Pressuretrol not Cutting out

PSawchuk

Hello Everyone, Thanks ahead of time for your feedback. I recently purchased a home with a single line steam system. I hired a tech who I frankly am not sure if he really knows steam.
We had been having problems first getting heat through out the house and in balancing our system. He installed Heat-timers Varivalves as well as installing a main vent. I also decided to install insulation in the basement—surprisingly there was none and I was loosing a lot of heat. The insulation pushed the heat up to the second and third floors getting us the heat that was missing there. This then created the opposite problem too much heat on my top floors and not enough on the bottom floor. It was also at this time that we started getting water spitting out of our radiator vents. It started with just one. The tech looked at it and cleaned out the pigtail and said that the pressuretrol might need to be replaced. The next day we had more radiators spitting out water so he then replaced the pressuretrol as well as the low water cut off—he noticed that the boiler was almost empty. 40 mins after he left the safety valve kicked on—I noticed that the pressure was up to 16 PSI. I couldn't reach the tech. So I've had to manually turn on and shut down the system to keep the house warm while not over pressurizing the system. Is it possible that the new pressuretrol is defective? This is possible but unlikely. I suspect that the system may have been running at too high of a pressure to begin with and thus the leaks from the vents. The only other thought I had is if the cutoff mechanism that the pressuretrol operates is defective or the wiring is not correct. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Fred

First, know that that guy doesn't know steam and get rid of him before he causes some serious harm.
Then Post some pictures here so we can see exactly how the system is set up. Pictures all around the boiler and the piping above it.
Next, get rid of those Heat Timers vents. They are way too aggressive and will spit and make it impossible to balance the system. Use Vent-Rite #1's or Hoffman #1A's or Maid-O-Mist.
Either the Pressuretrol isn't wired right or is not wired in series with the other safeties, like the LWCO. If the boiler was near empty, it sounds like neither are wired correctly, in series.
Make sure all radiators have enough pitch (back to the supply valve) so that water can run back down that pipe and back to the boiler.
Most importantly, use the "Find a Contractor" tab at the top of this page and see if there is a Steam Pro in your area that can fix things for you.

Jamie Hall

What @Fred said. ASAP. In the meantime, get your tech to rewire the safeties, if he can figure how to do so, so that you can get some heat. If he can't figure out how to do it, show shim the door instead.

nicholas bonham-carter

What’s your location? Use the find a contractor button here to find a real steam pro in your area.
What may have happened with the pressuretrol is having been turned down too low, so that the linkage became disconnected, and dysfunctional, or if the LWCO is not shutting down the boiler, then the problem could be electrical. Download the installation manual for the boiler, and see if either the tech, or a good electrician can follow the wiring diagram and correct the wiring. Both safeties are essentially switches and will interrupt power (either 24 volts or 110), to the gas valve when the water level is too low, or the pressure too high. The pressuretrol can be checked using a pencil (not your finger!), to press down on the rocking lever switch inside the box. It can also be recalibrated using the excellent advice posted here, (by Fred?),
As said before, put slow vents on the radiators, and big ones on the main.—NBC

PSawchuk

Hello Everyone, Thanks so much for the advice. I'm very heartened by the response. I am in Queens New York and have tried to reach out to some of the listed contractors on the site but no one has gotten back to me . . . With cold weather it may be that they are too busy. Out of desperation, I did buy and replaced the pressuretrol—that didn't seem to work. My pressure quickly shot up to 9 lbs before I shut the furnace down down. I've attached pictures to see if any of you may have some insight—let me know if any of these are not specific enough—I can always post more. I will say the previous pressuretrol—which as far as I know was working was a different type, it had a clear front—it may have been a vaporstat.

Jamie Hall

Somewhere in there the wiring is just flat wrong. Any reasonably competent tech. should be able to figure out where the problem is and fix it.

Fred

I see a wire from the transformer directly to the Pressuretrol and a separate wire from the transformer to the Low water cut-off and wires from the LWCO probably to the water feeder, and yet another separate wire from the transformer to the gas valve and then I see a white and red wire sitting on top of the transformer, by itself, probably the thermostat wire, with wire caps on them. My bet is that everything is wired with separate power from the transformer to each safety and none of them look like they are wired back to the gas valve. They need to be wired in series and then back to the gas valve so that if any one of those devices break the circuit, it shuts everything down.

Take the cover off of that transformer and let us see if those wires are tied together, in series inside the transformer box or not. I bet not

PSawchuk

@fred Thanks. See the attached pictures. Honestly, I'm not an electrician. So I can't understand any of this. I included an open and closed version.

Jamie Hall

That junction box is a nightmare. You might even be better off with a competent -- licensed -- electrician than with whoever wired that thing up.

neilc

maybe if you take one more picture, but spread them wires out a bit , , ,

Fred

Wow, I'm almost sorry I asked you to open that box As @neilc said, can you spread those wires out a bit so we can see what is connected to what? I see four wires coming out of that transformer, red, white, blue and yellow, and they all seem to be spliced to other wires, individually. I can't tell if things are wired in parallel or in series. In reality, what @Jamie Hall said is your best bet. Get an electrician in there to sort that out and wire it properly. I still think each safety, the Pressuretrol, the LWCO and the gas Valve are individually powered out of that transformer but we can't tell from here. The Water Feed may be wired out of the LWCO but, if the gas valve has its own power that bypasses all of the safeties, it will run regardless of any safety issue and, depending on how it is wired, it may even bypass the thermostat. Does the boiler seem to run constantly when you turn the power on? Did all of the pressure and over heating on the upper floors start after your technician replaced the Pressuretrol and LWCO?

ethicalpaul

I think we know the answer to this one, but if you disconnect one wire from the pressuretrol and leave it sitting in space, then power up the boiler, it shouldn’t run. But I bet it will.

PSawchuk

@ethicalpaul You were correct Paul. It did start up even with the pressuretrol wire disconnected—good suggestion. Now we know that the pressuretrol is not engaged. To Fred, Neil and everyone else, again thanks so much for your expertise and time. I've included a few more images. I have some calls out but with it being a weekend—and a cold one, I'm not having much luck . . . especially since I'm trying to get someone who really understands steam. So, do you think that I could just get an electrician to resolve at least this part of it? I thought a heating guy would know how to do this? I just don't want to do something with an electrician that a heating guy would come along and say we need to change it because the electrician didn't understand the system. I've posted some additional pics of the wiring—mainly showing how the wiring is exiting the box.

Mark N

There's a wiring diagram on the boiler right below the junction box. Do you know how to read it. Follow the gray and gray/white wires from the pressuretrol. Do they go to where the diagram shows them going? The gray wire goes to contact 3 of the relay and the gray/white gores to contact 3 of the LWCO. Both should go back to the junction box. The gray/white should be connected to a pink wire to the LWCO. The gray wire connected to a gray wire to the relay.

Jamie Hall

Any one want to bet the pressuretrol is connected in parallel with the LWCO -- so neither one of them will work?

pecmsg

Jamie Hall said:

Any one want to bet the pressuretrol is connected in parallel with the LWCO -- so neither one of them will work?

Unless it runs out of water while reaching the pressure setting

Jamie Hall

pecmsg said:

Jamie Hall said:

Any one want to bet the pressuretrol is connected in parallel with the LWCO -- so neither one of them will work?

Unless it runs out of water while reaching the pressure setting

Optimist.

nicholas bonham-carter

It would be easier to download the manual for the boiler and use the wiring diagram from that. There may be several different wiring configurations, depending on the electrical characteristics of the LWCO, and gas valve, (either 24 or 110 volts, so make sure you follow the right one. Both the LWCO and gas valve should be marked with their intended voltages.
If you give us the make, model no, and LWCO-gas valve voltages one of us will be able to determine which diagram is correct in your case.
It is installations like yours done as cheaply as possible by a trunk-slammer usually just before a house sale, which give steam heating such a bad name.—NBC

Fred

@PSawchuk , I would say a good electrician should be able to follow the diagram but, if it were me, I would want a Steam Pro to rewire it and check out the boiler, in general. Steam Pros do this wiring on a daily basis, electricians do wiring daily but rarely, if ever do steam.

ethicalpaul

Glad you got that part solved. It seems to me that any hvac tech should be able to wire steam controls according to a diagram, but sadly no.

I can almost understand the difficulty given the state of your wiring—I think if I came upon that I’d only touch it if I got the OK to totally redo it

PSawchuk

Hello Everyone, I was able to contact a contractor from the site's listing. He's coming in tomorrow afternoon . . . The funny thing is when I started to explain what was going on he asked, "Are you the guy with the Pressuretrol not Cutting out?" . . . Basically, he had read my post! That is so crazy! I'm so relieved to get someone in who knows about steam. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Again, I'm so appreciative of the help/advice you've all offered me and of the keen interest in this old technology. Dealing with something that I have so little understanding has been daunting . . . but things are looking up!

Fred

Great @PSawchuk ! Do keep us posted as I'm sure you'll be back in operation soon.

PSawchuk

Hello Again, I wanted to fill you all in as to what has transpired . . . I did get a steam guy in. It took him about 10 mins it figure out that my original tech had mis-wired the water level sensor—this basically was what was causing all the issues with the climbing pressure. He also needed to replace a main vent that again the first guy installed but really wasn't helping. I'm now ordering new vents for all the radiators. He also told me that I would have to have the system skimmed in the Spring. The one question, that I have for you guys is that I'm noticing that my boiler is pretty consistently cycling on and off every 4-5 minutes. This seems like it might be very inefficient? I am assuming that it could be some how related to my thermostat? It's a Honeywell honeywell chronotherm III. I read that these thermostats need to be set to steam . . . So I changed the thermostat setting from "Gas/Oil warm air" (factory setting) to "Gravity Air/Water" this didn't seem to do anything. Do you think it is even a thermostat issue? Thanks!

Jamie Hall

It might be a thermostat issue, but if it is happening near the end of the cycle it could also be that the boiler is somewhat oversized for the radiation -- no uncommon. Not the best thing in the world, but if the boiler is only off for a short period between the on times, the loss is very small. If it is happening at the beginning of the cycle, it's telling you that it need more main venting.

PSawchuk

@Jamie Hall Hello Jamie, Thanks for the response. I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by " if it is happening near the end of the cycle." I decided to time the cycling (I did this three times and got a consistent result) Approx. 50 off and 80 seconds on. This is more rapid than I thought!

PSawchuk

I'm also wondering if it's a pressure issue? The vents I have installed: Heat Timers vents. I'm about to replacement with Gorton vents.

BobC

HeatTimer vents on radiators can be very problematic because they vent too fast and are hard to control at the low end of their range. You would be better with adjustable vents; for my money the Ventrite number 1 is the best but pricey, Maid O Mist 5L comes with 5 ports so you just use the right size port (the Hoffman 1a is a decent vent but can be hard to adjust). The Gortons are fine vents but until you know what size vent to put on each radiator it can get pricey experimenting.

Bob

PSawchuk

@BobC Thanks Bob! My Tech gave me the sizes for the Gortons so I should be pretty close. Do you think that the HeatTimers are causing my boiler to cycle rapidly?

Jamie Hall

PSawchuk said:

@Jamie Hall Hello Jamie, Thanks for the response. I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by " if it is happening near the end of the cycle." I decided to time the cycling (I did this three times and got a consistent result) Approx. 50 off and 80 seconds on. This is more rapid than I thought!

What I'm interested in is when, after the start of a call for heat, the system starts to cycle that way. How long does it take, after a call for heat, until you start to feel the header pipe get warm? How long after that before it starts to do the on/off thing? If it's rather soon after -- say five minutes or so, that suggests inadequate main venting -- not radiators, but main venting. On the other hand, if that quick cycling doesn't start until the mains are nice and hot and the radiators are heating up -- maybe not fully hot, but certainly heating, that would be indicative of the boiler being bigger than the radiators can manage.

JUGHNE

There was a HW Chronotherm in a church that had a bad/shorted heat anticipator and the burner run like yours.
It would cycle on/off every few minutes.

If you just jumper your R-W tstat wires you can see if the boiler comes up to pressure and is then shut down by P-troll and not T-stat.

BobC

@PSawchuk Heat Timer air vents can be problematic if not used very carefully. I don't know that they could be the reason for rapid cycling but they could be adding to the problem.

Bob

PSawchuk

@Jamie Hall Hey Jamie, Thanks again for the response. I restarted the system—after letting it cool down. The rapid recycling took a while to kick in and only after the radiators had heated up. So based on your earlier post, it would seem that my boiler is too big for the system. If that is the case, then is there something that I can do to address this? Or if not, is this going to cause damage to the boiler or burn too much gas? Thanks!

Jamie Hall

Got I! Yes, the boiler is probably too big for the system. This isn't a big deal, really. Your overall efficiency will be a little lower than it might otherwise be -- but if the "off" part of the rapid recycling isn't too long -- the boiler stays nice and hot -- the hit is very small. And won't damage the boiler.

Some boilers -- by no means all -- can be "downfired" to reduce the problem, but that takes a really good tech -- if it can be done at all.

You can get a very good feel for how much too big by comparing how long, once the rapid cycling starts, the boiler is firing to the total time between the start of one firing and the next.