Taco zone valve wiring

red69viper

My house has 6 zones coming off the boiler . 5 of then are for the heating zones (only use 4, 1 need comes on because it's the second floor, and 1 is for a stand alone heater in the garage that I removed the thermostat) and 1 zone connects to the indirect water heater .

The 24 volt power to all these heads is wired on series, with the control wore obviously run from the thermostat.  As you can imagine it's a rats nest at the boiler . 

The power head for the indirect water heater is the last one in the series and always seems to have issues. I have lived in the house for 11 years and have only had to replace 1 of the heat valves once. I have replaced the valve for the water heater multiple times since it kept "not getting power ". It seems like the wires tend to lose contact with each other down the series connections . 

Should these valves be worked on series, jumping power from one valve to the next ? Or should I rewire the valve in parallel? That would involve just two pig tails, with wore nuts, and like 6 leads, each going directly to a valve ? 

Thank you in advance for any help .

Zman

Do yourself a huge favor and clean that mess up with either of these.
As a bonus, you will know the status of your t-stats and end switches at a glance.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/Taco-ZVC406-4-6-Zone-Valve-Control-Module-with-Priority
https://www.supplyhouse.com/Caleffi-ZVR106-6-Zone-Valve-Control-w-Priority

Big Ed_4

Should be wired in series per zone valve . With two zone valves using one thermostat wired in parrelle Transformer may be too small that many zone valves . A over draw of a transformer will weaking and kill a transformer ... Transformers are rated in VA Volts x Amps , Lets assume the zone valves have their separate transformer , which is a good practice . You have 5 one valves and to total amp draw depends on the zonevalve model . Take a HW V8043 which uses a 7.7 VA , your 5 would need min 38VA or a truck stock 40VA . I would recommend up sizing to atleast 50VA . Honeywell 50VA comes with a built in circuit breaker which could come in handy working in a birds nest ...

red69viper

Zman. Do these controllers install at the boiler? I'll take a picture of my rats nest but I don't see how either of these would work . 

Thanks 

Jamie Hall

Say what? I'm not quite sure we are using the language properly? By "wired in series" do you mean that power goes from the transformer to a terminal on Zone valve 1 (hopefully 2), then to the same terminal on the next zone valve, then the next, and so on? And the other lead from the transformer goes to all the R connections on the thermostats? And that each thermostat has its own wire coming back to terminal 1 on the respective zone valve? (If these are Taco Zone Sentry valves the principle is the same).

That's not series. It's also not good practice. The problem is if you have more than one wire under a terminal, it is not difficult for the connection to become loose. If you have two, well... maybe (and if the valve is a Taco 570, it's not quite so bad). If you have three? Not so much. The problem is that even one loose connection will drop the voltage along the chain, and more than one... and the last valve on the chain just doesn't get the voltage it needs.

Zman

red69viper said:

Zman. Do these controllers install at the boiler? I'll take a picture of my rats nest but I don't see how either of these would work . 

Thanks 

If you type @red69viper the person gets an alert.

We love pictures. What you are describing is a pretty typical situation. As long as all the parts are in the boiler room it should work fine.

Dave H_2

It can't get any easier than this, thermostat wire goes to the top, the zone valve wire goes to the corresponding terminal at the bottom.


The ZVC controller is your transformer, interface and relay all in one box. Yes, ideally it should be in the boiler room, but they can be installed anywhere as long as you have the wire to run from here to the boiler.

This pic shows the circulator wired here, but I suspect the circ is already wired in, if so, you don't need to move it.

Dave H.

red69viper

Jamie Hall , that is exactly how it is wired.  Sorry about nomenclature, but I consider wiring like that is series. And I have 6 valves , and the 6th one tends to stop working.  I would guarantee wires get loose with two or three wire leads under each screw terminal 

red69viper

This is the rats nest I am taking about 

STEVEusaPA

They're not wired in series for power. You're talking about the end switches, which is correct. If you're not putting in a zone panel, switch the transformer to a 24 volt, 75VA transformer.

Zman

What you have is all wired in parallel, it is just daisy-chained in parallel like a wire running from one receptacle to the next.

Yours would be a perfect application for a zone controller. Get yourself a roll of 4 wire, some zip ties, and a zone controller, and clean that mess up .

HomerJSmith

Those Taco 570's, thermo heat motors, gobble up a lot of Volt/Amps. As said, you just may need a bigger transformer, at least in the 75 VA range.

red69viper

Zman  daisy chained in parallel, isn't that just in series. I have a tech come out, they u stalked a few sections of 4 wire and new igniters.  Hopefully that solves the issue. If not I'll see about a controller . Thanks 

Zman

Daisy chained in parallel is parallel. Series is something altogether different. It is common to see aquastats and safeties wired in series so that all devices need to agree before the appliance will fire. Most other wiring is in parallel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbocWMTmPK8