Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.
If our community has helped you, please consider making a contribution to support this website. Thanks!

Boiler stopped working last night, Pressuretrol spring

Options
Goodhap
Goodhap Member Posts: 36
in Strictly Steam

It's been very cold here, -18 with wind chill. Last night, our boiler cut out without us noticing until the temp dropped about 7 degrees. I went down to the basement and flipped the boiler on and off a few times, but nothing happened. Then I just lightly tapped up on the Pressuretrol from the outside, and it the boiler came on again. Ran for about 45 minutes, with temp rising 2 degrees, then cut out again. Rinse and repeat, same thing. I figured the pressure was hitting .5 PSI, the boiler was shutting off, but then it wasn't coming back on again when the pressure lowered like it was supposed to. I have no idea why tapping up on the outsdie of the Pressuretrol (on the little bar the shows you what the pressure is set to) made the boiler come on again.

So I opened up the Pressuretrol to check it out, and the screw that connects to the spring for adjusting it was entirely disconnected! I reconnected it, and now after that the boiler worked fine.

So, here's my question: does having the screw disconnected from the spring somehow make it so that the Pressuretrol will shut off the boiler when it reaches the max pressure but then not turn it on again when the pressure lowers? In other words, why did reconnecting the screw to the spring fix the problem?

Comments

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 27,188

    Yep. And what that means is that you have turned the adjustment down too low. If your cutin (This is the sort with just the cutin setting, yes??) is set too low, that spring will come adrift and it won't cut in. Reset the cutin to perhaps 0.7 psig and that won't happen.

    If you need a lower pressure than 0.7 cutin 1.7 cutout, get a vapourstat.

    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • patrykrebisz
    patrykrebisz Member Posts: 106

    assuming you are talking about the "gray box" pressuretrol, the spring sets cut in (when the ptroll switch allows electricity to pass after it disconnects it on high pressure).

    https://youtu.be/zzPnB29HnJ4

    »»» See my steam heat YouTube videos:
    https://www.youtube.com/@HeatingBlog

  • Goodhap
    Goodhap Member Posts: 36

    That explains it then. Thanks!

Categories