T-87 mercury replacement

realliveplumber

Agreed. The thermostats are not calibrated, scientific instruments. They do have an inherent variation. Last week I installed 3 of the same exact thermostats in a customers residence, and there was a 4 degree difference between 2 of them.

Can you please tell us what type of heating that you have? Is it in floor radiant heat, or maybe radiators or something else?

Ultimately, everyone here wants to help you. But please give your contractor a chance to respond. He may have had 20 people with no heat this morning, or people with flooded basements that he is trying to help. I looked at their website. They have been in business a long time. Give the owner a call and see what he has to say.

WMno57

@ChristineNoel1967
My apologies to you for derailing your discussion. Thank you for posting the pictures. I had the same Thrush compression tank (big green tank in your basement ceiling). Thrush is an old Indiana company that is still in business in Peru, IN.
https://www.thrushco.com/about-us

psb75

The original poster stated this: "Now our floors are no longer warm all over."
This may have 'confused the issue.'
I don't believe this is likely to be radiant floor heating.
We need to see what type of heat emitters are in this house.
We're not ready to bring in the police...yet.

KC_Jones

The OP said this:
"We have a boiler unit that the piping runs under the floors. Our home was built in 1956 or 1957 and we purchased it in 1992"

I'm pretty sure this is a radiant system, though I've been wrong before.

I could see the thermostat causing an issue if it isn't allowing long enough run times due to cycling based on setting it for forced air. Short run times, floors don't all warm up, increasing temperature overheats one area and the other is just barely getting warm floors.

I also noticed there is a new gas valve installed by the contractor. Do we know if that was properly adjusted? If it is set to too high of a pressure, couldn't that increase the firing rate, to a point, and have a similar effect of overheating one area and not quite heating the other? We don't really know how the controls are set up at the boiler, when does the pump start, water temps, etc.

I'm just spit balling some ideas to get some conversation going, right or wrong. I also believe something the contractor did changed this, so looking at all the pieces of the puzzle they changed, for me, is the starting point.

So they changed:
Thermostat
Gas valve
Spark ignition box

For the pros, which one would you start with if you were on this job?

psb75

May I point this out: a majority of houses have "boiler piping that runs under the floor", meaning NOT "in-floor radiant" heat but rather PIPING IN THE BASEMENT CEILING supplying (and returning from) the radiant emitters in the rest of the house. If its large black iron pipe it can "inadvertently" supply warmth to the floor immediately above it. I suspect THIS may be the case here.

Jamie Hall

Honestly it sounds to me that you may some other problems than the thermostat. As several have suggested, what kind of radiators or baseboards do you have? Is there radiant heat piping in the floors themselves? Is there more than one zone or pump on the system? I think we need to know a lot more to figure out what is going on.

WMno57

psb75 said:

May I point this out: a majority of houses have "boiler piping that runs under the floor", meaning NOT "in-floor radiant" heat but rather PIPING IN THE BASEMENT CEILING supplying (and returning from) the radiant emitters in the rest of the house. If its large black iron pipe it can "inadvertently" supply warmth to the floor immediately above it. I suspect THIS may be the case here.

Christine shared with us her home was built around 1956. So probably not large diameter gravity hot water piping.

Matt_67

@KC_Jones While the gas valve is not original to the boiler it could have been replaced 10 years ago. I’ve been on the other side of these conversations with homeowners and it can cost a business money unfairly, it’s probably best not to speculate on that kind of thing.

The pics of the boiler tell a bit of a story too - like air vents on a compression tank system. We don’t really know enough about the heating system but if it actually is an in floor heating system there could easily be air in some of the loops. We just don’t know without being there. The best thing is probably to get the contractor back out and accept that sometimes problems come in groups. I can’t tell you how many times there will be two or three problems on a service call, the best techs keep looking. But sometimes things show up after you leave. And this equipment is definitely at the end of its service life. Not that it can’t be fixed, but it will depend heavily on the techs experience and troubleshooting experience.

KC_Jones

Matt_67 said:

@KC_Jones While the gas valve is not original to the boiler it could have been replaced 10 years ago. I’ve been on the other side of these conversations with homeowners and it can cost a business money unfairly, it’s probably best not to speculate on that kind of thing.

The pics of the boiler tell a bit of a story too - like air vents on a compression tank system. We don’t really know enough about the heating system but if it actually is an in floor heating system there could easily be air in some of the loops. We just don’t know without being there. The best thing is probably to get the contractor back out and accept that sometimes problems come in groups. I can’t tell you how many times there will be two or three problems on a service call, the best techs keep looking. But sometimes things show up after you leave. And this equipment is definitely at the end of its service life. Not that it can’t be fixed, but it will depend heavily on the techs experience and troubleshooting experience.

Apologies I must have misread the receipt.

ChristineNoel1967

@chrisj We do not have radiators. The heat pipes are under the floor. 

ChrisJ

ChristineNoel1967 said:

@chrisj We do not have radiators. The heat pipes are under the floor. 

I know very little about radiant heat.
But.

Is there a chance it's just not cold enough out to get the floors nice and warm? I don't see how the space could be warm but the floors cold regardless of the thermostat being used.

Maybe you're just paying extra close attention right now because there was an issue and it's just always felt this way when it's very mild out?

ChristineNoel1967

@ChrisJ. You are probably correct. I’m going to quit dwelling on this and see how things go. Thank you.