007 Circulator “getting tired”?

grocha88

I came across a one zone hot water gas boiler in a relatively small house (one floor, five rooms, base board) the house was heating very slowly, no air in system. I noticed the circulator was extremely hot to the touch similar to a siezed motor or air locked system. My question is: are circulators able to “begin failing” and not just completely fail?

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PC7060

yes, any motor with bearings can degrade/fail over time causing pump to drag; increased friction will also overheat pump.

hot_rod

More apt to be a seized circ and maybe gravity flow doing the heating. Or air locked.

When they seize, or air lock you basically have a 78W heater.

Being a wet rotor, fluid cooled design they run pretty close to the system fluid temperature, if fluid is moving through them.

An simple amp draw check would tell you more.

Dave H_2

You could also take a look at the age of the circ, there should be a date code stamped on the electrical box showing a month and year of manufacturing.

Lance

as always there can be other reasons. I have found too many new small pumps on systems that had B&G 100 on them. And flow checks. I started checking pump curves against the system head calculations and find some barely meeting the requirements. So bad or wrong pump, or other should also be considered.

grocha88

@hot_rod thank you, I took that amp draw and found 1.5 amps while rated at .75!

rick in Alaska

How is the water pressure? If the pressure is down to zero, it can cause issues.

Rick