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Hydrotherm
antman
Member Posts: 182
I do not come across these boilers to often, but when i do they never seem to be in good shape, jackets always look overheated around the burner tray, burner cover melted, site glass for pilot broken. I am not slamming them, i'm just curious about this particular situation and if anyone else has had this occur to them.
Today i had a situation where i had to go on a no-heat call, pilot out, ok go to change the thermocouple, HELLO, thermocouple literally melted and fused to pilot assembly, NEVER seen this before. So ofcourse i don't have a pilot assembly (#@*&^n' helper) run to the supply house pick one up, fine, fire up the boiler, nothin, go through the procedures, find a loose connection on blocked vent switch, damper opens, nothin,go through he procdures again find flame roll out switch NG. Bypass flame roll out switch, bingo, boiler fires, ok, now i need a new vent switch because the terminal is broken loose, and a new flame roll out switch, I remove the flame rollout switch and sure enough someone had wrapped a wire around the two leads bypassing the fusable link, Ok, go to the supply house AGAIN get the parts come back, good to go, boiler fires, after 5 minutes I see, droplettes coming out from under damper onto draft hood, then i hear drip, fizz, drip, fizz flames are freakin out, bam boiler shuts off, flame roll out switch goes again, so i bypass it let the system run to get customer heat while i hang out, Explain to them that there is a flue gas condensation problem, This is the second time i have literally seen water dripping down onto burners on these boilers, why?, return temp?, cast iron rads, no bypass, is there anything in the manual (that was not on site)that reqires a bypass on these boilers. what should i look for when i go back. I shut the sytem down and instructed them to keep an eye on it when they get home and shut it when they go to bed, and i would look into rectifying the problem, I assume that the thing has been running without a flame roll out switch since whoever did the wrap around. But since i was the last to work on it, I don't want to be resposible for an existing condition.
Any thoughts or past experiences with this?
What ta do?
thanks, Ant
<A HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=239&Step=30">To Learn More About This Contractor, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"</A>
Today i had a situation where i had to go on a no-heat call, pilot out, ok go to change the thermocouple, HELLO, thermocouple literally melted and fused to pilot assembly, NEVER seen this before. So ofcourse i don't have a pilot assembly (#@*&^n' helper) run to the supply house pick one up, fine, fire up the boiler, nothin, go through the procedures, find a loose connection on blocked vent switch, damper opens, nothin,go through he procdures again find flame roll out switch NG. Bypass flame roll out switch, bingo, boiler fires, ok, now i need a new vent switch because the terminal is broken loose, and a new flame roll out switch, I remove the flame rollout switch and sure enough someone had wrapped a wire around the two leads bypassing the fusable link, Ok, go to the supply house AGAIN get the parts come back, good to go, boiler fires, after 5 minutes I see, droplettes coming out from under damper onto draft hood, then i hear drip, fizz, drip, fizz flames are freakin out, bam boiler shuts off, flame roll out switch goes again, so i bypass it let the system run to get customer heat while i hang out, Explain to them that there is a flue gas condensation problem, This is the second time i have literally seen water dripping down onto burners on these boilers, why?, return temp?, cast iron rads, no bypass, is there anything in the manual (that was not on site)that reqires a bypass on these boilers. what should i look for when i go back. I shut the sytem down and instructed them to keep an eye on it when they get home and shut it when they go to bed, and i would look into rectifying the problem, I assume that the thing has been running without a flame roll out switch since whoever did the wrap around. But since i was the last to work on it, I don't want to be resposible for an existing condition.
Any thoughts or past experiences with this?
What ta do?
thanks, Ant
<A HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=239&Step=30">To Learn More About This Contractor, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"</A>
0
Comments
-
All noncondensing boilers need temp protection
when used with standing radiation. Also are you sure all that water you were seeing was not a leak that opened up when the boiler got warm (strange things happens). The boiler should be up to 140F within about 5 minutes of firing. The condensing issue may be worse with the Hydrotherm because it is a horozontal section cast iron boiler, so the whole bottom of the boiler gets full flow of return water. I too have been disappointed with the Hydrotherms, they don't seem to hold up well, except the newer Pulse condensing units. The general design concept is very good, but it appears to be poorly executed and poorly constructed in newer models.
Boilerpro0 -
Boat Anchors
A company I worked at for years used to sell Hydrotherm for about 40 years. I have seen alot of failures on several different models we worked with. The HC models, CI sectional stacked, these loved to drip condensate. Now of course primary/secondary would of went along way here or even a bypass. But I was a young whipper snapper and the installers had been doing it that way for 30 years (wrong). The company had a shipping band that went around all the stacked sections, I can't tell you how many I found with the shipping band still on, these were in the 20 year old range. Of course the owner called back to the office and asked why the kid was tearing their boiler apart because none of the other guys before had. Gas cleanings apparently was just a good time to smoke a cig and wipe the jacket off. The pulse boilers also had alot of failures sections cracking, spark plugs breaking off in the tapping. In the end my company dropped the line and not soon after so did the Rep agency. My personal opinion of Hydrotherm is that they need to start coming up with some new inovative designs, and I don't mean putting a stainless steel jacket on the outside of a old design. In reply to the first post, yes they always seem to be highly heat stressed and the sight glass burned out. The heat baffles are always half burned off. Mind you, gas pressures are within factory specs. I was doing the annual clean and tunes at my local air guard base and every Hydrotherm I came across had the heat stress symptons. Pain in the gluteus max to get the replacement parts. Sorry didn't mean to be such a rambler.0 -
Hey, Darin and \"shipping bands\"
I believe those "shipping bands" may be a permanent part of the boiler to hold the sections together. Thought I read that somewhere in the manuals. I'd call Hydrotherm to check, though.
Boilerpro0 -
Yeah antman, every Hydrotherm , I've come across
looks like that. Mad Dog
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So i take it, short of ripping it out,(I forgot to mention it's only 4 years old) install a bypass since the circ. is on the return and walk away?
I find sometimes people don't want to hear the truth about someting they paid good $$$ for and expected it done right the first time. But there is that old saying again, you get what you pay for.
Thanks guys, Ant
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