Taco Viridian VT2218 Electronic Reliability

1904_Neely_House

I have a very large old house 1904, 2main floors are 2500 square feet each. 3rd floor ballroom and servants quarters.  Purchased in a fit of insanity.  Originally 1 zone gravity hot water heat. Previous owner allowed everything to freeze.  I am a journeyman industrial maintenance mechanic so I am familiar with technical issues.  I did and am doing repairs and improvements. Installation of Weil McLain Ultra 310 boiler and zoning was the start.   It would be a very long story I can tell some time if there is any interest. 

  Well back to the taco viridian, I brought a new zone (zone2) back to life about 3 years  ago. I upgraded the circulator to a Taco Veridian VT2218. 

Have these had a lot of electronic control reliability issues?  

Last year it didn’t start pumping  a couple of times( power and display on).  A couple of days ago it didn’t start, no errors on display. I cycled power to the pump and it started. Today no heat on its zone again. Boiler and zone 1 running  Pump display is on. Running delta T mode 20 degrees. Pump not  running no watt readout. Both temp sensors working. I held down the up button for 3 seconds to activate the full speed override feature per manual.  Display showed the message “full speed override” but pump did not run.  Cycling power did not get pump to run. No locked rotor message either.  

I have a second one of these pumps that I was going to install on zone one.  So I came down to put it in as a replacement for the zone 2 pump.  Well the thermostat kicked in and this darn pump started right up!  I hate intermittent faults! I hate frozen pipes even more!  

  So has anybody else had reliability issues with these pumps?  Am I just unlucky?  

EBEBRATT-Ed

@1904_Neely_House

Taco monitors this site occasionally so they will probably respond or you can reach out to them

1904_Neely_House

Thank you.  The pumps were picked up as new surplus so I have no distributor to go to.  In any case I am sure the 3 years after manufacturing warranty has expired.  But maybe Taco would have something to say.  

This zone has been done differently by me from what I did 20 years ago. With the new products on the market and due to all the broken pipes and radiators. I have run Pex-Al-Pex to manifolds that are valved. I slowly add radiators that have TRVs. I wanted the additional pump control due to the variable loads.  

Everything and I mean everything in this house has been plumbed for emergency drainage of all pipes (heating and potable water) if heat should be lost. 

I have found pipe repairs buried in walls that were probably 75 years old where the hot water heat pipes froze and burst.   Every water pipe can be isolated and drained individually in the basement.  I should count up how many ball valves there are in this house sometime. Over 50 I am sure. 

BigRob

I bought a vr3452 a couple months ago and it sprung a leak after a month in service at 15psi and 180F. It's not the rubber seal. The canister seems to have a fine crack as water was clearly dripping or condensing on the windings. I emailed Taco and no reply after a week. Pretty disappointed. I have another vr3452 that's been working fine since the model was released - was hoping to standardize on the model since it's pretty flexible. Grundfos has never, ever given me an issue, even when abused. Will probably go back to them and use the parts from the broken pump as spares. I bought the VR online, so probably screwed anyway. Luckily, I had an old Grundfos 26-99 to swap in. It pulls twice the watts (200W), but will probably last longer than me.

Joe Mattiello

Neely house
I’m trying to get good information on 2218. I contacted the product manager for good feedback.

big Rob
Im sorry your pump leaked. You contacted Tech Support? 

Please send me email joemat@tacocomfort.com
401-261-4890

Dave H_2

One thing jumped out to me about the intermittent running of the circ.
Its powered but not pumping water, no error code. Couple times powered down and then it started to pump water.
I also noticed a big cast Iron boiler as well as cast iron radiators.

Has the water ever been treated to prevent rust or clean the system?
Or has a magnetic dirt separator been installed?

I would highly suggest at least one if not both. From what it sounds like, as work and repairs are being done to the system, new water with oxygen is being introduced therefore creating more and more rust.
A lot of circs are going to have issues with that amount black iron oxide in the system.

The tolerances inside a circulator are not very large between the impeller and the casing as well as the bearings. The bearings are ceramic which uses the water the circ pumps to lubricate and cool.

Dirty water can cause havoc on system components, especially on things that move.

There is a date code printed on the label of the circ and the VT2218 as well as 00 circs have a 3-year flange-to-flange warranty.

Dave H.

SteveSan

@BigRob: I research your question through our CRS system and here is the response for one of our Techs. You should of received an automated message saying someone should respond in 1-2 business days and please check your spam filter for a response just in case it gets delivered there. If you would like to discuss this matter you can always call us here 401-942-8000 Mon-Fri 8am-5pm EST.

Posted By: Thomas Materne on 2021-10-25 09:50:19
Message: Rob, How old is the pump? Can you send a photo of the Tag? Tom

BigRob

Hi Tom, it was purchased some months ago and installed about a month ago. It was a new pump in sealed packaging.

1904_Neely_House

Tim Laing 1904 Neely House here, just saw these posts. I am not sure how to answer directly to individual messages except here at the bottom of the thread…. Well I am running a Weil McLain Ultra aluminum heat exchanger boiler.  Being in industrial maintenance it is very interesting what can be scrounged from the scrap hopper.  My return water all runs through a 8 inch diameter by 30 inch fine mesh synthetic cloth bag filter. The bag is in a 10” dia. by 36” stainless filter canister.  This is 100% filtered return water. The original bag when pulled after several seasons only had about 2 inches of sediment in the tip of the bag. All the piping in the boiler room is copper till it goes to old iron pipes and iron radiators. I have tried to keep a tight ship when it comes to radiator valve leaks and pipe joints. So my makeup water usage should be minimal.  Due to the filter it is unlikely I am running any abrasive particles through my circulation pumps. Due to all the isolation valves I have installed I have never had to drain the system to do work or change the bag. Tim L

1904_Neely_House

Pump sticker states VT2218-HY1-F C00 
01-15.  My still new in the box pump has the exact same numbers.  BTW all pump lines have check valves to prevent back flow. So no unfiltered water got to the circ. pumps that way. 

1904_Neely_House

SuperTech

I've been running a couple of VT2218s for a few years now without any issues. I haven't had to drain the boiler or add any makeup water. I did install a Caleffi dirtmag on the boiler as a precaution to protect the ECM pumps. I'm glad I did, every time I blow it down quite a bit of black debris comes out that would have ended up in one of my ECM pumps. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the root of your problem since you have iron piping in your system. 

Tom_133

funny enough last week I would have said very few issues, and for the most part thats accurate. I have maybe 20-30 of them in the field and 1 at my house. I got this morning to a cool house. Went down and found that pump at 00 watts and no gpm. So I changed the differential temp and it took off, then it started flashing TX Fault which i cant find in the manual. My model is the most recent revision so I am curious what the reliability of this model is. Well, at this point I dont need a special pump to feed my radiators, so maybe I go back to ole reliable. We will see what Taco thinks first.

SteveSan

@BigRob Tom did respond with his contact info if you would like to give him a call. Please check your spam filter for that email.

Snutz

One problem with my VT2218, is the backlight on the display will not luminate. The 3 year warranty  period passed by 3 months.  Only 2 years of service, it's  not a huge deal, but imo it should not have happened.