Ghost flow after indirect water heater install

asdunbar90

Had an 80 gallon indirect water heater installed recently. The house is a duplex containing a one bed apartment and a four bed apartment. Each unit has one zone. A third zone was added for the water heater. Now, I’m getting ghost flow primarily in the one bed apartment to where the rads are more than just “warm”. I believe one of the check valves may be bad but wanted some feedback from others before replacing them. The system has two taco 220s on the outputs for the two living units. I noticed one of them was forced open with the thumbscrew ontop. I haven’t yet closed it as I imagine it must be open for a reason....

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Grallert

It's possible that open flow check was left open to purge the system or to solve for a bad circulator? But for what ever reason it is certainly the cause of the ghost flow when ever the water heater calls or the other zone calls. close it and see. By the way the black Taco should be installed with the motor in the horizontal position in most applications.

asdunbar90

Thank you for the info! My plan for this evening is to open both valves fully and get the system moving water to wash any debris out of them, I read that there may be something stuck in one of them like a chunk of Teflon tape. Then I’ll close them back to operate normally and turn off the heat to the two zones and release some hot water to get the hot water tank zone pump to turn. I have a temp gun so I should be able to see if the ghost flow is still happening soon there after.

I can hear the green pump churning when powered but not so sure about the black taco pump. Possibly it wore out in its current orientation and that’s why they opened that valve? Is there a way I can tell for sure if it’s spinning? Do they have an expected lifetime? I may replace it with one that has turned flanges so it sits horizontally

Intplm.

You probably have a bad or poorly adjusted flow-control valve. Or no flow control valve installed? That should be your first look as to the "ghost flow".

The black circulator with the dust on is installed wrong. The motor should not be facing up. The motor should be at 9 or 3 o'clock.

You can try to hear a circulator running by putting the blade of a screwdriver on the circulator and the handle end against your ear.

Have one t-stat all the way up, The others all the way down isolating each to hear what one is running. When you do this, write down what circulator serves what zone to eliminate confusion and for future reference.

HomerJSmith

I see many installation errors aside from your current problem.

Flo-Check doesn't work if it is in the open position. Close it and see what happens.

If you replace a pump that's in a wrong position with a new pump you can get one with a rotated flange that would orient the pump in the right direction.

It would be nice to see a diagram of the new w/h installation and connections.