Triangle Tube Error code 14

wires382

My Triangle Tube boiler keeps shutting off with an error code 14. Pressing the reset button gets it going again. Am having to do this about once a week. The service person and manufacturer both say this a transient short and they can't find the cause and fix it until the problem becomes so frequent that they can make it happen on demand while they are there. The house is an AirBnB with guests frequently coming and going so this is not good news. Can anyone suggest a way to narrow down the problem that I can pass on to the service people?

GGross

It's a tough one. The way to figure out what is causing the fault you would need to disconnect one by one everything from the low voltage side until you can isolate what is causing the problem (bit more to it than that I'll attach the full instructions). When it is intermittently happening this won't work because the error clears before you can isolate where its coming from. You may have better luck visually inspecting all of the wiring and devices attached to see if anything sticks out as a problem, the issue you have here is that you could pay a ton of money for a tech to inspect every connected component and not find anything, or you could throw the parts cannon at it and still have the issue, without the fault occurring regularly it is hard to diagnose the exact cause, could just be a frayed or damaged wire. If this were in my house I would either just deal with resetting occasionally until I could figure out what is causing the fault, or spend the time inspecting myself. In a rental unit that is generating income its a little different, you will need to weigh the costs of your options carefully, many techs are not going to be terribly helpful with intermittent low voltage shorting issues, and the troubleshooting time can be pretty expensive

From TT website

E-14 is a disturbance on the low voltage side of the system. This is separated into two parts.

1.) The unit resets and begins to work. E 14 returns in an un-predictable time frame.

2.) Does the unit reset, but goes to E 14 within 5 seconds. This is often caused by the dry contact in the aqua-stat in the domestic water heater. The dry contact water heater’s aqua-stat should be replaced with a PSRKIT-22 Triangle Tube IDHS. This will now allow the boiler to see the actual temperature in the tank and determining when to go into water heating operation.

This disturbance is far more difficult to pinpoint. It is important to be sure that the reset is working. When the reset button is pressed and released, the E-14 should disappear, and a software code show up, once that clears, the E-14 will re-appear we now know the reset works. Remove the entire field wires connected to terminals 7 through 19. Try to reset the boiler. If the E14 goes away, one by one re-install the field to see what field device is affecting the boiler. Remove the X04 plug from the MCBA module. (This is the plug with 2 blue wires and 1 yellow wire. Be sure to look carefully how the plug is connected and when re-connecting it, be sure to put it back the same way you removed it.) Reset the boiler, if the E-14 goes away and is replaced with a b-40 and a 9-## reconnect the X04, if it immediately goes to E14. We now have isolated the fault.

Since the E14 stopped when the X04 was removed and now is back in place. Remove the 2 yellow wires from the flue sensor, reset the boiler. If the b-40 and 9## returns, replace the flue sensor. If the E-14 comes right back, replace the wires on the flue sensor, then remove the wires in the top of terminals 17 and 18 (one has a blue and a yellow wire in it, the other has a single blue) let them hang in the air, reset the boiler. If the fault clears, isolate and insulate each of the wires. They are not being used, so they may remain isolated and insulatedIf the E-14 does not disappear when the X04 is removed remove the X05 plug. Then reset the boiler, if the boiler resets and shows the b40 and the 9##, then replace the X04, reset the boiler and operation should commence. This is an indication that there is a problem with the outdoor sensor or the wire for the outdoor sensor.

wires382

@GGross Thanks much for your reply! The HVAC folks took a guess and replaced some parts and re-did some wiring but the problem still happens. As I understand it, they cannot follow the steps you suggested because the error cannot be reproduced on demand - it typically trips every 1-3 days. They suggested I check with the power company to see if there is a dip in voltage coming into the house at times. Ohio Edison put a voltage recorder on the outside of my house and it showed a drop to just above 114 volts at times (which they said was within tolerance) when it is also pulling over 100 amps. Pretty sure this is due to an on demand hot water heater. An electrician I had come out said he could see the lights in the house dim a little bit whenever he turned the shower on. But the boiler tripped off on Monday when no one was in the house all day so no hot water at all would have been use at all that day - so don't think the hot water heater is doing it.

I asked the electrician if it would make sense to put in a UPS battery backup/surge protector to the boiler and he said he would have to research it (have not heard back yet). I also asked the HVAC people the same thing and they also seemed unsure if that might be a good thing to try. The boiler is wired straight to the breaker box so an electric outlet would need to be put in, a plug put on the wire from the boiler which would then be plugged into the UPS unit. If the problem still happens then I'd know for sure the problem was not the voltage coming to the boiler but something inside the boiler circuitry.

Does this sound like a good course of action?

Any other ideas?

GGross

It may be worth a try narrowing it down to eliminate the electric service, but plan to have a secondary use for the UPS because according to their error code info this error implies a short in the boiler somewhere