HELP! It's without heat in SLC!

Micah Rosenfield

We've had a major failure of our residential boiler, and I'm writing to ask some third (or 4th or 5th) party opinion on what went wrong and who might be responsible.

In October 2003 we replaced our 100 y.o. inefficient kettle-type, aesbestos-coated boiler in our home with a new Weil-McClain CGa gas-fired boiler to supply heat through hot-water radiators. It served us well last season, but this season it has broken down three times, and now has three cracked sections that are to be replaced.

The first breakdown was the pressure release valve, which was pouring out water. Because it was 1 year and 2 months after installation (and therefore, I guess, 2 months out of waranty), we were responsible and paid for the installer to come an replace the valve. A few weeks later, the system kept switching off, and we were told that the electronic control for the vent damper had failed, and a replacement was >$500, (and again, out of waranty), so instead of replacing it, they just propped the damper open and told us we'd be loosing a few percentage points of efficiency.

Then the big kaplooey happened. The system failed on Sunday, and our plumber tells us that three of the 'sections' have cracked and are leaking. The remedy that has been proposed is to replace these three sections. The plumber wanted to replace the whole core, but we cannot get one overnighted as it's too heavy, and we're sitting here in the cold until it's fixed, so he went for the rebuild with the 3 new sections that are to arrive tomorrow.

Question one: Is replacing the 3 core sections sufficient, or should I demand they replace the whole core, or even the whole boiler? My concern is that the other sections will also fail in the same way because of an underlying defect, or that the boiler and it's components were damaged by whatever caused the initial problem such that it will continue to fail intermittantly.

Question two: Who should be responsible (i.e. who should pay) for the problem? My contractor? Weil-McClain? Certainly it is not beyond reason for us to expect a $10,000 system to last more than one season. How should I approach my contractor and/or Weil-McClain with this issue?

I'd appreciate any thoughts. Now I'm going to snuggle up next to a warm fire.

Thanks,
Micah

jim lockard

I vote

with the plumber to replace the block. Has any one come up with a answer as to why this happened ? Is a low water cut off installed in the system? Can you post some Pic's of your system lots of them showing the boiler and the piping? Best Wishes J.Lockard

Weezbo

it is sounding sad....

there are a few things that are difficult to speak to with out some photo of the installation.... there could be something that may have been over looked and then again it may be some inherently errant "feature" of the match of boiler and field....and yup , the system may indeed be expected to last considerably longer than one season....

Constantin

Micah,

I am a mere homeowner myself... however, I wonder what may be causing such a "young" boiler to implode. Usually, when installed properly, they can last 15+ years.

So, I vote with the other contractors, asking for pictures and piping diagrams. For example, I wonder if your system may be experiencing thermal shock, which would make the sections work excessively.

Lastly, I would consider asking an alternate heating installer to come by and inspect the system. Perhaps a fresh set of eyes will see something that the current crop have missed.

Mark Hunt

Sounds like


thermal shock.

Pics of the boiler piping would be helpful.

Mark H

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Matt Undy

Lets start with a disclaimer that I'm a homeowner that has jsut done a lot of reading on the site.

Without a digram and pictures everything is pure conjecture. My initial thought was it was gravity hot water and nothing was done to keep the full volume of cold water from the system from flowing in to a hot boiler. Does it have an indirect or tankless domestic water heater (so the boiler might already be hot when the heating system calls for heat)? The pressure relief valve was probably not bad but there was some other problem like lack of expansion tanks (or the radiators were only part full and served as expansion tanks or other odd old systems that weren't converted/understood correctly) causing that to blow. I wonder if excessive system pressure caused the sections to crack?

This might be worth seting up some temporary heat until you sort some of this out instead of shiping cast iron overnight..

Steamhead

Get a second opinion

Weil-McLain makes a very good boiler. It's possible that some bad sections somehow got past their quality control, but I'd say this is unlikely. The W-M boilers I've seen have lasted very well. I've never seen one fail catastrophically like yours did.

I agree with Constantin- you should have someone else go over that system. Try the Find a Professional page of this site to locate someone near you.

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Paul Pollets

I'll Bet...

that the existing boiler has no bypass or mixing valve installed to control thermal shock. Boilers sections don't crack by themselves.

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Mike Reavis_2

consult your installation manual.

or search w-m's site for the diagram. There was a mention in another post here about thermal shock. Read the part begining on section 3, especially 3-D. If your system is a "low-temperature system" and your piping does not match what is in the diagram, you may have found the source of your problem. A note of caution here, there are other piping schemes that are as good as the manufacturer's recommended for protecting the boiler. You may need to get the manufacturer's representative involved to protect your repaired boiler. They are normally very responsive.

Do you use a set-back thermostat set to reduce the room temperature during unoccupied, or overnight periods? Do you set it back manually? If yes, how many degrees do you set it back?

Mike

Al Gregory

I would wait for the whole block. The wholesaler that sold the boiler to the origional installer probably has them instock. If not I would demand a whole new boiler. I know that if I installed a boiler and it failed that soon, my supplier wouldnt hessitate to take care of me by giving me whatever I needed and working out the details latter. As to why it cracked you mentioned radiators I would guess thermal shock.

STEVE N

sounds like

thermal shock. If the installer did not put in a bypass or use primary/secondary pumping boiler sections will crack especially with large volume systems. My company sells thousands of Weil McLain boilers and have very few failures. Weil McLain is great to deal with, they will ship the block or sections right out. Pictures would be helpful. If you have problems with getting sections, I may be able to help... just email me.

Steve

Micah Rosenfield

Thanks for the help.

Your response has been great. Thanks. We do not have the luxury of waiting for an entire block -- our house and family cannot stand more time with our little space heaters, and it's only going to get colder (we're fortunate the temp has stayed 30's - 50's this week). The distributor will be looking at the system as an outside party to be sure it was installed correctly, and I'll try to get some pics posted.

To be honest, I am assuming that the block creacked because the pressure release valve failed, causing the makeup valve to open, resulting in lots of cold water pouring in for a few days. But why did the pressure-release valve fail so early? And who is responsible for that? And does that have anything to do with the vent failure?

Micah

Micah Rosenfield

No one on \"find a professional\"

listed for slc or 100 miles around us. I guess our local contractors aren't computer savvy, or don't know about this service.

Micah Rosenfield

Wholesaler does not have

a new block or even a new equivalent boiler, and shipping one overnight was prohibative. The installer's preference was an entire new block rather than rebuilding the existing one with new sections, but we couldn't wait, so he had to settle on shipping in the three sections. These arrived today and are being installed, and the wholesaler is coming to look at the system to give his opinion.

I'm hoping that the wholesaler will give his opinion as to whether we need a whole new block, and the plumber will agree to replace it when we can get it and just use the rebuild as a temporary fix.

EBEBRATT-Ed

I would suggest getting Weil Mclain involved immediatly. They have a quality product. You need to get a contractor who is competant on this job to consult with Weil Mclain and work with the distributor to get this resolved.

SIMPLY REPLACING THE BOILER WILL NOT HELP.If the cause of the problem(s) is not found and corrected you could have a repeat failure.

You need someone who is compent on electrical, controls, combustion and heating systems to evaluate this system. It's a lot more than connecting pipes.

ED

Timco

I am in SLC. call Thornton H&A or better yet, Steve at H&H boiler.

Maine Ken

Where's SLC? can't find it on my map!!!

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Timco

If it's not in NE you guys are lost. Is it because we dont have an NFL team!

Maine Ken

Theres more than New England??????

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Timco

Yeah, a giant desert that we live in the middle of.

Maine Ken

Seriously, where is SLC? I not so up to speed with initial only places except maybe LA, NYC, FLA...

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Timco

Salt Lake City UT

Micah Rosenfield

The plumber/installer has replaced...

the cracked sections, and the Weil-McLane rep (Steve Montgomery at Sable & Rice) came out to look at the system and will crack open the sections to see what caused the damage. I haven't heard from him what the verdict was, but the folks at Manwill (the plumbers) were kind enough to comp the repairs 'because you were so patient with us'. The system is working fine right now with heat, but I again worry about the damage that may have been done to the other sections and parts of this boiler.

Micah Rosenfield

What can you tell me about

Manwill? They seem to have made good on this, although I do worry a little about what might happen in the next heating season or so.

Timco

Sounds like they are 'giving' so you don't 'press'. If the install is bunk, then it's all their fault...everything plus damages for inconvienience. No experience with Manwill, but if you call Steve @ H&H Boiler, he will talk to you and tell you what you have. He spent hours with me explaining systems, and is a stand-up, great man. He is the boiler pro in SLC!!!!!!!I have a HW system as well, and he knew everything there was to know about it. Friendly as anyone you ever met.

Tim

Timco

Manwill are plumbers to the best of my knowledge. You need more than pipes that hold water on a boiler install. I think they do scorched air, but that is yet another story. Boilers are specialized things. H&H.....trust me.

Matt Undy

Converting graivty hot water systems is a specialty within the hot water specialty. You need to answer at elast 2 questions.

1. What did they do to prevent the huge volume of cold water in a gravity system from coming in to the biler all at once. Even if it grdually warmed up and didn't shock the boiler, the return water has to be fairly hot rather quickly in a heating cycle. If the return water is too cold the combustion gasses will condense on the heat exchanger causing it to fail prematurely and possibly cloging it with soot, causing the combution gasses to go into your house instead of the flue.

2. The higher volume of water in the system expands a lot more than the smaller volume of water in a modern system. This means you need a much larger expansion tank. Make sure the extra volume of water was accounted for in the expansion tank calculations. If the tank is to small, the pressure will go to high as the system heats and the reliefe valve will blow off. This will be replaced with fresh water when the system cools. This will introduce more oxygen in the sytem and will rust out the boiler much faster than it normally would.

Call the WM rep and ask them about these 2 issues. Make sure they have accounted for this. Perhaps the rep in UT doesn't see many gravity conversion and doesn't know about these issues.

Matt

ISLAND BOILER

I believe that the sections for Weil-Mclain have a 5 year warranty. It's parts that have the standard one year manufacturer's warranty. See the last page of this file for warranty info:

http://www.weil-mclain.com/FTP/CGa_Manuals/Gas_Boiler_Info_Manual.pdf

JimGPE_3

Are we missing something?

Anyone have any thoughts about a possible correlation between the failure of the pop-off valve and the failure of the boiler sections? How about the vent damper motor failure?

This seems very odd that there would be this kind of cluster problem without any correlation.

Sure would be nice to know what pressure the boiler was seeing when the pop-off valve blew.

Mike Reavis_2

If the vent damper motor fails, the gas shuts off

due to the action of the heated gas escaping at the base of the draft hood opening causing the manual reset switch to open.

Mike