Domestic coil problem

Paul Mitchell

Went to a call today that we were at last week. Customer has one bathroom that has a hot water problem. Only in the winter. Our tech that went there last week saw that one zone was not wired into the reverse, just a straight RA832. So he told them to turn down this zone for a half an hour before a shower and see if it works better..if so we will do some re-wiring. Well today I went and did the annual service on this oil boiler with a domestic coil. The HO said the trick didnt work. So why would the hot water to this bathroom only be a problem in the winter if it has nothing to do with the improperly wired zone? Also does anyone know if a L8124 can handle a RA832 relay and Taco007 on the ZR/ZC terminal?

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flange

my guess is that your coil is full of lime/rust/whatever. during winter, city water is much colder entering that coil, and you see reduced heat transfer due to the scaling. might be time to pull the coil.

Paul Mitchell

I agree but

They have another bathroom and two other sinks that do not experience the problem. So they say.

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Unknown

It is just one bathroom

that is affected ? The shower and the sink ? Are there other showers in the home that work fine ? If it's just the one shower , is it one of those old style high flow showers ? I had the same problem last year on a new install where the shower would run cold in 5 minutes . It didn't help that it was running at 6 gallons per minute . Also , like Flange said , the water coming in is much colder than normal which decreases the output of hot water .

It's been a long time since I installed an RA832 , but I believe it has the 1,2,3,4, T T , and X X terminals ? Are there a 5 and 6 terminal also ? In the past , if we were hooking in a small zone to an existing boiler , we would power the relay from ZC of the aquastat . It will at the least shut down the added zone if the temp drops below the low limit . Not the best way to do it though .

Paul Mitchell

ron jr

Yes only one bath affected, Only shower as far as I know, Other showers work fine. Could be a flow thing but why ok in the summer?

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Jamie_6

Maybe they just take cooler showers in the summer and don't notice it?

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Unknown

Gotta be sure

about the flow at that shower and the others . I went back to our problem job and timed how long it took for the temp to drop in the shower . Then I measured the GPM by filling a 5 gallon pail from the shower while timing it . I did that at all 3 showers , it took a long time . I had to wait between each one for the indirect to heat back up ( Yep , a new Burnham V84 with a 50 gallon Megastor ) . This was when the temp outside was in the single digits for a week or so , and the water temp coming in was alot lower than normal , with the pressure being very high .

Is the problem that they have no hot water at that shower in the winter or that it runs cold after a short amount of time ? If it happens only in winter it doesn't sound like a flow problem , but thats just a guess . Is it a single lever shower ?

Paul Mitchell

ron jr

double lever shower...and they have to let the hot water"trickle" to keep it there.

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Paul Mitchell

good point

could be as easy as that...some things are not so technical.

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Frank_17

chances are it's a delta faucet right?souds like you need new guts to it.

joe_14

832



paul if i remember right a ra832 is jumped internally to provide power to contacts 4 and 6. will not work correctly with zc and zr. you need to change the control to a taco501 or a honeywell 845. these will work fine with zc and zr.



good luck

joeg.