Help with New Navien 210 Combi Boiler

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Fristar

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Hello,

I installed a Navien Combi Boiler last month. The 210 NCB

When it runs in the upper right corner of the unit you can smell a slight burned rubber or plastic melting slowly smell.

It is not CO2 or Nat Gas. It was checked by a plumber for combustion.
Plumber found no exhause least into the housing either to account for the smell.
Boiler water temp set at 140 deg F so in normal operation.

Navien will not just give me a answer on if it is a normal operation smell or new boiler smell etc.

Any one have experience in this matter?
 

Dana

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I doesn't sound normal. Does it still smell when the output is set to 120F?
 

Fristar

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I doesn't sound normal. Does it still smell when the output is set to 120F?

Yes but the slight smell lowers.
When increased to 170 it gets more noticable.
No combustion detected or nat gas detected. No CO2. Its odd.

It is a new system, do they have a new boiler smell?
 

djdavenport

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I have a two-year-old NCB240e and it has always had a slight odor--generally in the area you describe. It's not a natural gas smell, but more like faint bakelite odor. Kind of plasticky. Ours loafs along at about 117 degrees on the coldest days, so it's not like it's ever nuclear hot. But, yes, it does have an odd odor. The unit has been otherwise problem free and all the settings seem to be in the normal range. No error codes, etc. So maybe it's just Eau de Navien.
 
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Fristar

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I have a two-year-old NCB240e and it has always had a slight odor--generally in the area you describe. It's not a natural gas smell, but more like faint bakelite odor. Kind of plasticky. Ours loafs along at about 117 degrees on the coldest days, so it's not like it's ever nuclear hot. But, yes, it does have an odd odor. The unit has been great, completely problem free and all the settings seem to be in the normal range. No error codes, etc. So maybe it's just Eau de Navien.

Well this makes me feel a little better.
Navien wouldnt give me a straight answer.
I have 2 of these and they both have the smell, but was only concered really cause of the one at my house. Wanted to make sure safe with my toddler in the house.
 

Dana

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Yes but the slight smell lowers.
When increased to 170 it gets more noticable.
No combustion detected or nat gas detected. No CO2. Its odd.

It is a new system, do they have a new boiler smell?


It's unusual to ever actually need 170F boiler output to heat the house, even during Polar Vortex disturbance cold snap events. At temperatures that high the raw combustion efficiency won't be better than 86-87%. If you have sufficient radiation (or thermal mass) on the system that it can be run at 120-125F without short cycling the efficiency will be well north of 90%. If that can work you can set up the outdoor sensor and run the system under "outdoor reset" control, using less fuel keeping the house at a steady constant temperature than you would using overnight/away setback strategies.

Run a little napkin-math on the zone radiation to figure this out.
 

Fristar

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It's unusual to ever actually need 170F boiler output to heat the house, even during Polar Vortex disturbance cold snap events. At temperatures that high the raw combustion efficiency won't be better than 86-87%. If you have sufficient radiation (or thermal mass) on the system that it can be run at 120-125F without short cycling the efficiency will be well north of 90%. If that can work you can set up the outdoor sensor and run the system under "outdoor reset" control, using less fuel keeping the house at a steady constant temperature than you would using overnight/away setback strategies.

Run a little napkin-math on the zone radiation to figure this out.

Its actually only to finish out the winter. I replaced a boiler running 180 deg water with this navien. Theres just not enough baseboard at the moment to heat house. I live in nj. Zero deg happens here nd at 140 it wont warm up. After winter ill be redoing all the baseboard in the house to match 140 deg water from boiler with the outdoor sensor.
 

Dana

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Lots of boilers in NJ running 180F water never need more than ~140F-150F water to heat the house when it's 0F outside. Recovering from setbacks with 140F water can be pretty slow at 0F in those houses, but keeping it at 140F isn't a problem.

Run a fuel-use based load calculation, and measure up how many feet of baseboard to figure out if it's even enough. Then run a room-by-room load calculation using a freebie online tool if you think some rooms need more. Resist the urge to micro-zone, but rather make the baseboard lengths proportional to the room loads. Make sure that all zones have enough heat emitter to deliver the full minimum-fire output of the Navien on their own when no other zones are calling for heat.

If you take the calculated room load and divide by 300 to come up with the feet of baseboard (assuming it's a typical baseboard such as Fineline 30) it should be enough to heat the room at condensing temperatures at least 90% of the time at N.NJ type 99% outside design temps. eg, say a bedroom's load come in at 2789 BTU/hr using the loadcalc tool. 2789/300= 9.3 feet. Rounding it to 9 feet is fine, 10 feet is also fine, but 8' or 11' won't cut it unless you change the ratio everywhere.
 
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Fristar

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Lots of boilers in NJ running 180F water never need more than ~140F-150F water to heat the house when it's 0F outside. Recovering from setbacks with 140F water can be pretty slow at 0F in those houses, but keeping it at 140F isn't a problem.

Run a fuel-use based load calculation, and measure up how many feet of baseboard to figure out if it's even enough. Then run a room-by-room load calculation using a freebie online tool if you think some rooms need more. Resist the urge to micro-zone, but rather make the baseboard lengths proportional to the room loads. Make sure that all zones have enough heat emitter to deliver the full minimum-fire output of the Navien on their own when no other zones are calling for heat.

If you take the calculated room load and divide by 300 to come up with the feet of baseboard (assuming it's a typical baseboard such as Fineline 30) it should be enough to heat the room at condensing temperatures at least 90% of the time at N.NJ type 99% outside design temps. eg, say a bedroom's load come in at 2789 BTU/hr using the loadcalc tool. 2789/300= 9.3 feet. Rounding it to 9 feet is fine, 10 feet is also fine, but 8' or 11' won't cut it unless you change the ratio everywhere.

Thank you. I will after winter when im able to expand the baseboard
 

Jac04

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The upper right is the exhaust. The NCB manual states that either PVC or CPVC solid-core (not foam core) pipe can be used for the exhaust. I made sure that CPVC solid-core was used for mine. I have never noticed any plastic smell from my NCB-180E.
What material is your exhaust piped with?
 

Fristar

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The upper right is the exhaust. The NCB manual states that either PVC or CPVC solid-core (not foam core) pipe can be used for the exhaust. I made sure that CPVC solid-core was used for mine. I have never noticed any plastic smell from my NCB-180E.
What material is your exhaust piped with?

Cpvc
 

MEPSTOCK

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Hey dude,me too faced similar situation like you said.I have bought same boiler last year and it worked fine for some days.After some time ,some issues had started with that boiler.I left that boiler and bought brand new vaillant ecotec plus 637 system boiler .Now it's working pretty well.The heating of the room is quite good .
 
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