Hydronics resources for a newbie?

Here is a link to a set of 33 technical journals, free download or sign up for the printed copies

https://www.caleffi.com/en-us/education/idronicstm

A couple favorites that go over common troubleshooting and designs that work and fixes for mis-piped systems

In addition to Idroncs, "Modern Hydonic heating" is a great one too

you don't necessarily need the current edition.

a lot of Dan's stories and seminars are on youtube too:

then there is the general society:

i think most of the manufacturers of mod cons have online training but really it is more about understanding microprocessor control systems than mod cons vs conventional boilers

The hydronic end is easier to learn than the controls. At least it was for an old geezer like me that didn't turn on a computer until I was about 40.

Circuit boards and processors used to scare me.

But it's all about checking for power

Checking the inputs

checking the outputs

But you have to know how the thing is supposed to work. This is where some manufacturers fall flat on their face.

Some write excellent manuals and some write crap.

For instance CARRIER, not a favorite. We used to install a lot of their 'Aquasnap" commercial chillers.

We used one on a process job and it worked fine. Set for 40 degrees everything is great ….until the next day.

You walk by the chiller and its just sitting there, water temp is 70 degrees. Chilled water pump running.

I had one of my guys working on it and I went over to help out. We basically tore it apart look for issues and checking sensors and voltages etc. We both read the manual cover to cover.

Finally I read one section over and over and it went something like this " The processor senses the temperature of the supply and return water and decides how many compressors to sequence."

That was it. No more explanation than that.

So what was happening was the chiller is not set up to maintain water temp, and you can do nothing to change that. It senses the supply and return temp and decides when to run. Since the process machines were off the supply and return were the same temp……no load so the chiller sees no load and will not start even though its 30 degrees above set point.

Once it senses a load it will start and then maintain 40 deg.. All done through the processor and you cant change it or wire around it.

After that we changed the name of those chillers to "sleepy snap" . Everyone laughed at me when I told them the chillers went to sleep.

Sight , sound, and smell are good troubleshooting assets.
Taste also, used in moderation, if you are checking for glycols🤓