Triangle Tube Prestige Boiler Problems, Solutions & Question

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ericg

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same issue

(1) I have a Solo 110 that makes a horn-like sound just after firing, goes away after about 15 seconds as boiler moves to "high fire". (2) Also, I smell raw gas coming from the intake elbow that connects to the venturi when in standby. TT told me that there should not be a gas smell anywhere! So they arranged to have a guy put in a new gas valve. That didn't fix it. Sometimes I smell gas in the room. Anybody have trouble like this?
Jack

I had the same issue with my Solo 110 and to some extent i am still having it. First the gas, it seemed to be intermittent, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker smelling. My gas company went through the unit and was able to detect a small leak which they fixed. I would do this first. I have the same trumpet or train whistle sound on low fire. The conventional wisdom was to make sure the unit air/gas was calibrated correctly, i.e. make sure it's not a lean mixture. Some purport to have fixed the problem by calibrating the unit correctly. I had my unit tested by a TT factory-trained plumber with a digital combustion analyzer and the unit was spot-on. He was able to re-create the trumpet sound issue on a low fire test (amazing! when does this ever happen when the repair guy is there?). He indicated that there were no specs for a low fire calibration. He also tested the LP gas pressure which was 11" - also on-spec. He contacted TT who told him that i should have my pressure lowered to 9". I think the theory was that the regulator may have shown 11" but during the morning (when the sound typically happens) it may be fluctuating above. My opinion is that TT doesn't want to send new parts until they can't point fingers anywhere else. One piece of additional info, I've had the boiler for about three years and this issue didn't happen until about 2 months ago.
 

BadgerBoilerMN

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The key to efficiency and comfort in any hydronic heating system, is control. Control is gained by understanding the thermal dynamics of the distribution system you have and the heat source you want to drive it with. I just so happens that that a low-mass, condensing boiler with modulating output will drive nearly all hydronic heating systems, be they radiant panel, panel radiator or slab-on-grade, with better control and higher efficiency than anything previously devised. The reasons for this fact can be surmised in one word: microprocessor.

The "mass" in cast iron radiation or concrete for that matter is better controlled with weather sensitive controls. The odd fact that both systems normally have more radiant surface than is technically necessary (given the 167 to 200°F max. water temperatures of ModCon boilers), the result of over-sized radiation is a low design water temperature. Low-mass, high efficiency, condensing boilers love low water temperatures and can easily cut fuel bills in half with stack (chimney) temperatures in the 100°F range instead of the 350° common in high-mass, low efficiency (<88%AFUE) cast iron boilers.

Because of the modern condensing boiler has built-in outdoor reset (ODR), even low-mass emitters like fin-tube baseboard will create more comfort at lower operation cost than when matched with an old-fashioned boiler.

European "panel" radiators are really one of my favorite design tools as I can over-size a panel to any design water temperature I choose creating radiant comfort where fast response time is essential.

It is why I no longer use tin.
 

LarryLeveen

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Badger, what you say makes sense. I think that my installer did not truly understand how much heat needed to be "dumped" from the system to the living space to adequately lower water temperature so the boiler can operate towards its peak efficiency. Our house is small (1200 sq. ft. (fairly well insulated), and has two zones, which I think make it harder for the system to have adequately low return water temperatures for efficiency. As a result, our utility bills have not decreased from when we had an older gas forced-air furnace.

What do you (or anyone else) recommend I do at this point? Could the Runtal radiators we have be switched out for ones with higher BTU output to "dump" more heat into the living space and lower the return water temperature? That is the only solution I can think of. Thanks.
 

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More radiation and more thermal mass can be your friends, but have you tried programming the Solo 60 to a lower reset curve to see if it still keeps up?

Runtal radiators have at least some thermal mass and work well with low temp (compared to fin-tube which have very little thermal mass, and is pretty unreliable at low temp.) As long as it's not short-cycling like crazy on zone calls you should be able to run a lower temp curve to pick up condensing efficiency.

A well insulated 1200' house in Seattle may have a design condition heat load not much more than the ~15,000 minimum modulated output of a Solo 60. To keep a low-mass zone from short cycling itself silly at low temp it needs to be able to deliver at least half the min-mod output of the boiler at your minimum temp, but with the Runtals you have some thermal mass to help out, and you can probably do fine with 1/4 the output, and maybe even less, but let's go for half the rated oiutput at min-mod. (This is a WAG, don't have all of the necessary specs in front of me.) So, you'd want at least something on the order of 15K/2=7500BTU of output @ 140F to get you into the condensing zone. Runtal UF2 radiant baseboard is rated ~600BTU/foot @ 180F, and should deliver ~300BTU/ft @ 140F. If your's is UF-2 two-panel baseboard (or tell us what model & size Runtal you DO have), you be looking at only 7500/300= 25 feet or more. If you have 25' of it on your smallest zone you should be able to run in condensing mode 100% of the time without short-cycling, and may be able to drop the bottom of the curve to 110F without short-cycling and hit the mid-90s or higher.

I'm guessing you may already have radiation worth at least 7500BTU @ 140F on your smallest zone, if certainly more than half that. If so, you should be able to set up the boiler to run in the condensing range nearly 100% of the time and still meet the design condition load without it short cycling itself into an early grave. Why you're running with 174F output is beyond me. I doubt the heat load of either of your zones exceeds 10K at 20F outdoor temps, and even 20' of baseboard would deliver 8-9K at your ~160F average water temp. At 40F weather (the mean temperature for Seattle in January) you should be able to meet the heat load comfortably with sub-140F output, and condensing-range return.

So, whattaya got for radiation, zone for zone?
 

LarryLeveen

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Quick and important question: I just programmed the boiler's outdoor reset curve points to the minimum allowable values which I now realize could have been a really stupid thing to do. Was it? I did it because I am interpreting the situation as: we have a very small house with insulation and two zones in the heating system and we don't keep it the thermostats up very high, therefore we need to "throttle down" as much as possible. That is, our needs are still very undersized compared to the mod-cons commonly available in the US market so we need minimal temp settings to get efficiency. Please tell me if I am on the mark or not. Now onto your questions:


Nice guess on the Runtal UF-2 units, Dana -- that's mostly what we have :)

Zone 1 total lineal footages by radiator type:
UF-2: 16' (2x6' & 1x4') 600 BTUH/ft = 9600 BTU*
TW9: 2' = 2400 BTUH**
Turbonics Toester (toekick heater in kitchen): 2200-3000 BTUH depending if fan speed is low or high.***
Zone 1 Total BTUH: 14200-15000 BTUH

Zone 2 total lineal footages by radiator type:
UF-2: 8' (2x4') 600 BTUH/ft = 4800
Zone 2 Total BTUH: 4800

House Total: 19000 - 19800 BTUH (We intended to almost never need both zones running at the same time, we are either asleep in zone 2 or awake in zone 1).

* http://www.runtalnorthamerica.com/residential_radiators/baseboard_uf.html
** http://www.runtalnorthamerica.com/towel_radiators/omnipanel.html
*** http://www.turbonicsinc.com/TOESTER-UNDERCOUNTER.pdf

BTW, does running each zone's circulator pump at a slower speed help? I was thinking that it could "give the hot water more time" to dump heat to the living space through the radiators and bring the return water temperature down.
 

LarryLeveen

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Hey weird, after lowering the reset curve points all the way, my Solo 60 is making that horn sound too! I wonder if the unit is throttled all the way down and the rate of gas flow is now low enough to create the noise at some adjustable regulator. I know I'm just "talking out my exhaust port" here, but it's the only thing I can think of, since the gas line is pressurized and some mechanism must be trying to restrict it's flow. Thoughts?
 

Dana

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Running the boiler at the min-allowable values is not a stupid thing to do- if the house stays warm that would be THE most efficient way to run the system from a condensing point of view. If it's not keeping up when there's a real heat load, bump the curves up a bit at a time until it does.

But with only 8' of UF2 on the second zone it's likely to short-cycle on that zone at low temp. The 4800BTU output rating is what it delivers at 180F, and it's more like 2600BTU @ 140F, and would be 1300 BTU @ 100F output. When the boiler is at min-mod and dumping ~15,000BTU/hr into a zone that's only able to dump 1300 BTU/hr into the rooms the temperature of the system water rises pretty quickly (how quickly depends on how much thermal mass there is on the zone), and it will cycle on/off even with a steady call for heat from the thermostat. That's OK as long as the burns are reasonably long, and what's "reasonable" depends on the mass & standby of the boiler. For a low-mass mod-con like the Solo 60, if the burns are 3+ minutes and it's doing 5 burns or fewer per hour you're fine. If the burns are under 1 minute long and it's doing 15+ burns/hour it's wearing out the boiler and losing efficiency to flue-purges and ignition cycles.

Some mod-cons also allow you to program the hysteresis (the amount of water temp overshoot it allows before turning the burner off), which would be the first place to start to fix a short-cycling issue. If that doesn't do it, if it's possible to set just the min-temp of the curves without moving the rest up, try bumping it up 5F at a time until you get number of burns down under light to moderate heating loads, and the minimum burn times to at least 150 seconds, if not 200+. With any luck there's enough mass in a 8 feet of UF-2 to run reasonable burn times at some modest hysteresis with sub-140F water. (But I don't have the specs for either the boiler or the mass/volume specs for UF-2 to be able to tell you if that's a given.)

Zone 1 is less of an issue at 140F, but even that might have short-cycling problems at 100F output, but with 16' of UF-2 + the towel rack the thermal mass is probably going to be sufficient help you out there. (The toe-kick is very low-mass and hardly counts from a mass point of view.)

As for tooting the horn, are you sure it's on the gas line, not the venting?
 

LarryLeveen

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Firstly, thanks for all your help.

Second, no, I am not sure about the noise going from the gas line and not the venting. I'll certainly look as it is safer to inspect/look at/monkey with (you know what I mean).

Lastly, I'll be paying attention to the house temps now that some time has passed and the thermal inertia the house had shouldn't be masking the curve changes I made. I'll also consider timing the burns to see if it is short cycling.

You are probably familiar with how toe kick heaters work. They seem to turn the fan on when they sense water temperature is at a certain point and just shut off below that. Ours used to run all the time, which annoyed me because it is not as quiet at I expected (it also isn't in a complete enclosure due to an impending kitchen remodel, so I can't blame it that much). Since I made the change, it hardly runs at all. To me that says, yup -- the system water was consistently too hot, and even when there was no call for heat and the water wasn't being circulated, the heat could travel through the still water and keep that toe kick fan going all the time. It seems like evidence of the curve needing to come WAY down. Do you agree?

Lastly, and I might have to call TT on this one. The display on the boiler seems to hang out a lot at code/status 6 with the water temperature also showing, instead of at code/status ZERO ("standby/no call for heat") like it used to. Any idea why? Is that also evidence of the issue I had/change I made? Seems like it could be:

BEFORE curve change: Curve WAY too high, unit short cycles, water temp very high, takes a long time to drop down due to small house/small BTU emitters, toe kick runs all the time too. Boiler is thinking "Man, they don't need me -- I'm going to sleep".

AFTER curve change: Unit hopefully not short cycling (I'll report back), water temp NOT way too high for the small house/BTU emitters, toe kick only runs when it should, and boiler doesn't go to "full standby" because it sees the system water temp as close to its minimum and it will be needed for a slow burn soon.

Scary but perhaps accurate metaphor: An airplane pilot can take a nap when flying at 20,000 feet, but not at 2,000 feet.
 

Dana

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I would hope that the toe-kick has a adjustable aquastat to be able to set it to come on at a suitably low temp for running the boiler in a condensing mode, but that alone might establish an operating low limit. If it's not running at all even when the rest of the zone is calling for heat it means the outdoor reset curve has gone below it's turn-on temp. But since that probably only happens when it's relatively warmer outside that may not be a problem. With lower temp water it should take LONGER to satisfy the thermostat on a call for heat.

The thermal mass of the house isn't likely to be so great that it would coast a few days with the heating system's output under-shooting the heat load. If you've gone 24 hours with outdoor temps below 55F and the room temps are still where you expect them to be, the system is keeping up. If you go a day when it's consistently below 40F and the indoor temp isn't dropping, the top end of the reset curve is almost certainly going to be high enough.

DO time the burns at modest load and relatively high outdoor temps. When it's 50F-55F outside there is still a real heat load, but the boiler output should be near the low-temp end of the curve where short-cycling is most likely to become a problem. If you turn off the bigger zone and bump up the smaller zone a couple of degrees you would be able time both the on & off cycles under a continuous call for heat for a few cycles to get a sense of it. If it's not short-cycling on the smaller zone it means it also won't on the bigger one.

From a quick read of the manual it looks like you have just two points to monkey with on the curve and it's a line, but you can adjust a min-temp between 60F<=>140F output to correspond to any arbitrary outdoor temp between +50F<=>+78F, as well as a max temp between 96F<=>194F to occur at any arbitrary (lower) temp between -22F<=>+50F to define the line. With a room-by-room heat load analysis you'd able to set it up right from the get-go. To run it at absolute minimum temp would mean you set it to run 60F boiler output when it's 78F outside, and 96F when it's -22F outside, but I sincerely doubt that's how you are set to run right now. What do you have for parameters 4, 10, 11 and 12?

I can all but guarantee you that the prior curve was too high if it was running near 180F output water. With that much radiation my non-superinsulated house with 2-3x the conditioned space would keep up at +25F outdoor temps with 170F water, and in western WA in a tight well insulated 1200' house you probably will never need more than 150-160F at design temps of ~20-22F. (Manual-J on my mother's not-so-insulated place in Port Orchard came in at about 18K, and MOST houses are better insulated & tighter than hers. You are probably under 15K even at design condition.)
 
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Larry, hello again. Dana is a constant source of great info.

TT Solo seems to have lumped 3 conditions into a Standby Display of 6*** = Burner off.
1. It quickly goes to 7*** if thermostat is satisfied (space heating post pump cycle)
2. It quickly goes to 8*** if DHW is satisfied (post pump cycle)
The 3rd is interesting, it sits at 6*** for 10 minutes & refires, repeat until thermostat satisfies.
Solo has a smart way of "bumping off the bottom" by waiting 10 minutes before firing again.
This happens when the thermostat is still calling for heat AND the boiler output temperature reaches the max set by outdoor reset AND boiler can't modulate any lower.
 
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My Solo 60 also has an annoying loud howling sound shortly after firing, which fades away after about 30 seconds.

It still only fires off part of the time E02 errors. This is worse if its already hot???

My automatic reset modification that I described above works every time.

My last contact with TT Tecc Support was over 3 months ago. He had me make some internal code changes which didn't work at all, boiler wouldn't fire. He said he would get back to me, which he hasn't. They must be swamped or take notes & loose them like I do or just slide by.

In any case would anyone like to buy a lightly used TT Solo 60? This is the last TT boiler that I will ever buy!
 
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LarryLeveen

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BuffaloBill: wouldn't an explanation of an "extended Status 6" be that the emitters don't have enough BTU output to drop the water temperature?

I've been (somewhat blindly) bumping up the curve because when I minimized all the set points, the house was really cold -- oops -- too far!

Dana: the Parameters were set at:

4 120
10 100
11 30
12 70

The house has been too cold, so I just changed settings.

They are now set at:

4 126
10 68
11 24
12 70

I still can't find a simple and direct explanation of _how to calculate_ reset curve points online. I see articles about what reset curves _are_ but not how to make/use them.

Anybody got any links?
 

Dana

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In conventional houses the heat load increases approximately linearly with outdoor temps by the number of degrees below 65F. At 65F there's no heat load, and the output temp of the boiler doesn't really matter. But you can use fuel use against heating degree-day (HDD) data to determine the whole-house heat load at any arbitrary temperature, including whatever you outdoor design temperature (in Seattle the design temps are around +20F.) Get a gas bill, look at the precise meter-reading dates, then go to degreedays.net and download a spreadsheet of base-65F degree-days for a weather station near you, that covers the entire billing period, add up the HDD between the billing dates, and do the simple math of therms (or CCF)/HDD. 1 therm=100,000BTU, and for our purposes, a CCF is close enough to a therm to use the same numbers.

For a mod-con, assume you'll be getting close to 90% no matter what, so once you have therms/HDD, multiply by 0.9 to come up with BTU/HDD. Then divide by 24 to come up with BTU/degree-hour.

Now you have something by which you can estimate the load at any temperature: At 25F, you are 40 degrees below 65F (your presumed heating/cooling balance point), and your whole house heat load is 40 times your BTU/degree-hour number. At 0F you have 65 heating degrees, so the heat load would be about 65 x your BTU/deg-hr number.

To set the curve you then have to know how much heat your radiation will put out at given water temperature with your given number of feet. Pick a number close to your design-temperature (say 20F) the calculate your BTU/hr heat load number at that temp. Then looking at the specs for your radiation, given the number of feet you have, figure out the water temp that's necessary to deliver the heat at that rate. For the sake of argument, lets assume your calculated heat load at 20F was 18,000 BTU/hour and you were running a total of 40 feet of radiant baseboard rated at:

580BTU/ft @ 180F

320BTU/ft @ 140F

160BTU/ft @ 110F

With 40' of radiation needs to be able to put out 18,000/40= 450BTU/ft to keep up, which is about half-way between the 140F and 180F output numbers, so the water temp would have to be about halfway between 140F and 180F, or ~160F for the radiation to keep up when it's 20F outside, so you would set the bottom of your curve to deliver 160F @ 20F outdoor temps.

Then calculate what your heat load would be at some significantly warmer temp. If it's 18,000BTU/hr @ 20F (a 45F delta below 65), that's ~400BTU/hr per degree below 65F. So at say 55F, it would need to deliver about 400 x (65F-55F)= 4000 BTU, or 100 BTU/ft. Most baseboard is somewhat non-linear below 110F, but you can assume that with 90-95F water would still be delivering at least 400 BTU/ft, or you could do a linear interpolation from the 140F and 110F numbers to estimate it.

Another approach for picking the higher outdoor temp of the curve would be to use the 110F output number to determine the outdoor temp at which would need that. With 40' x 160BTU/ft= 6400 BTU/hr, that's good for 6400/400= 16F below 65F, or about 49-50F for an outdoor temp. Similarly, calculate the outdoor temp at which the radiation balances with the heat load with 180F water, and set the other point on the curve there: 40' x 580BTU/ft= 23,200BTU/hr. 23,000/400BTU per degree is 58F below 65, which is +7F.

Using those as starting points for defining the reset curve, if it's keeping up when it's cold outside, but doesn't when it's fairly warm out, but up the water temp at the 50F outdoor point. If it keeps up when it's mild out but not when it's colder, bump up the water temp at the 20F point of the curve. If it's keep up all the time, start backing off the water temps at both points on the reset curve ~5F at a time until it starts having issues, then increase them a degree or two at a time until it's back working for you. At that point you'll be getting about the best-possible efficiency out of the system.

If the radiation was sized reasonably on a room-by-room basis by the original designer, the heat loads and temperatures room-to-room and zone-to-zone will pretty much track, but don't be surprised if one zone keeps up a slightly lower temp than the other. It's up to you to decide if tolerating a slightly cooler zone or room is worth the extra percent or two in efficiency, but hopefully it'll be close enough to not matter very much.
 

Dana

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BTW: Tweaking the initial curve to something pretty close based on a heat loss calculation (Manual-J or similar) is something a competent installer SHOULD have done as part of commissioning the system. The evidence here is that either the load changed dramatically (air sealed & insulated after the installation), the calculation was way off (which NEVER happens, right? ;-) ), or the installer didn't bother to program the curve, leaving it as an exercise for the homeowner.
 

Jason C

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I have this same problem with delayed ignition....almost.

First off, this has been an info packed thread. Thanks to all the pro's that have chimed in.

Now my scenario.

And before anybody judges me, I have called a local service man to come take a look tomorrow. But in the event that he doesn't find anything, I still wanted to pass this by you all.

I assembled a TT Prestige Solo 110 NG with Indirect DWH Smart 50 in my 80 year old house this past fall. It all went reasonably well and I have had problem free heating for the past 6 months. The biggest problem I have had so far has been short cycling which I know is a result of having only a handful of little second hand Slant Fin baseboard radiators upstairs, so the thermal mass of my hydronic loop is very small. I am getting close to the end of my basement reno and will be installing bigger panel rads and that should help a lot. I know that having this equipment cycle like this is terrible, but I hoped that it could get through one winter until I was in a position to install the rest of the heat emitters.

But the real problem that I am worried about is the same DELAYED IGNITION problem as these other gentlemen. Because I have so many standby cycles (state 6 where boiler has reached max temp but there is still call for heat), this was happening quite frequently. A fairly deep THUD noise on start-up. The other day I got freaked out to the point where I turned off by boiler and will only turn it on now to heat up our 50 gallon DHW tank. Electric space heaters are on for the time being, and hopefully the service guy can help out tomorrow.

Now some details.
1) I have never had the E02 for failed ignition. So I really don't think that I am having the bad controller issue (green dot=good, no green dot=bad)) that many have talked about. My boilers SN does fall within the affected range, but my unit has never failed to ignite.

2) I never did have a professional adjust my fuel/air mixture. I am now realizing how stupid this was and hopefully tomorrow the service guy will have his combustion analyzer and make sure that my unit is dialed in.

3) Now my last symptom....I smell raw gas when I am in state 6 (burner off due to reaching max temperature). I know this is BAD. I know that everybody will say you should NEVER smell gas. One other post on this thread made mention to this. The location of the smell is very clearly coming from the air intake. So my thoughts on this are that my gas valve could be leaking and diffusing out through the air intake while the blower isn't on? This would also cause a really rich mixture on start-up and cause my delayed ignition as the vent would already be flooded with fuel.

So my thoughts are
A) I just have a bad air to fuel mix and the gas valve adjustment will sort this out.

B) My fuel valve isn't sealing properly (maybe due to the many many ignition cycles I have put it through by short cycling the machine) and creating a rich air/fuel mix that upon ignition, is combusting in my vent.

Anyways, any thoughts would be very helpful.
 

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I have the VERY same problem!

I am now on my 4th gas valve in two years! Yes, there is gas coming through the air intake tube, sometimes fills my utility room with gas stench. I've been in touch with both TT and Honeywell (who makes the gas/air intake unit), both say "There should be no gas!" But, I can tell you that there is gas, and has been identified by both my gas supplier, and "professionals" (who have actually replaced the valves). So, it is verified.

I am beginning to look again at heat inside the cabinet, and Post Firing air purge time. The air purge time is factory set at 30 seconds, and no instructions on how to change. TT has never mentioned this as a potential fix, but they have replaced 4 valves! Also, (if at my house) if I get wind blowing directly toward my exhaust and intake pipes, I get gas coming out into my house. So, here again, perhaps ALL of the gas has not been purged, and blows back down the exhaust, up through the heat exchanger, and back out through the fan, and down that little plastic intake pipe!

Also, I seem to have more problems when it is very cold, and the unit has been working hard at nearly 180 degrees. Inside the cabinet, it gets pretty hot. I've measured the temp in the past, but readings fell within the Honeywell operating range for the valve. So, I really feel that "The Buck" is being passed on this problem.

Jack





First off, this has been an info packed thread. Thanks to all the pro's that have chimed in.

Now my scenario.

And before anybody judges me, I have called a local service man to come take a look tomorrow. But in the event that he doesn't find anything, I still wanted to pass this by you all.

I assembled a TT Prestige Solo 110 NG with Indirect DWH Smart 50 in my 80 year old house this past fall. It all went reasonably well and I have had problem free heating for the past 6 months. The biggest problem I have had so far has been short cycling which I know is a result of having only a handful of little second hand Slant Fin baseboard radiators upstairs, so the thermal mass of my hydronic loop is very small. I am getting close to the end of my basement reno and will be installing bigger panel rads and that should help a lot. I know that having this equipment cycle like this is terrible, but I hoped that it could get through one winter until I was in a position to install the rest of the heat emitters.

But the real problem that I am worried about is the same DELAYED IGNITION problem as these other gentlemen. Because I have so many standby cycles (state 6 where boiler has reached max temp but there is still call for heat), this was happening quite frequently. A fairly deep THUD noise on start-up. The other day I got freaked out to the point where I turned off by boiler and will only turn it on now to heat up our 50 gallon DHW tank. Electric space heaters are on for the time being, and hopefully the service guy can help out tomorrow.

Now some details.
1) I have never had the E02 for failed ignition. So I really don't think that I am having the bad controller issue (green dot=good, no green dot=bad)) that many have talked about. My boilers SN does fall within the affected range, but my unit has never failed to ignite.

2) I never did have a professional adjust my fuel/air mixture. I am now realizing how stupid this was and hopefully tomorrow the service guy will have his combustion analyzer and make sure that my unit is dialed in.

3) Now my last symptom....I smell raw gas when I am in state 6 (burner off due to reaching max temperature). I know this is BAD. I know that everybody will say you should NEVER smell gas. One other post on this thread made mention to this. The location of the smell is very clearly coming from the air intake. So my thoughts on this are that my gas valve could be leaking and diffusing out through the air intake while the blower isn't on? This would also cause a really rich mixture on start-up and cause my delayed ignition as the vent would already be flooded with fuel.

So my thoughts are
A) I just have a bad air to fuel mix and the gas valve adjustment will sort this out.

B) My fuel valve isn't sealing properly (maybe due to the many many ignition cycles I have put it through by short cycling the machine) and creating a rich air/fuel mix that upon ignition, is combusting in my vent.

Anyways, any thoughts would be very helpful.
 

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Just to be clear, the minimalist baseboard problem is primarily an inability to emit the boiler's min-output @ minimum-fire heat into the zone when running at condensing temperatures, and not a thermal mass issue. Thermal mass is the band-aid that can save the boiler from death-by-short-cycling when you don't have sufficient heat emitter to get the min-fire output of the boiler to the heat out of the radiation into the room/zone. With sufficient low-temp capacity on the emitter end, with the boiler can be in balance with the radiation, the thermal mass of the zone becomes irrelevant. On houses that are micro-zoned to the Nth degree (as has become popular over the past couple of decades), higher thermal mass is often cheapest solution to short-cycling, but more radiation (or combining zones) is ultimately a better solution.

Big panel rads should be an improvement in both comfort and BTU/hr @ lo-temp, as well as adding thermal mass. It's generally better & cheaper to actually do the math on all of it rather than hack/observe/correct, but as long as you know the symptoms and causes you can still get there.

I hope your mixture & misfire issues sort out cleanly with the burner-tech pro.
 

Kurt Webber

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Micro-explosions in the exhaust of a Prestige Solo Triangle Tube boiler

I had a prestige Solo 110 Triangle Tube water boiler with a hot water heater installed. I did not realize I was having micro-explosions until one day when I was standing in front of the exhaust. I reported it to my contractor but he did nothing. The explosions continue and with they happen now they blow the condensation tube off the bottom of the boiler. I was wondering if Larry found a solution to his problem?
 

Dana

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This is a serious problem- call the manufacturer or distributor, and get somebody out there to properly diagnose and fix it pronto! If the contractor can't or won't fix it, you really need to find one who will.

Don't wait until the pops are big enough to blow the boiler off the wall. Inspecting the vent pipes for cracks would also be prudent with that kind of history too.
 

BadgerBoilerMN

Hydronic Heating Designer
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Before buying a condensing boiler from anyone, ask them for a sample of their ACCA Manual 'J' heat loads. Sizing any boiler is the first step in every hydronic heating system. Sizing the radiation to the load of each room is the second step. Balancing the loads so that the properly sized boiler does not receive a call from a zone that is too small for the lowest output of the boiler comes next.

When designing hydronic systems these are the steps we never skip.

Once the proper boiler is chosen it must be installed by an experienced professional using a combustion analyser. The analyser will tell the technician if the boiler is firing with the correct fuel/air mix. It is the only way to determine this.

Micro-explosions (actually known as delayed ignition) is not particularly dangerous in condensing boiler of this class but is certainly detrimental to the equipment and will effect components in negative ways. Like Dana, I am more concerned about micro-zones than micro-explosions as it relates to the long term reliability of a The Prestige boiler.

When manufactured one of the first condensing boilers, we received a dozens of perfectly good gas valves every month. If a technician takes out a good part for another and doesn't fix the problem, he is known as a parts changer. Sometimes this is inevitable, but more often it is the lack of training easily overcome by a quick phone call to the factory.

No, don't call direct, as the factory support hasn't time to train everyone in the country.

Yes, do call the factory and ask for the local supplier whom can generally recommend a local boiler tech who has been to school.
 
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