This season i noticed the heat coming off my radiant fiin was not that warm as it was last year.. I had a stuck circulating valve fixed for the up stairs of the house.. Now my toe kick heaters in both my kitchen and bathroom and not blowing as hard as they use to aknd the heat coming off all my fin is very weak.. You got to put your hand rite on top of the radiant register to feel any heat.. Something is not rite.. I have 3 zones ( one upstairs one downstairs and one for my boilermate) my water for my shower is tolerable not overly hot.. Its used to be alot hotter.. What could be the problem.. I had the guy that installed it when it was new telling me it ok.. Everyone in the house is telling me there is something wrong with it.. We had to use electric heaters to keep from freezing ..
Hydrotherm boiler in need of help..
- Thread starter Alf
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
Is the boiler actually hitting it's high temperature setting? Measure the temperature of the plumbing on the outgoing side of the heat distribution using an infra-red thermometer. If the plumbing is copper (which is highly emissive and will give a false low with an IR thermometer), apply a bit of spray paint (an non-metallic color) on the spots where you want to know the temperature.
If the outgoing temperature is hot enough the flow may be too low, from either a restriction or a failing pump, or a partially closed valve.
Is your domestic hot water supplied by an embedded tankless coil, or is it an indirect water heater?
If the outgoing temperature is hot enough the flow may be too low, from either a restriction or a failing pump, or a partially closed valve.
Is your domestic hot water supplied by an embedded tankless coil, or is it an indirect water heater?
Sponsor
Paid Advertisement
The water heater is a tank hooked to a zone of the boiler.. That water does seem to be hot but the water at my other 2 zones seem to be warm but is alot cooler ..it use to be very hot. Now its like luke warm heat at my toe kick heaters and nothing radiating off my baseboard like it did last year.. You have to put your hand rite on top of the baseboard to feel anything. The pump is very hot and real noisy.. I noticed since i quit use the boiler only use for hotwater now, my electric bill dropped 30.00 a month..
If the pump is noisy and over heated it's likely that the pump is failing.
Terms like "hot", "luke warm", and "cooler" don't have firm definitions. How about some actual temperatures and settings?
Most recent vintage Hydrotherm boilers have an external temperature gauge and an external control box that contains the aquastat controls (you need to pull the cover to see or adjust the aquastat.) To get more specific than that a model number would be useful.
Terms like "hot", "luke warm", and "cooler" don't have firm definitions. How about some actual temperatures and settings?
Most recent vintage Hydrotherm boilers have an external temperature gauge and an external control box that contains the aquastat controls (you need to pull the cover to see or adjust the aquastat.) To get more specific than that a model number would be useful.
The max temp setting is 205 and the low settings is at 180.. The pump you can hardly touch when running its that hot.. The unit seems to kick on and off when you turn it up. Like short cycling.. I use to run until it got up to temperature then it would shut down.. Its not like it use to be..i guess i will have to get a heating man out here cause they will be able to tell better than i can..
Have you measured the temperatures anywhere (including the thermometer on the boiler)?
A swing from 180F to 205F should not be a short cycle unless the thermostat gets satisfied and turns the pump off. If it's turning on & off swinging through that temperature range and the radiation isn't getting hot it means there isn't enough flow.
It's seeming highly likely that the pump is fried. It might be turning some, but either the impeller is eroded/corroded enough to limit flow, or there's something wrong with the motor itself.
What pump (make, model) is it?
Replacing the pump with a high efficiency ECM drive "smart" version would give you some flexibility in the system operation parameters and would pay for itself in lower electricity use over time. If it can deliver at least as much flow as the old pump did when it was new it would probably be good enough without doing a lot of analysis. It'll set you back an extra $100 or so over replacing the old pump with another dumb low efficiency pump though.
A swing from 180F to 205F should not be a short cycle unless the thermostat gets satisfied and turns the pump off. If it's turning on & off swinging through that temperature range and the radiation isn't getting hot it means there isn't enough flow.
It's seeming highly likely that the pump is fried. It might be turning some, but either the impeller is eroded/corroded enough to limit flow, or there's something wrong with the motor itself.
What pump (make, model) is it?
Replacing the pump with a high efficiency ECM drive "smart" version would give you some flexibility in the system operation parameters and would pay for itself in lower electricity use over time. If it can deliver at least as much flow as the old pump did when it was new it would probably be good enough without doing a lot of analysis. It'll set you back an extra $100 or so over replacing the old pump with another dumb low efficiency pump though.
Here is a picture of the pump.. Hope this is what you are asking for.. Another thing is we have hard water here and the system went low a couple times because of a leak that i got fixed so all that was added is water no antifreeze.. Should you change the antifreeze in the system. If so how often.. I also had a electrical problem with my breaker panel.. I had been running at half power for a year.. Its fixed know but it ruin my side by side and a few things in my house.. I am wondering if it screwed my pump up on my boiler.. Like a brown out..
Unless you have a snowmelt zone or other radiation that is seldom used in a location that could freeze, there is nothing good about having antifreeze in your system.
The Grundfos 15-42F only runs on 115F, and wouldn't be affected if the "other" phase went wonky. It's also a 3-speed that can be adjusted by an on-pump switch. If one of the windings was somehow damaged by under-voltage operation, switching it to one of the other speeds may be fine. Try that first, but write down the speed it had been set to for future reference.
Is this a good pump.. It almost act like it is seized.. When the boiler kicks on you go in the boiler room and you go over by the pump and it get hot almost instantly.. And a loud humming like it is stuck..
Similar threads
