HW Smart Valve

Toearly

Just got back from a noise complaint on a gas furace.
HW SmartValve SV9500M 2674

Valve would open full before Igniter would start to glow.Small Kaboom followed by two foot flame out the front of unit. I am glad I was taught to never look straight on.

Replaced valve and system works

With the old valve off the unit and wired to furnace.

Connected wiring harness and turned on. Valve remained closed.
Then conmnected igniter and turned on. As soon as the unit was powered the valved opened full and allowed air to pass

Has any seen failures like this ?


David

bigugh_4

IF ?

it is under warrenty, get your money out of it. If not and it is still avaliable, get your traning out of it. Take time to dissemble it and look carefully for the switch or other to be closed, or shorted out. Bad controls are a great resource for training. and you can dump the parts in the refuse after. A fun family project, kids love watching and give you a chance to explain what your seeing. bigugh

Toearly

I am going to hold on to it for a few days.

The way it failed it is what bothers me and was wondering if any one else has ever seen a failure like this.

Any Honeywell reps out there ?

David


> it is under warrenty, get your money out of it.

> If not and it is still avaliable, get your

> traning out of it. Take time to dissemble it and

> look carefully for the switch or other to be

> closed, or shorted out. Bad controls are a great

> resource for training. and you can dump the parts

> in the refuse after. A fun family project, kids

> love watching and give you a chance to explain

> what your seeing. bigugh

Brian_24

I have better than two thousand of these valves out in use and I have seen this happen twice. Not a bad percentage I guess but it sure scares the hell out of home owners or renters. I have had more trouble with the wiring harness not making good contact. Armstrong and Honneywell seem to have resolved that issue. Also had trouble with the draft inducer leaking condensation on the valve and killing it. Armstrong came out with a deflector to cure this. I prefer to tune the furnace and get the stack temp up where it belongs. All in all not a bad valve.
Brian

Unknown

Not a Honeywell Rep

but I did work for them for five years as a sub-contractor teaching their "Source Program" across the country. I have had the privelege of getting to see what makes this control tick. It sounds to me like the relay inside the Smart Valve is stuck. This can happen (rare) I would not be real concerned unless others start posting similar findings. As the saying goes "these things happen". It is a good idea to take things apart that have failed (unless in warranty)this is how we all have learned.

I am sure Bill from Honeywell can give some good statistics on failure rate on "SmartValve". There are alot of them out there, that is for sure. When I last heard the fail rate was less than .1 of 1%. That is pretty good.

By the way that was a good catch, as sometimes these things are intermittent and Murphys Law they will not fail when the tech is looking at them only when he or she leaves.

Toearly

Tim

Thank You for the reply.
I know Mr Murphy very well.
If one unit out of every million has a problem. I found that unit. LOL

This was a sealed combustion furnace. With all the covers on the blow back was loud and contained. With the front cover off the flames from the blow back were directed outward through the inshot burners. A very direct and forceful blow back. If a tech were looking in the burner assy. A trip to the hospital would have been needed and future eyesight would have been a matter of luck.

This was an intermittent problem. Which makes the above very scary.

This valve was out of warranty. If Honeywell wants it they are welcome to it

David


I am sure Bill

> from Honeywell can give some good statistics on

> failure rate on "SmartValve". There are alot of

> them out there, that is for sure. When I last

> heard the fail rate was less than .1 of 1%. That

> is pretty good.

>

> By the way that was a good

> catch, as sometimes these things are intermittent

> and Murphys Law they will not fail when the tech

> is looking at them only when he or she leaves.

Unknown

Hi David, if you want

to send the valve to me I will take into my lab and look it over. I can then maybe give you an idea what went wrong.

Address is:

Tim McElwain
Gas Appliance Service Training and Consulting
22 Griffith Drive
Riverside, RI 02915

BillW@honeywell

Drop me an email...

and I will send that valve to our QC folks for testing to find out what happened. The failure rate on this product is very low, and I am confident that you shouldn't have any more problems. Liquid water kills any gas valve, try to intall piping/pumps etc. so that any leaks won't drip or run onto the valve.

Steve Miller

Smart Valves

I was wondering if you checked the supply side gas pressure or manifold pressure for that matter? I've seen ton's of Smart Valve appliances and have never seen that but I ain't seen it all yet. The main problem I see, is the valves that were manufactured in 1995, had a bad solder connection from what I understand, where the ignitor molex connnector goes. I've changed out 5 in the past 2 weeks and we usually flat rate it and change the ignitor assembly too. Of course I always check my manifold press. afterwards too.

Steve M

Glenn Harrison_2

Is this a '93 or '94 vintage valve by chance?

Our company had 2 smart valves and a slew of VR8204 spark ignition gas valves that the main valve diaphram would stick open and the pilot and main burners would get gas at the same time causing exacly what you said, except it would happen consistently with every ignition attempt. I sent a number of these valves in to Honeywell and was told that the quality of the gas in my area (Chicago, People's Energy and NICOR, Higher sulfer levels supposedly) was causing the diaphrams to stick. Apparently, the diapham material has been changed so that this doesn't happen any more. Most of the valves we had go bad had '93 or '94 date codes but also a few '95 '96 and '97 date codes. The scary part is we just had a '93 gas valve that was on PROPANE do this and that was one hell of a BOOM. Also, most of these were slow opening (H) valves, although we had a few standard and one step opening valves.

Toearly

This furnace was installed in 97. The date code looks like 96,
I am going to send it back to HW and see what happens.
My gut feeling is sooner or later some tech or a homeowner is going to get hurt.
To have a product that fails in this manner is something that should be addressed
By HW, Even if the failure rate is low.

David

> Our company had 2 smart valves and a slew of

> VR8204 spark ignition gas valves that the main

> valve diaphram would stick open and the pilot and

> main burners would get gas at the same time

> causing exacly what you said, except it would

> happen consistently with every ignition attempt.

> I sent a number of these valves in to Honeywell

> and was told that the quality of the gas in my

> area (Chicago, People's Energy and NICOR, Higher

> sulfer levels supposedly) was causing the

> diaphrams to stick. Apparently, the diapham

> material has been changed so that this doesn't

> happen any more. Most of the valves we had go bad

> had '93 or '94 date codes but also a few '95 '96

> and '97 date codes. The scary part is we just had

> a '93 gas valve that was on PROPANE do this and

> that was one hell of a BOOM. Also, most of these

> were slow opening (H) valves, although we had a

> few standard and one step opening valves.

Kevin_12

smart valve

wrong name, it should be dumb valve imo. solder joints go bad and make it an intermittent problem. Honeywell is the best name in controls but this gas vlave is not good!

Brian_24

I agree with the "dumb valve" name. While I have only seen the ignition problem twice I have seen the bad solder problem plenty of times. Had to send more valves to a service tech because he used the four he had in his van. Really spreads confidence through the apartment or condo communty you are working in. Looks like armstrong is finally getting away from the dumb valve and I couldn't be happier. Let the orange store keep seeling their junk and give me white-rodgers any day.
Brian

ryan

smartvalve

I have seen one do this, fortunately it would open the main valve and pilot valve when the ignitor started to energize and lite nicely.
I remember when these first came out and I asked how long the ignitors would last. He told me the life of the unit. If that was true we sure would be changing alot of units by now.