can set the limit below 200.

    I suppose we should all put a control in the hot water to kill the steam valve it the water gets over 190. Spence valve sometimes overshoot. usually once hat happens the system stays tight when its hot. when it cools it becomes a rain shower
  • GroundUp
    GroundUp Member Posts: 1,909
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    @EBEBRATT-Ed we actually had the Vic rep out 3-4 weeks ago and he was showing off a new product for steam! I was too busy eating my lunch to remember the numbers but it was pretty impressive nonetheless. Typically the water never gets above 160 in our converter jobs and honestly this was the only mishap I've seen so far but I'm sure it happens fairly regularly. I know after the replacement here (2 new exchangers, basically a whole new mechanical room) there were 2 HL for each converter (1/3-2/3 setup) and a whole mess of redundant sensors in the water side. All Belimo motors, pretty serious stuff in comparison to many. Once in awhile I run across leakers after a cool-down but they usually seal back up after it gets hot again. Vic seems to do really well with temp swings but the Gruvlok couplings we've been having a lot of trouble with lately

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