Please comment on a boiler re-install
We are having difficulty getting an HVAC tech to service this install. They all want to completely re-do it with new equipment, new accessories and new piping and ask us to sell the current boiler and everything else, for example on facebook marketplace.
The original idea was to install a mod-con boiler and keep the mid-efficiency boiler hooked up "on the loop" in some fashion as a stand-by boiler to add a little heat to the house if the high efficiency boiler goes down and/or a search for parts or some other delay occurs. We are getting resistance to this idea and the techs, all of them, consistently have "complaints" about almost everything in the install.— the reason for the re-do!
The original installer considers it a perfect install. He is not coming back. We figure if we can get it at least looking better with all the "complaints" resolved, we may have better luck with service. From the critical comments / "complaints", there appears to be a lot we could do to make the system work properly.
We have never done this kind of job, so we could use a little help. We hope we can rely upon the wisdom of the crowd in assessing the "complaints" as there is such a divergence in opinion between the original installer and the hvac techs who have looked over the job after the install.
Please chime in! all comments will be greatly appreciated.
Comments
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It takes a bit of time to look at and understand the intentions of the original installer if the boiler and piping is done in an orderly fashion with clear placement of all piping and controls.
When this is not done in a proper manner, as you see in this installation, it's nearly impossible to trace everything and figure out the intention of the original installer. So, the fast answer is simply to remove it so they can install "NEW". Nobody wants to actually work to figure out this system when it is more profitable to get rid of it.
My question is why won't the original installer return? If he is proud of his installation he should be able to properly support it.
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And they would be largely correct. Just about everything here is done wrong, and the simplest would be to cut it all out (maybe not the boiler, but everything else) and start over. It really wouldn't be terrible to keep this boiler and repipe, but if none of these other contractors are familiar with Viessmann, they probably don't want to be married to the system.
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Honestly that's a terrible installation. Very poor quality work. I would be ashamed of it if one of my guys did that. Is there anything wrong with the current boiler besides the poor quality installation? Could all that sloppy piping be redone? That boiler would function a lot better if the installation was done right.
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I hate to be rude, but the original installer was sadly a total incompetent hack. One of the worst installs I have seen.
Sorry to say you need to bite the bullet and get this fixed. You need to do some research on contractors and find someone competent.
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”The original installer considers it a perfect install”.
I’d really hate to see what he would consider a hacked up mess.
I wouldn’t give one minute trying to figure out what’s going on with that abomination.
As mentioned, you may try and keep the boiler, but everything else should go.
Bob Boan
You can choose to do what you want, but you cannot choose the consequences.9 -
If you want to be able to run either boiler then you would need to pipe it primary-secondary. The heating loads are on a loop and the boilers inject in to that loop with closely spaced tees. The piping needs to be demoed back to the boilers and the system connections and re-done. Controlling it could be challenging too. It could be anything from a switch that switches between the 2 boilers to a control that automatically rotates or tests both.
What kind of emitters does this system have? Does the cast iron boiler need to be protected from low return water temps or does the system need low temp water?
Even the worst DIY install we have seen posted here was slightly better than this.
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Sometimes people get what they deserve and pay for....Disgraceful ! Mad Dog
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Not necessarily. People might pay a "standard rate" and their decision was simply based on the salesmanship of the contractor. I have observed that people make decisions on how a person speaks and how convincing they are. The actual capability of the individual is impossible for any homeowner to vet unless they have photos of prior installs (usually never happens) and know what they are looking at. It's no different than you and I picking a surgeon.
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Is this AI on Crack? That's not real. It CAN'T be.
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As a homeowner who has paid a “professional” to install a heating system, but received substandard work, I sympathize with the OP. Every time I look at my boiler, I curse the contractor who did the shoddy installation. If the original contractor won’t fix it, I’d file a claim in small claims court. When I curse the contractor I originally hired for my system, who failed to make good on a bad installation, I also curse myself for not holding them accountable legally. The OP does not want to curse themselves ad infinitum, as I have.
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No homeowner deserves a bad installation.
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My sympathies………and the reason I do most of all electrical and plumbing myself.
I do have skepticism with any legal approach to a "shoddy" installation. You, as a homeowner, are up against a professional. You don't have standing against a professional in just about every case. Now, if you can drag another professional into court with you, now you have the POSSIBILITY of prevailing. Even in that situation, it's one professional against the other. How likely is that to occur?
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The OP does not want to curse themselves ad infinitum, as I have.
Do NOT curse yourself. It's counterproductive.
It's like getting into a bad marriage or relationship. You're stuck until you make the difficult and costly decision to MOVE ON. You only live once.
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I understand perfectly. I am in the same boat. Had I been (smart/lucky) enough to hire the right contractor, I wouldn’t be complaining here.
I am fortunate that I am willing to step in and learn, when people I have hired fail me. In my state, that is a blessing, because there are lots of shoddy workmen here.
I think if I had filed a small claims court complaint with support, I would have had a chance. But as you say, I really needed another professional to support me, and that is a challenge.
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I don't know if the value would still be in small claims court territory and it would be costly to file it. I'm not sure it would be that hard to present a case starting with it doesn't work and working through this is what the instructions say vs this is what was done and here are some references from texts about how to do these other things that don't work correctly.
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@dronic123 , where are you located? We might know someone who can help……………
All Steamed Up, Inc.
Towson, MD, USA
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Consulting2 -
Really! This looks like a DIY'er trying and terribly.
There seems to be a supply and return where the black iron and pex? connect.
Rip out the orange stuff and run air or water to each perceived Zone . Trace it that way and then see what happens.
I have seen worse. (However, I can't remember where). This can be salvaged but it would be at a cost of time and material including callbacks.
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always ask the bidding contractor for pics of previous work and references. That may help avoid disaster installs.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream
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It is effectively impossible. You cannot present any argument as to what the "instructions say". You are a homeowner and he is a contractor. No judge would find in your favor as it would require the judge to determine if the photos that you provide are opposing the manufacturer's instructions. Do you really believe any judge can/will do that? I do not.
And the SC limit of $5K in some/most jurisdictions certainly prevents you from recouping more than 40% of the loss.
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The fact that it doesn't work is your predominant evidence. The showing why is just additional evidence. You would need an expert witness in a large civil suit but the rules are more relaxed in small claims court. Looking at @WardWeathers post unless i'm missing something, they had some bad electronics from the manufacturer and kept putting the same thing in instead of using a different control scheme.
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Here is the problem. If the H/O simply states that "it doesn't work"………….I have a very hard time believing they can prevail against a contractor who will state that "it most certainly works fine". It's a case of he said………she said……….and without hard data, the judge is unlikely to go with the H/O.
Of course there are exceptions. If the H/O is very informed about the system and can state specifically what was done on specific dates and document the temperature of the building every single day for two months…………I do believe he can prevail. But, seriously, how many H/O are knowledgeable and have the capability to do this?
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Bad I could deal with. This?... I can only imagine the control wiring between the two boilers. I don't even wanna know.
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you could simply use a double throw switch to select one or the other. the zone control calls t-t on whichever boiler is selected, the boiler fires and runs the circulator off of t-t, each boiler is connected to the heating loop with a circulator and a flow check.
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I presume you are referencing a different thread of mine regarding a Williamson-thermoflo boiler installed at a house I was renting while I was doing a major, years long renovation of my own house. I don’t blame the contractor for installing a faulty controller at the rental place. They did refuse to listen to complaints about it not working. But that was a congenital boiler problem from the factory.
No, my complaint is with regard to a concentrically vented mod-con Slant/fin vsl-160 that didn't work right from the get go…. Installed by the same hapless contractor as it turns out, and installed under the supervision of the Slant/fin rep no less. From day one, the thing grumbled loudly, leaked condensate so badly it was like Big Ben barking out the hours every time the condensate pump ran. Condensate pissing down the boiler, Corrosion all over the boiler, and very rapidly. The contractor gave a deer in the headlights stare when trying to figure the mod-con problem out. I learned the hard way that they were more comfortable with oil fired cast iron boilers. The same Slant/fin rep had a look, sent pictures back to Long Island, and ultimately blamed the vent location and refused warranty coverage, even though they were on site for the installation and had every opportunity to tell the contractor the venting was “in the wrong location”. He claimed “some scale is normal”, the scoundrel.
But I learned later that it wasn’t the vent location that caused the problem. When the outer metal vent duct finally gave way, shed itself into the boiler flue, and triggered a blocked vent code, I ordered a new vent kit from Slant/Fin. When I disassembled the old kit, I found an obvious installer error. A seal from the inner exhaust pipe was not properly seated, and the thing had been feeding back exhaust to itself the whole time. Once I did a proper installation of the replacement vent, the condensate pump stopped having to work so hard and the boiler behaved.
None of that helps the OP, and I am sorry for the distraction. But I wanted to set the record straight.
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Weird, even when it's a professional contractor that has screwed up, DIYers get attacked 😅
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el
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Attacked? Oh, come now. Others were saying it was a pro. If this doesn't look like DIYers on a weekend Binge I don't know? What does? And on that note, let's be sure to say that not all Do-it-yourselfers are alike' Wouldn't you agree @ethicalpaul 😉
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Thanks for your comments everyone.
Here is the schematic: If something isn’t clear, please ask.
The DHW is hooked up but not on the sketch
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It's not piped correctly, to put it mildly. Does everything work though?
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@GGross: Surprisingly, i am able to get modest heat and certainly enough to prevent freezing out of the viessmann notwithstanding all of the forum chatter on isolation of the pumps. It may be because of the oversized??? grundfoss pump which is set on level 3 or perhaps the undersized 3/4” pex???. Previously, I had a B&G 100? Which worked perfectly. The Slant Fin is always and rather quickly tripping off on the high limit; I don’t think it is getting enough flow. I don’t use the Slant Fin at all.
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piping it primary secondary is the proper way to isolate the circulators. 3/4" copper is only good to move around 50,000 btu/hr so the piping for all of it is too small. 3/4" pex is even smaller than copper.
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It is very important to hydraulically separate the boiler from the system pumps when you have a flow dependent boiler, with internal circulator and diverting valve. It doesn't seem like too big of a job for someone to just eliminate the slant fin from the equation, rip out the pex and pipe the boiler primary secondary. I can see why folks would be hesitant to get involved in this as they don't want liability but really just need to rip the mess out and pipe it correctly.
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here is an option One or both boilers can operate at any time without flow issues.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream3 -
@hot_rod : There are a number of issues. Firstly, the installer refused to do a heat loss relying on his experience. I did get an independent one done, which showed we need more BTU’s at design day temps. While more difficult to install properly, we probably should consider using both both boilers at the same time to cover the additional demand as long as we have the stand-by function too. Does the order matter? I’m thinking the Slant Fin would be hotter.
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Assuming natural gas around $1/therm, a 100k BTU heat load in zone 6 would work out to about a $3000/year in gas. If you are not using that much, your heat load is not there not matter what the manual J says. In that case, I would not bother with any backup, that Viessmann well maintained will be bulletproof.
KISS. Pipe the new boiler properly, take out the old one and plug that big air leak the natural draft chimney is in your house.
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The problem with the Viessman is not that it is too small but that the piping is too small and improper so it can't fire at full capacity because the piping can't move the full capacity of heat out of it.
2
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