Lochinvar fan life

beezer

My Lochinvar WH80 is about 10 years old and plenty of run time (Alaska winters). anyway, it sounds like it is starting to make noises. I believe it is the burner fan, sometimes worse when it gets into a harmonic with one of the circ pumps. anyway, I was just curious what the life is on these fans. mine currently has 24,600 hours.

ps.... new fan on the way

kcopp

Probably at the end of its life... You have done well. Certainly cross contamination of combustion air will shorten its life.

hot_rod

I think it’s the start stop cycles that are the toughest on motors, probably more so then hours of run time

TomS

The fan is actually pretty rugged. It is an ECM motor that seems well built so I would be surprised if it is the fan due to a mechanical malfunction making the noise. I had my Knight shutdown on a fan overspeed. So I actually tore one apart to try and see what happened. The circuit board on the fan was completely covered with a heavy coating of epoxy which made troubleshooting nearly impossible. Basically the computer tells the fan what speed to run at, and the electronics on the fan adjusts the speed accordingly. As an error check the fan sends the actual speed it is running at back to the computer. If the computer determines that is not the speed it requested it shuts down the boiler.

beezer

thanks guys. I welcome any other thoughts & opinions, etc

beezer

OK.... 4 year update....

the fan is still working fine (and I have a new spare, in storage). I did have to change a couple circulating pumps. the only thing that has failed besides the 2 circ pumps is one sensor. I don't remember which but got advice here and put in a fixed resistor (about 10k) to make it run while parts were on the way. that was 4-5 years ago

all I can say is... what a good little boiler. dang... it just keeps on chuggin'

so... my question is.... what parts to stock for the future? in the last 2 years I have changed the burner gasket seals and insulated pads in the burner can. what I need is for someone that knows Lochinvar to tell me what parts I really need to stock for when this thing croaks..... what is its failure mode?

we all know it will be fine until mid December when its below zero on a Friday night

Lochinvar WH 80

HomerJSmith

I would think that a boiler running at 40% of its firing rate would last longer than one running at 100% in terms of fan RPM. What do you think? Eventually bearing grease gets used up. Gas reversion is certainly a fan killer especially with blowers with plastic impellers. I agree with hot_rod that the culprit is probably short cycling.

Every thing has a life cycle rate.

pedmec

ignitor, flame sensor, burner door gasket, and rear firewall. we change the igniters and flame sensors on all our pm's. the rear firewall tends to start to fall apart a little as time goes by. not to expensive to have available. and a burner door gas because when you open it up the gasket can get damaged.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@beezer

I don't know about Loch but a lot of Mod-Con mfgs parts start to get scarce after 10-15 years so get what you can while still available

Dave Carpentier

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

I don't know about Loch but a lot of Mod-Con mfgs parts start to get scarce after 10-15 years so get what you can while still available

Thats the kind of thing that would "swear me off" of a brand for life. 10 years is way too short for major appliances. We need to stop throwing things "away" after such a short period.
The bean counters dont often think about brand loyalty.

beezer

I've change a few of the soft parts. its still running fine. it almost never shut off last winter because it started going below zero (F) in late October!!?? cold all winter long. it never missed a beat. the spring cleaning showed more clinkers than usual but not surprised

EDIT - I just realized that I did not actually post this response back in June. see update below

beezer

I replaced the fan/motor assembly 2 weeks ago because I thought the old fan was finally crappin out (36,000 hours on it)(had the new one in storage 6-7 years) anyway... the noise the boiler was making wasn't from the fan. it acts normal at low fire settings but really yowls on high fire... like 85-90% or more. sounds like a propeller in there. I think it is the "fog horn" issue I've seen referenced here.

I did the install about 14-15 years ago and had it checked at startup by the plumbers/techs I bought the system from. Since then it has run pretty much flawless. I do the burner clean & the maintenance in the book every spring. I've replaced most of the gaskets & soft parts over the years, based on condition. the guys I got the system from disappeared 10 years ago. there is no Lochinvar service contractor in Alaska as far as I can tell

also, the boiler randomly has shut down a couple times in the last month. the data logging shows no errors. I have a new flame sensor on the way... other thoughts?

mattmia2

How many times in there was a new combustion analysis performed?

beezer

none (yet)... its always worked like day one up until this spring. obviously thats the next step

beezer

I did the combustion check. O2 and CO2 numbers are good - .1 from the listed target values, and well within range. CO is 63 (<200 listed). I have another problem dealing with parts & will make a different post

EdTheHeaterMan

Lochinvar fan life

I'm not a Lochinvar fan, but if my distributer sold them I could have been a life long Fan.

I am a Crown Boiler Fan! but that might be off topic!

tim smith

I installed the very 1st production model of Lochinvar firetube boiler, still going strong with annual maintenance and igniter replacement every 3-5 yrs. Been rock solid. No major parts, ever. We have installed I think close to a 100 and been very pleased.
Tim