Viessmann Nightmare!

ALH_4

Vitodens

The unfortunate fact is that the homeowner is caught in the middle of Ken's prejudice and wanting the best boiler and hot water maker available. Don't forget the OB8 code or setting the clock, Ken. There's a pre-programmed DHW night setback. Did you use the low loss header or at least P/S? Hopefully that chimney liner will actually work as the vent. The Vitodens uses differential pressure to determine fuel mixture. Don't bad mouth Viessmann when the boiler locks out because of unauthorized venting techniques. There are reasons to follow the instructions and engineers' recommendations.

-Andrew

Constantin

Interesting...

... did anyone think to download the operating instructions from the internet? Viessmann has them up there for a reason. The rep should also have access to the partner page for the service and install instructions. How hard is it to print these things and give them to the customer and/or to request new brochures from Warwick?

As we've said many times before, success with any kind of equipment comes down to the quality of the installer and the maintenance people. An installer that can fit pipes in accordance with the installation manual but has never been trained on the electronics (or even read the manual) is IMO not qualified to install or maintain the equipment.

Presumably, the "common boiler" will be a Slant-Fin, since you work there? :-)

George Peteya_2

You are right ...

... on both counts. Spot on about the quality of installer and maintenance people. As to your first paragraph, I couldn't have said it better (but why does the brochure make it sound so easy? Do you remember the first time you saw a 4-way valve?). I say the HO was B.S.ed by the rep and the installer. As homeowners, we are to blame if we pick the wrong installer. With my engineer hat on, I see a beautiful piece of equipment that was mis-applied, and wish I could get the HO to keep, with just a little re-piping downstream of the 4-way valve, and some supplemental heat in the rooms that need it (amazing what a heatloss calc will tell you!). As the Slant/Fin factory (not independent) sales rep, I see an opportunity to be successful by: returning phone calls, applying equipment based on installer capability and willingness to learn, showing up, and looking for potential in every Customer, including end users.

Ranger

Ken,my good man.....

....If ya procured this product from the "Folk's up on the hill" in Warren,In somewhat there defense thay just took on the line and there warehouse just went to "RF".It's not an excuse by no means,just alittle insight mabie.Sorry to hear of you delema,I have only herd positive things about the product.Hope all is well otherwise.
Ranger

Dave Yates (PAH)

I've been to Viessman

in Germany and stayed overnight at their School of Technology. Aside from that being one mighty impressive school, we then toured the factory and their state-of-the-art warehouse that's computerized with robot material procuring lifts. It's an amazine sight to witness first-hand.

It's unfortunate that you've had a rotten experience first time out of the gate. I'd be willing to bet Viessman will read your post and take it to heart - in spite of the tone - and use the info to upgrade their US presence. That's the mark of a great co & I believe they fall into that category.

While I don't personally use their product line (due to lack of product being stocked locally), I wouldn't have any concerns about installing one if a customer wanted theirs alone.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Paul Pollets

My 2 Cents

I agree, Constantin...there's more than meets the eye in this post. Venting of the Vitodens is particular to the product, like other condensing boilers. While it is possible to vent the boiler with approved SS venting, the sealed combustion is compromised, and is certainly not recommended. The high cost of the Vitodens venting co-pipe is a deterrent to some contractors. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. If the customer wants the product, despite the cost, the proper venting should be installed.

Ken, have you discussed your issues with Ed Nordstom, the VP of Sales in RI? He's a most reasonable man and is a problem solver. His number is 800-288-0667.

Any problems I've had with the Viessmann products have been handled to my satisfaction. I've installed several hundred units over the years. I've not found another company, other than Wirsbo, who strive for complete customer satisfaction.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Enough

If Ken gave out some of these marathon "discussions" to his prospects he would have less troubles with customers. I see posts on how to sell up a customer to high end equipment, but not the reverse. My installer was trying to get me into Viessmann but it wasn't going to fit the particulars of my house. Shame on the customer for wanting the best and being willing to pay for it.

You could have told the customer that you do not install these, or that you weren't trained on the controls/install, and have never touched one before and that would have been it. It was unfair to take the money for this if you could not deliver. A classic uninformed decision.

Rodney Summers

I spoke to Ed

at length and he doesn't have a clue. He's never been outside "the box" in his life.

If you read the book, you know everything Ed knows, maybe more.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Rodney Summers

Things are fine,

and the guys in Warren are as annoyed at inventory issues as I am. They are told to sell the product, when there is none to sell.

Rumor has it, the last rep had the same problem, which is why they dropped the line.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Rodney Summers

Prejudice?

They don't stock or inventory a product they want us to buy.

If that's prejudice, we're all in the wrong biz my friend..

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Constantin

And if you want to be a hero...

... then fixing the system with a qualified technician is what I would suggest to the homeowner. The marginal cost of getting someone in there to fix the extant issues is pretty low at this point vs. the high cost of scrapping a whole bunch of otherwise servicable equipment.

Said technician can also train the homeowner in the meaning of reset curves, offsets, and other things to play with on the Vitotronic 200. I went as far as taking the Vitotronic course at Viessmann and came away incredibly impressed with the many built-in features and the expandability that the Vitotronic system offers.

Besides, if you want a dumb boiler with a standard Tekmar control, you can accomodate that need with a less-intelligent Vitotronic (like the 100). You can install all-Tekmar boiler control, 4-way valve control, etc. yet the downstream piping will still need to be fixed, no matter what.

To reiterate, it is likely that the lowest cost option for the client is to have someone come in, set up the boiler right, fix the piping issues that have to be fixed no matter what, and leave the customer with a thorough understanding of what all the buttons mean, what they do, etc.

Rodney Summers

I see.

Still shooting the messenger?

Last time. There is nothing wrong with the install! There is no indirect S.S. 79-gallon EVI's in Viessmann's inventory.

Always nice to blame everyone else, especially the contractor for the manufacurer's stupidity. You can't make this stuff up.

And then the poster hides behind a fictitious name. I love it. So typical of the "VBSA" (Viessmann Brotherhood of Self-Adoration)



To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

jackchips_2

There are

some of us who get it, Ken.

Comments from a few of the "pros" is surprising but as someone without a dog in this fight, it is actually amusing.

Has any of your friends here offered to ship you one yet?

Jack

George Peteya_2

Constantin ...

... that was my suggestion. Some re-piping on the secondary loop, and adding second stage heat via tekmar 512s to a couple of zones. That's it. We did a heatloss and it's doable. BTW, we found a Vitotronic 100 in a box on the floor near the boiler. They sold him that too! Again, nothing wrong with the equipment itself. But the HO has completely lost faith. He has to live there, not us. Hey, maybe some smart guys with dumb boilers are better than dumb guys with smart boilers.

Constantin

See above...

Gary Wallace offered to ship his, Ken hasn't taken up his offer (at least publicly) but did reply to Gary's post with more anger about his experience with Viessmann, the people that work for the company, and those of us who like the product.

Draw your own conclusions.

Unknown

So Ken, You want that heater or not?

Ken,

I know it’s not exactly close but it’s closer than “the Fatherland”

The RIDGID Pro Press is manufactured in Ohio. (who knows where the parts come from) Viega NA did not private lable the process for Viega. The tool is labled RIDGID. From what I understand Viega holds a contract with the Ridge Tool CO that gives them exclusive rights to the tool Ridge Tool CO. makes for them. I’ve been told that the patent for the pressing process and the jaws was bought by Viega from a German engineer. Viega is a German company. They chose to have we “Americans” make for them yet it’s not available on the shelf for us at this time. Seems strange but, I have some patience and still remember how to solder if I must(G)

“Ridge Tool Company is the world's leading manufacturer of professional quality pipe and tube working tools serving the plumbing, mechanical, construction, HVAC and facility maintenance industries. The RIDGID® trademark is recognized by professional tradesmen and engineers for uncompromising product quality, performance, durability and service.

Ridge Tool was founded, and remains headquartered in Elyria, Ohio, USA. This 650,000 square foot building houses global offices, engineering/innovation center, training center, factory service and manufacturing. In addition to the main headquarters, other Ridge Tool facilities in the USA include Urick Foundry in Erie, Pennsylvania, the North American Distribution Center (NADC) in Cambridge, Ohio and the RIDGID/Kollmann division in Orange, Virginia.

Additional international manufacturing facilities are in Cork, Ireland, Gevelsburg, Germany, Sissach Switzerland and Song Jiang, China. Major sales administration, marketing and distribution facilities are located in Leuven, Belgium, Tokyo, Japan, Melbourne, Australia, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Shanghai, China. Ridge Tool has knowledgeable, factory-direct salesmen in over 50 countries.

Ridge Tool is a subsidiary of Emerson of St. Louis, Missouri. Emerson is a global manufacturer with high-quality products, systems and services for commercial, industrial, and consumer markets. With headquarters in St. Louis, Emerson has more than 60 divisions selling products in more than 150 countries.

Ridge Tool is committed to continual product improvement and new product development. Investment in talented people and state-of-the-art equipment allows Ridge Tool to produce innovative, high quality products that make the lives of our customers easier.”

So Ken, You want that heater or not? I know it’s not exactly close but, It’s closer than “the fatherland”


Wallace Radiant Design

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

jackchips_2

Hi Constantine,

Gary offered to let Ken have it if he would come and pick it up. A little different from shipping one to him.

There are no conclusions to be drawn, yet. Let the discussion (edited) continue.

Steve Ebels_3

Debate?

More like one guy's personal vendeta. Not a lot more to it than that.

DanHolohan

Play

nicely, boys.

Uni R

Forget debate...

I'd actually like to see some pictures of the install. In particular the venting.

Unknown

Dan,

Thanks for the warning.

Guys, We don't want to get this thread pulled so let's keep it professional. Not personal.

Ken has a valid point. The tanks are not in Warwick. One of my suppliers was showing 2 in one of their branches but it was a "glitch." They won't be in till Mid.- October and that is not only a problem for Ken, It's a problem for anyone who needs onethis fall.

Like I told Ken, Come on down and get it. It's not convient but it's here in MA if he needs it bad enough. It's out of the box/crate and field preped allready:-)

Wallace Radiant Design

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Steve Ebels_3

You're correct Gary

The jaws are Ridge Tool's problem. An inside source tells me that the reason for the current back order situation on tools and jaws is this. Ridge was making the jaws themselves and ran into quality problems with the jaw assemblies. From what I understand, they have sub contracted the manufacturing of the jaws to a third party to try and attain the desired results. There is going to be a time lag of as much as a couple months while the sub contractor gets spooled up for production. Word is that the Viega folks are mightily PO'd about the whole deal. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the Viega/Ridge partnership in the next year or two.

Rodney Summers

Gary.

First of all let me thank you for being one of the few who would actually like to help, rather than blame me for a corporate blunder.

If my customer didn't already have a functional gas water heater hooked up while we complete the heating side of the Vito, I'd be up to your place with a pocketful of jingle and be forever indebted to you for your act of kindness. The kind of kindness one used to expect at The Wall, before the mindless cadre of euro-snobs came to town - who prefer to bash the messenger, rather than agree the euros have no clue and likely, never will.

I feel bad for the customer who beleived all the euro hype, and now will have to wait for the greatest boiler company in the world to figure out how to do something as simple as maintain "basic" inventory.

Gary, I thank you for your offer and am glad I will not need to run up this week-end to take you up on your kindness.

The mere fact that you offerred tells me what I already knew; you're a good guy and a great freind.

Thank you.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Unknown

I don't understand why this is such a huge deal.

In the last ten years, It has only been in the last couple that suppliers have actually been able to keep radiant tubing in stock through the fall. I remember, every year, delays on getting pipe, straight from the manufacturers. You think this sucks, try racing a slab deadline that's already months behind schedule.

it's fall. Rushes happen. Inventory is often behind. What's odd about this? Am I just jaded?

joel_19

huh?

Let me get this straight . The installer didn't know what he was doing , the oil guys don't know what they are doing (no surprise) , somebody took the instructions , nobody downloaded them from the web and this is somehow the manufacuturers fault . So your going to rip it it out and put in a tekmar??? personally I find the Viessmann controls easier than Tekmar and I sell alot of Tekmar . You also said you may rip out the boiler ? Why ? it's just a hunk of Cast iron with a riello what can't they easily fix on that ?

Most important WHERE is the original installer he should be there showing the customer how to run it !!! if the owner and you have a right to curse someone than it should be the people who put it in . Think about it would you buy a car from a dealer without a service shop full of factory trained service guys ?

We sell Tekmar and Viessmann , we program the boiler as close as possable to the needs of the house , we leave the instructions , we teach the customers who want to know what to change themselves . We walked a senior citizen through how to change her room temp set point this morning OVER the PHONE . Why has the installer of that unit not walked the customer through it over the phone if he couldn't be there the other day ? Sorry but that is not a component problem .

I'm not great on my laptop but i recognize that's my problem not Dell's. it's like you bought a Lexsus from a Chevy dealer .

Rodney Summers

Sam,

I can deal with the marketing hype of the manufacturer, they all do that; but the level of defensive, robot-like, blind adoration and fawning behaviour of the "chosen" few who embrace the manufacturer's hype, is such an abject display of naievete and brainwashing, I find it more than just "odd."

It is rather sickening to be honest.

But then it's not about honesty at all,

is it.





To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Rodney Summers

I too was at the factory...

I think you and I were in the same tour; the one where Rich Trethewey met us in the lobby?

That's when I realized it was all a sham. The place was deserted, half the space was rented to some other outfit, the employees smoked and hung out messing around when they would have been fired if caught doing that at GM or GE and we were supposed to be impressed? By what? Unionized loafers pretending to be industrious while hangin' out doing as little work as possible.

I was there. I was unimpressed. No wonder cameras were not allowed.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

heatboy

There must be two Viessmann companies.

The one I deal with has never been less than totally responsive to me and my dumbness. I've been with them for 11+ years and believe me, I have waited for product on more than one occasion. That's the way things work. I don't like it, I just deal with it. I'm honored to call most of the people up there my friends.

Ya know, if I thought about it for two seconds, I could **** about most manufacturers in regards to "Where is my stuff?" or "What do you mean I won't be reimbursed?".

I bet every other industry goes through the same things we do.

Unknown

Ken, The thing is: You’d be doing me a favor.



I need to increase the DHW storage capability of this home’s DHW situation anyway as they have recently added more body sprays and a 17.5 GPM shower that has fiber optic light that illuminates/pulsates a multi-colored light show in the whole bathroom to downloaded music on the internet via remote control. (I’ll post pictures soon) To add insult to injury, I’ve got a 250 Gal. Spa that may or may not be used frequently.

I’d like to remove the 79 gal. storage /heater and replace it with an additional 120 gal. Vitocell 300 for extended DHW demands. I’ve got no room in the garage to store this thing.

How can I interest you in this tank short of delivering the unit to you? I’m “just a mere small business owner” with no capability of delivering the EVI79 to you in Jersey. Fact. ;-)

I’m dead serious about this. You want to wait till mid-late October or can we work something out?

My Explorer crashes whenever threads get this long. Not sure why but. I need to revert to another browser to continue on this thread.


To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Dave Yates (PAH)

A three hour tour....

Workers at GM or Ford being fired for taking a smoke break!?! That rich & a good laugh - thanks for the image(G). Yup, the same tour & Richard was there with his group. Always a pleasure to see & talk with him.

Man, I guess we see the world through a very different set of eyes, but then, yours are at a much higher elevation than mine! I probably was staring at the back someone elses head most of the time.

Then there was the luggage thief who swapped his bag for mine and I ended up having to wear the same clothes - underware included - for several days. I thought that was bad till Holohan & Boltz took me shopping & Holohan found the most insulting saleswoman who made some disparaging remarks when sizing me up. Then we had a "hostage" exchange at ISH where I finally was reunited with my duds. Like finding a lost child!

Lighten up my friend. If you like, I can read you the zen-like message Robert Bean had me read to the folks at Radfest East. ****, I almost drifted off while I was reading it myself(G).

From my perspective:

Your customer wanted a specific product - come **** or high water - you agreed - they agreed - the product failed to appear on time - no fault of yours, it's simply late or unavailable - no harm, no foul - hey, they wanted this product, so, no blame for you! - you're ticked because you see this as a fell-down on Viessman's part & felt like venting here, which many of us have done in the past & that's ok, even though you were over the top (IMHO) - you're not exactly thrilled with several posters here, but then, each to his or her own, eh? - so what - neither am I or anyone else for that matter - I see that as necessary to keep the world from being bland and dull - change the channel or simply ignore their posts, which is my solution - most of all, I've come to know you and the fact that you're a great big gruff teddy bear who really does care about this industry and that you're not really the angry giant I'm seeing in this thread.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Jed_2

Dan Holohan

Dan,
< but the level of defensive, robot-like, blind adoration and fawning behaviour of the "chosen" few who embrace the manufacturer's>

Do you see something more sinister in this remark than just DISTRIBUTION! Extremely troubling!IMHO!

How can this man continue to indoctrinate his beliefs, so increasingly revealing, on this forum?

Jed

Unknown

Don't you guys get it yet?

Why the hostility?

Now,,, some anom poster has started his own spin-off of this thread to try to exclude and ban from The Wall one of the reg posters here who has great insight into both our industry and more importanly the importance of industrial design.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Liberal Lenny

Funny

Your the same guy that bashed the guy for donating to his fire and police department! Your a funny guy.

DanHolohan

He's just being Ken.

Same ol' Ken. Like Dave says, big and loveable in person, a bit dopey here from time to time, but he cares.

Unknown

Bashed?

I did no such thing. That's just the way you interpreted what I typed. There is nothing wrong with stating ones feelings WRT someones posting here. Was it mean spirited? You make the call. Did you fail to do any research into the history between the poster & I?

Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.

Wallace Radiant Design

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Unknown

Oops. Double post:-(

DanHolohan

Gary,

deep, cleansing breath. Ommmmmmmmm. That's it. ;-)

ed wallace

viesmann

ok easy solution gary has the tank ken needs it i have a van and need a day off pay for my gas and meals and i will gladly drive to Nj to deliver it now play nice everybody

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

DanHolohan

Nice!

There's the solution. Now let's all move on.

Thanks, Ed.

Constantin

A tip of the hat to you then...

... for trying to do the right thing.

I wish more people would analyze the problem instead of jumping to conclusions/solutions. Many more steam systems would still work as designed instead of being hacked to death, for example.