Paging Bill W. @ Honeywell Major problem with VR8204H Gas Valves

Glenn Harrison

Bill, has there ever been a problem with VR8204H gas valves? Our company is seeing an almost epidemic proportion with these valves where the Main valve sticks open all the time so that when the pilot opens the pilot and main burners lite at the same time. This is causing at a minimum rough ignition and in some cases severe delayed ignition with large explosions and flames shooting out of the equipment. We have confirmed that the problem is the valve by pulling the MV wire of of the valve and the main burner still lites with the pilot. All of these valves are VR8204H series with either '93 or '94 date codes. Now I realise these are older valves but for them to fail like this is obiovusly a very bad and potentialy dangerous thing. If this is not a known problem, I have saved three valves that I have replaced and would be happy to send them to you if your interested.

By the way, when I say epidemic proportions, I mean that I have changed at least 15 valves myself and after talking to my other co-tech's, I estimate that we have changed at least 75 valves in the last year, all with the same problem, including three today (12-30-02) alone.

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Unknown

Glenn, you are not alone

one of my students in the last class we had mentioned this problem to me. He was going to get me one of the valves that his company had changed. This would typically not be noticed as the equipment is out of warranty. He claimed that they had changed several of these that he knew of. Same problem you are having with main valve (MV) sticking open, one good thing is we have redundant valves other wise these would be run away sysytems. They do hwoever come on with a bang, not a good thing.

Glenn Harrison

Thanks, Timmie

I'm glad to hear we are not the only one's to be seeing this problem, although still very concerned over the entire situation. One of our guys had another one today with a 96 date code. It also occured to me that I had a Smart Valve about two months ago with the same problem (SV9500H).

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Glenn Harrison

Just refreshing so Bill will see this hopefully.

Unknown

His e-mail address is

Bill.Wolfe@honeywell.com

Glenn Harrison

Thanks, Timmie

I'll try e-mailing him but I think I read a post that said he wasn's opening e-mails unless he was sure who they were from due to e-mail viruses.

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Unknown

I put a call in to my local Honeywell

rep today. Lets see what he has to say.

Bill Barrett

Smart valve

I have Smart valve doing same thing about same circa. Was on a Heil.

tombig

Smart Valve 2

Same thing on a '97 Armstrong 90% sealed combustion. Blew the air intake right off.Intermittant problem but scared the bejeezes out of me when it happened looking thru the inspection porthole. I had to inspect the heat exchanger for stress cracks (better safe than sorry) New valve and no problems since.

Glenn Harrison

I sent Bill w. @ Honeywell an e-mail today...

But I got an auto reply that he is out of the office until Monday, 1-6-03. I will refresh this Sunday evening.and also watch for e-mail reply from Bill.

Thanks to everyone for the responses. This is getting interesting.

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Unknown

All those valves use the same VR8200 valve

set up. That includes Smart Valve. The main valve is a diaphragm type valve, the first valve is a solenoid. That second valve has to be stuck open mechanically or have some foreign material on the seat. One question are any of these being used in very cold areas? The reason I ask is that Honeywell has two differnt valve materials they use on valves. One is temperature rated for -40 to 175 ("M" & "P" Model) the other is 0 to 175 ("H" Model). If it is very cold in the area of operation that could make a difference. Just a thought.

Bill Barrett

Temp

Timmie
Mine was in a attic, but with room built around it. It never gets below 32* F so either should have worked on that one.

Bill Barrett

ambient temp

Timmie mine was 32*F + so either should have worked. Good thought on roof tops.

Glenn Harrison

Timmie

All of the valves I am dealing with are OEM speced velves that have been in since the furnaces were brand new. These are all indoor residential furnaces. We are seeing these fail the most on Lennox G20 series furnaces, but are seeing more failing on Lennox G26 high efficiency furnaces now too. Also had one bad on an Armstong 80% unit and the smart valve I had was on a Heil 90%. These so far have been all upflow furnaces in basements, so low temps should not be a factor.

As far as foreign matter goes, these valves have fine mesh screens on both the inlet and outlet of the valves so any foreign matter would be coming from within the valve.

The wierd thing is if once the unit is fired, you can actually make and break the MV connection and you can hear the MV solenoid click as it is energized and deenergized. The one Armstrong valve I had would actually partially close sometimes and other times still stay fully open.

My ultimate concern is that something in the valve is breaking down and in this day and age of liability and lawsuits, if this becomes a wide spread porblem, both Honeywell and all of us as contractors could be in for a problem. Plus there is the posibility that someone could get hurt or propety damage under the right circumstances.

Here's a scenario I just thought of. Smartvalve has stuck open Main Valve. Ignitor gets weak enough that it won't lite pilot (I've seen it happen). Now pilot and main gas fills furnaces continuously because pilot can't lite and main valve stuck open. Same thing could happen with a spark ignition system. We've had problems with Lennox units where the Johnson controls moules won't spark or spark intermitently. Imagin Module dosen't spark for lets say 60 seconds during the 85 second ignition trial. The pilot and main gas are filling the heat exchanger. Now the spark comes on and KABOOM. In the word's of Dan H. " this will make your schpincter do the mombo".

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Unknown

Just looking at cut-away

of those valves. The first valve is a direct action solenoid that opens on a pilot lit valve system simultaneously with the second valve.

On intermittent pilot operation the first solenoid is a PV (pilot Valve) when it opens pilot gas flows and is ignited by the spark igniter. When the pilot proves with a proper microamp signal back to the module power is feed to the second solenoid which actually controls working gas to activate the diaphragm and cause it to open. It is possible to hear both solenoids click open and closed as they are indirectly seperate from the diaphragm action which is spring activated to close. If the spring is not putting sufficient pressure on the diaphragm valve seat or foreign material on the seat then the diaphragm will remain mechanically open even though the solenoid is clicking on and off. That second solenoid is directly tied into the servo pressure regulator which is sensing downstream demand through the sensing port and then controlling working gas pressure to position the diaphragm to set outlet pressure.

Every thing on the valve could be functioning normally except that second valve seat not fully closing when the call for heat ends means on the next call it is hung open and you get full flow before the pilot is lighted. By the way the screens in the valves can not prevent the fine dust that sometimes is in the gas and it builds up slowly inside the valves until it partially holds open the seat. Before we had redundant (dual seated) gas valves that meant that the valve was stuck open and would not shut off. Fortunately most of the time the pilot lit the gas and it would eventually raise the temperature and pressure in the boiler and blow the relief vale or pop safety. On some warm air furnaces the boot used to catch on fire. Dual seated does work better than single seated.

If it is any consolation the amount of gas escaping into a chamber in 90 seconds on lets say a 100,000 BTU per hour furnace or boiler is about 2,000 btus. It will delay on igntion if nothing else but it will not cause an explosion.

Solution: I would change every valve that I find doing this, document your findings and all customer info as I am sure many of these are out of warranty. Get hold of your local Honeywell Rep and get him involved. That is my plan of attack. Now Honeywell may have other ideas so I guess that is up to them.

Interesting also is that I have had reports of White Rodgers valves doing the same thing. They also work on the same principal as Honeywell valves.

Keep us posted.

Glenn Harrison

Thanks again Timmie.

That explanaiton of the valve operation is very helpfull. I think your right about the seat being the problem. Just because you can here the solenoid and actuator operating. Your right, all of these valves are out of warranty.

Maybe the word KABOOM is a little extreme, BUT one of the first valves I had just about took my face off when it delayed for only about 3 SECONDS, so to me 60 or more seconds would provide one large flame rollout, amungst other things. Now please keep in mind that I am NOT trying to argue with ya Timmie, as you know more about gas than I will probably learn in the next twenty years. I am just speaking from my experience and what I am seeing right now.

Your comment about the screens is interesting. I realize that the screens won't stop finer dust, but I never really would have thought that fine dust would have been enough to foul up the valve. It seems to me that even with redundant valves,to have something as important as a gas valve having the potential to have a seat stick due to some fine dust just dosen't seem right to me. Call me crazy. And I definatly realize that valves are far more safe and reliable than they used to be, and maybe I'm panicking over the whole situation, but none the less to this young punk it worries me, and my co-technicians. All my co-techs, are anctiously awaiting any info that I come up with from the internet as I am the internet junkie in the department.

We are definatly chyanging every valve we find, including the ones customers didn't know were bad. And if for some reason someone refuses to replace it, we will shut it down, fortunatly no one has refused yet.

I have heard of this happening on rare occasions to gas valves, and I realise that all redundent valves operate basically the same way. It's seems that this is more than a rare occurance.

Here's one other thing to think about. What if one of these valves has been converted to LP? Then you have that 2000 BTU's of gas sitting in the bottom of the HX waiting to ignite.

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Unknown

You are right Glenn KABOOM

to me is a big one. I guess I have seen so many flames come out into the room after me that I get sort of used to it. Obviously anything like that is not good.

I once had a boiler 1,500,000 delay on me the blue ball of flame went clear across the boiler room and bounced off the wall. Walked away with singed hair and eyelashes, lost my eyebrows for a few weeks. After a few of those a 100,000 BTU's seems like a top burner.

I have also been present when two different buildings went KABOOM!!!

Glenn Harrison

Just goes to show it's all a matter of perspective.

I guess that after a 1,500,000 BTU unit delays on you, a 100,000 delay seems like a walk thru the park.

I think the ultimate perspective is the customers, when they hear that boom that makes the house shake, or when the wife is doing the laundry and the flame comes out the front of the furnace.

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois

Glenn Harrison

Talked to Bill W. on Monday

Just letting everyone here know that Bill W. has e-mailed me and given me a local contact to discuss this with. Will keep everyone up to date as info becaomes available.

and thanks to Bill for jumping on this as soon as he saw it.

Glenn Harrison Residential Service Tech

Althoff Industries Inc. Mechanical and Electrical Contractors

Crystal Lake, Illinois