Taco ESP zone valves

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

I feel as though I've been the Beta tester for Taco's ESP zone valves; seems as though there were a bunch of them that went out that were defective; machining on the ball valve was a bit too tight and the operator isn't strong enough to properly open and close it.

The symptom is that you heat zones that are supposed to be off when other zones call for heat becuase the zone valve hasn't closed all the way. This can be very dangerous if there's an indirect water heater and just plain uncomfortable on heating zones not calling for heat.

I can understand production problems, but I get upset when suppliers and manufacturers are not forthcoming with information; it took a few phone calls to get to the root of the problem.

The owners are upset and think that I've done something wrong and they're holding back our final payment. It's ironic that all the difficult parts of the system (boiler, indirect water heater, radiators) are working fine; the weak link this time are the little ol' zone valves.

Just venting.




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I remember when

on a beautiful sunny, warm California day a few years back, you and I walked the aisles of the Western Hydronics Conference at the beautiful PG&E facility.

We stopped by the Taco booth together and had a good chat with David Sweet. We both were impressed with that valve. How clever we thought!!

Remember the Munchkin demo in the parking lot. Ahh to reminisce

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Scott G.

Same here...

Yes I too had a batting ave. of .500 with 4 ESP vlvs. on my first at bat with em'. I have always been a TACO fan, but the ESP's struck-out with me! Honeywell, Erie, many have become weak links... I'm back to White-Rodgers, seem to hold up the longest... Good Luck, Keep em' wrenches turnin'.... Scott G.

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Haven't had any Erie problems

6 years and dozens of installs. I see they have a "We're back" ad in PM this month. Buy one get one free coupon or something.

I like that simple inexpensive, heat only, 201 stat. Looks like it's in the Wirsbo line up also.

I tried the Honeywell/ Sparco ZVs for a while, when Erie was out to lunch. Seem to work ok, just couldn't get used to that sloppy feeling operator to body connection, and the dot alingment dance

hot rod

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Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

John Perry

just sent me an e-mail; suggested that we switch power heads to solve the problem. That was one of the first things I did and the new power head did the same thing. It took me a while before the light in my head went on and I realized that it was a sticky valve.

Before coming to the conclusion that it was the valve, I spoke to Mario at Taco tech. support. He suggested:

1) Install the supplied resistor in the thermostat. This allows power to trickle into the zone valve capacitor so that it's fully charged on a call for heat and opens right away.

2) In case it's a thermostat incompatability problem, use the ZVC EXP zone valve controllers which have isolated relays and do not supply power for zone valves through the thermostat. That's actually good information; maybe I'll just buy the EXP's from now on. But I knew this wasn't the problem since we'd used White-Rogers 1F80 stats on Taco ESP zone valves before without any problems.

Yeah, I'd always had good luck with Erie zone valves before I switched to Taco; when the ESP's came out, they had some great features (ball valve that won't open against pressure differential, NO and NC feature; plug-in wiring clods, etc.) that I couldn't resist.

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Dave Palmer

R.I.

is Taco country and you don't see many on the shelves,so what does that tell you

John Jr

ESP zones valves

Alan

We have had the same problem you are having. Taco came to our job site with their tech’s to help fix the problem. All you need to do is get the new power heads and it will fix your problem. If you have any questions give Chris Integlia a call @ 1-401-942-8000 or e-mail him @ chrint@taco-hvac.com. He is the project manager for the ESP zone valves. He will help you out.

Also some people over heat the valve which will change the torque of the ball valve. Taco has change the design of the valve so it won't happen any more. So people can heat the hell out of it and it won't change the torque value.

And as far as them not being on the shelf's in RI is because we buy them as fast as they come in.

We have installed hundreds of these valves after the fix with no problems.


John

Mark Eatherton1

I t pays...

to read the instructions. I ask all of my employees to take the time to read the installation instructions at least once a year. Even if they've installed hundreds of them before. Things change. Good manufacturers update their installation instructions on a regular basis.

ME

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