LWCO \"Knight\"mare

Kevin O. Pulver

I appreciate your forthrightness and quick response. I think it is in accordance with the all around excellence I have experienced with Lochinvar Corp and its products.
As I said in another post, the Knight boiler has got it all-including styling; which is a definite selling point by itself. BUT in the interest of making things easy for the contractor to wire, I question whether it's a good thing that yours is the ONLY LWCO that can be used. It seems that it would be pretty user friendly to have a 24 volt source on the board somewhere to use whatever LWCO is on the truck when you need it. And I think it could very easily be done even though it is heavily discouraged by tech support. Of course it would be, they don't want everyone in the country wiring things up their own way and then having warranty issues when they let the smoke out of the board and of course being on the phone trying to help the next guy figure out how the last guy did it. And why would someone want to re-invent the wheel and use any other LWCO anyway when you've made it so easy... unless it's not on the shelf or cost prohibitive? To any wallies reading this: The short answer to my dilemna is in the forwarded instructions.
Put a reducing tee in your primary loop for the probe. The box will mount on the side of the boiler the way I described I did it. But unless you are electrically minded and willing to think outside the warranty box, you better order the factory LWCO to go with it. The wiring harness plugs right into the board,and there is no other authorized option. I love this boiler and I would love to install a bunch more of them. Thanks to Lochinvar for all they invested in this product. Kevin

Kevin O. Pulver

What's the deal?

I just finished two jobs; a residential and light commercial job with a KNIGHT 210 and 399. I love the product, and love the company. I was at their factory training a couple years ago and it is top-notch. But this is the problem.
I installed the boilers with both flow-switches and the McDonnel Miller probe-type LWCOs my wholesaler sent with the boilers. LWCOs because they're required, and flow-switches because I think they're better. (Not only must you have water, but the water must be moving)I installed the LWCO in a tee in my primary loop, above water line.
The electrician asked how to wire the LWCO's as they need 24VAC. We couldn't just wire it in series with the flow switch. I figured it would be no problem as these boards have a place for EVERYTHING on them-very nice! I called tech support, and they emphatically told me I just needed to use their KIT3057 LWCO and everything would be great. Just plug it in and go. They didn't want us to find a 24 volt source and either wire in series with the flow switch OR cut and tie into the jumper wire that comes plugged into the 4 pin Molex connector in the LWCO slot on the board.
Great I said, send me two of them. Well, the literature they come with is for one of their copper fins and says nothing about the Knight. The wiring instructions made me wonder. The 4 wires go under 4 screws in the box. Then why is there a spade lug terminal installed under one screw where one of the 4 wires goes? Turns out I had to throw it away. No,I told them, it is NOT the jumper that the literature speaks of, there is no jumper. Also, this LWCO box doesn't mount on the probe like the other, it mounts on the boiler and has a pigtail to go to the probe. Tech tells me the probe and box MUST go inside the boiler- that there is a FPT plug/tapping in the header somewhere for the probe. I told him the inspector wants the thing outside and above the boiler where it should be so he won't have to look or think to verify the placement, and it might actually do some good someday. I still haven't found any extra tapping on the header, and the only existing ones I see are below the water line of 50% of their heat exchanger. And there's not exactly loads of room to mount the box inside. If you do, there will be screws sticking out through their super cool metal jacket. So against their wishes, I mounted the probe in my primary tee, outside and above water line, mounted the box to the top left hand side of jacket, drilled a hole through mounting bracket and jacket and ran the wiring harness through a grommet and the jacket to the fancy 4 pin Molex LWCO plug on the board. The pigtail runs from the box over to the probe in the tee. It looks OK, It would have been easier if they had some literature explaining it and if I didn't have to go against their advice to do it that way... But wait there's more! In testing these devices, the very nice readout screen doesn't differentiate between flow switch and LWCO. Either one will cause a common lock-out code. "Flow switch/LWCO" so what is the advantage of wiring them separately instead of in series? The only advantage I can think of is that when I got the bill for 2 probe-type LWCOs it was $1000.00! I can understand they have made it easy to plug in a harness, and they want to sell their own, but #1 Where is the elusive tapping on the header anyway? #2 Some pertinent instructions would be nice for a $500.00 LWCO specially packaged for this boiler. #3Doesn't it have to go OUTSIDE the boiler? #4 Doesn't it have to go ABOVE waterline? #5 What advantage is there to wiring it separately from the flow switch if it only gives a common error code for the two of them?
#6 I've heard some talk here about installing 2 LWCOs on every boiler and how the price of LWCOs "disappears into the price of the job." I gotta think one is enough!
The reason I am whining so much about this is because I love the product and am planning to use it again, and I want/need to know what others have done about this placement issue. Of course tech support warned me to no end about messing with their engineering, but I've read enough of Carol Fays books to think: We need a switch, we need a power source, we need a load. The LWCO will be both our switch and load, power must come from the boiler. We have only 4 wires in this Molex connector. The 2 switching wires from LWCO obviously go where the factory installed jumper wire is across two pins. All we need now is a power supply... Hmmm I wonder what those other two pins are for? Anybody want to bet there's voltage there? So what if you check for voltage across those 2 bare pins, then take a matching 4 pin molex connector and run your power and switch wires to an aftermarket LWCO, test it and go? As Dan says, "take the money you would have spent on extra purge valves (or pricey LWCOs)and buy something nice for yourself." I understand companies can have growing pains and there can be glitches and bad/incomplete literature; that I can overlook. But what am I supposed to do next time? What would be wrong with the way I installed it? What would be the advantage of buying another of their LWCOs instead of simply using another as long as there is 24 volts where I think it is? Why is theirs worth 2 or 3 times what others are simply because it has a Molex connector on it? On BOTH of these jobs I had already sold Peerless Pinnacles, (Munchkins) and upsold the Knight because I felt it would be good for the customer. I promote radiant at several homeshows a year, and have prominently displayed Lochinvar boilers and banners in my booth. I will probably have a Knight displayed this year. So I am not down on them, but I need some answers to this dilemna please. Kevin

Ike Gatlin

The answer man

WOW! That’s a long post.
Let me see if I can make some sense out of all this for you.

1. You caught us. I went to the parts folks/engineering and yes indeed we have failed to get the LWCO kit instructions released for the KNIGHT boiler. It is a typical long drawn out story, but I promise it has a happy ending. I should have specific instructions for you next week; I will forward you a copy to your private email.

2. The KNIGHT does have a connection point for all accessories. We attempt to do this so any contractor can safely wire things into the control circuit of the boiler. With varying degrees of experience in the field, we find this to be the simplest way of insuring that the boiler is installed properly.

3. The common fault "LWCO/FLOWSWITCH", it rare to see both safety devices applied to a single boiler. In effect they are doing the same thing. You are right... a flow switch is the best low water device; proving flow is the safest way. One day when all the agencies and inspectors out there get on the same page, I am sure that a probe type LWCO will finally go away on forced circulation boilers.

4. The LWCO we provide is not a remote devise. It is designed to be mounted on the side of the boiler, and the probe inserted into the heat exchanger. (Yes, I know, if we would have bothered to put in instructions...)We provide this configuration because 9 of 10 times, we have to mount the LWCO in the factory (see inspectors on the same page comment) therefore it is impossible for us to see the highest point in the system or even imagine where the water line is.

5. As for the high cost of this LWCO... discussing pricing on this or any forum is a no winner. I would however suggest that you address this specifically with your distributor.

We appreciate your support Kevin. The Lochinvar KNIGHT was specifically designed to appeal to folks such as yourself who obviously go above and beyond the normal level of service for their customers.

If I can answer any other questions, please give me a call here in Lebanon, I will be more than happy to help you with any questions you may have.

Ike Gatlin
KNIGHT "DUDE"