The Tekmar is able to target to the Boiler Max setting. I don't understand what parameter you intend to change. Your boiler design and boiler max. are well above 130 degrees.

 

at the 45 degree outside temp, the boiler target is 125, which is the minimum setpoint. (i'm GUESSING, but am not positive that if the boiler min temp was lower, the target would also be lower)

The installer told me if i'm not happy that the boiler takes over 2 hours to raise the house one degree, put the boiler min at 130 degrees and see how it goes.

Of course you need to take into account the differential but even with the 24 diff that i put in to avoid short cycling, that's only 137 boiler max temp at 45 outside degrees.

Also i was asking you if there's any way i can calculate what the boiler target temp should be at any particular outdoor temp? in otherwords, should the water temp only be at 125 at 45 outside?

 

Oh, the boiler minimum. I don't know what to tell you. I leave my house at a constant 65 degrees, and I have near constant circulation, down to a boiler min. of 80 degrees. On the coldest of the year my target rarely goes over 125 degrees, and that's because I set it for a fixed 30 degree differential for long burn times.

I suppose you could raise the boiler minimum, but I also suspect the cost will be increase fuel use. I guess you're try to do setback at night?

 

at 6 am it goes to 66....at 4pm it goes up to 67 and is that all night (i may adjust to 66 because 67 seems tad warm - bedroom nears 70 then - but i'm undecided)...at 5 am i do have it set to 68 just so it runs 1 hour continuously so i get the 'chill off' while i shower and get ready

Hmm 30 diff is tempting....but my 24 so far as stopped the short cycling.

for the fun of it i turned the diff on auto and turned up the heat for a few min...it set the target temp at 130 and the diff at 10. He said he didnt want it on auto until he put that delay relay in but hey, who knows how long until he gets back so i'm trying to figure out the best thing. But i guess since it picked a temp of 130 target, the 125 i had before was ok.

if your target rarely goes over 125 then i guess i'm safe...just trying to get a feel for what is a reasonable recovery period and didnt know 2 hours for a degree is normal. I know a lot of people on here dont believe in setback and who knows, maybe i wont either after a while. Or maybe i'm overanalyzing too much.

 

I don't like setback on the Tekmar. In fact, I don't like using a thermostat on the Tekmar, period. The Tekmar is blind to the indoor temperature, it sees a heatcall, and it doesn't know if the indoor temp needs to be increased by one degree or ten degrees. It has to make a guess on past data based on what it remembers from past cycles base on the outdoor temperatures and on the supply temperatures. When you use that setback you're effectively erasing a lot of what its learned on past heating cycles.

Talk to your installer about the benefits of adding the indoor sensor in your main living area at some date in the future. Then you can set the stats about three degrees above the occupied temperature you're comfortable with. Let the Tekmar run things. If you must use setback, use the contacts on the Tekmar occupied/unoccupied to change the temperature. A timer or switch on the contacts will do that. Just my opinion based on my limited experiences.

 

So are you saying that if the indoor sensor was installed it would say hey, based on the outside temp you normally only need 130 degree water to maintain the current temp but geez, you want to increase the temp in here 2 degress so i better fire the water up to 150 so we can do that faster! (vs the 3 hours it takes now)

- as an aside, 2 days ago i put the tekmar on auto. It initially started with a 20 diff and now is up to 24.

 

also, the installer said he thinks it may be booming because too much draft and i need a chimney cap.

any truth to that?

 

The draft can easily be measured. Not sure how a chimney cap can be used to control draft.

I don't recall any combustion measurements being posted. CO2 was mentioned, are the values on a tag on the boiler?

Al.

 

I'd think that new, pretty Field Control barometric damper would take care of excess draft, but I'm just a HO like you....

 

is this that?

http://forum.doityourself.com/1484734-post36.html

this did change dec 24 with new nozzle but i cant find my new paper now.

and i know zip about draft but he tells me theres 'quite a pull' of air and he somehow thinks thats the issue. But i know nothing as the lowly customer.

Also do you know the answer to the indoor sensor question a few posts above this?

 

Yes, that is what I was looking for. The issue is that there is only one draft reading and it doesn't state if it is the flue or over-fire reading:

DRFT -.04 IN H20

If it is the flue then it is OK. Although it is at about the maximum.

The over fire draft reading is the one that affects the flame. If the -.04 is over fire then yes, it is way too high.

There are ways to control the over fire draft. But, someone correct me if I am wrong, I don't believe a chimney cap is the correct method.


I don't know enough about the Tekmar's to comment about the indoor sensor and it's benefits.

Al.

 

just got a call from him. He's coming back tomorrow to put in the time delay relay and i'm gonna make him replace/adjust the nozzle. Cant wait to see it has the same bad carbon or whatever on it as last time. though not a regular occurence, i still have the booming.

 

I think it is more important to have an over-fire and a flue draft measurement made. Recall that he is the one that is stating there is too much draft and is causing the delayed ignition. Ask for the measurements. This is both over-fire and flue.

...him replace/adjust the nozzle. Cant wait to see {if} it has the same bad carbon or whatever on it as last time.

If there is carbon build up on the nozzle that is a sign of too much heat and/or after drip.

Al.

 

how does one fix that? ?

 

He came out and installed a check valve on the outlet of the existing circulator. Put a 5 inch straight pipe in place of the old valve. Eliminated that horrible noise throughout my house.

success #1

Put in the time delay relay and adjusted it to about 25 seconds. You can clearly see the purge from the boiler shoot up the temp and then the boiler fires it doesnt have such a long way to go to reach the upper diff

Success 2!

His sensor broke on his meter so he couldnt do anything with the nozzle

fail #1

I told him i adjusted the tekmar to auto diff over the weekend it was 20-24 diff then when the computer took over. well here today it was 36 diff! He called his rep and confirmed that in higher temps(like 45 today) the diff would be much larger but if it's colder out the diff would shrink. He said as long as i'm happy with how it heats, leave it on auto

success #3!

now, the funny thing is, i called to complain about it taking almost 3 hours to get up 1 degree in here last week. He said set the min to 130 then, up from 125. Today he told me that something happned that it adjusted the design temp to 150 and max boiler to 160..or maybe i mixed that up, i forget..anyway i did NOT change any other settings other than auto and the 130 min he told me to so i have no idea what happened.

He now set it at 130 min, 170 max and design 170 (initial was 125 min, 172 design and 167 max i think) and said if i'm unhappy with the recovery, to adjust min to 135 vs trying to play with the diff. Though he did say if the diff became too wide i could change it but i have no plans to. Let the computer do it right? He also said no need for the DHW to do 180 when 170 is just fine. he wants them to change the manual on that As well as a few other things.

So except for the nozzle im happy now!

 

ok now what's wrong, i cant win it appears. I heard a horrible screeching noise...ear piercing..went in and here it's from the circulator on top of the boiler. It appeared to stop when there was a call for heat and as you know i have the delay on the circulator. he set it at 25 seconds. But i think it was still in a cool down cycle when the thing started screeching

So what would cause a circulator to whine so badly that it literally hurt your ears? almost sounded like a tea kettle..but not quite.

 

I'm updating my main boiler thread as well as my smelly tigerloop thread. (keep in mind my terminology may be wrong as i'm not a pro, just going from memory)

My contractor brought along someone from the boiler company today. Took things apart and i think he said there was coke on the turbulator. I prefer to say black gunk on the circular thingie. He scraped it all off. It definitely shouldnt have been there especially after just a month with a new nozzle.

He put in a .75 60W and jacked up the pressure to 175. He initially thought 150 was ok but the boiler guy said do 200. I'm glad the boiler guy was here because i think it made my contractor more comfortable. They then adjusted it down to 175 while it was running based on some readings they were taking. They said less oil and more pressure should help with my issue. Also i think i heard discussion of some new factory settings coming down the pike to help deal with these issues but i forget the discussion.

with cover on my readings are
Ex/A 34%
02 5.3%
FT 307.4 F
CO 56ppm
EFF 88%
COaf 75ppm
CO2 11.7 %
drft -.01 in H20
at 57.7 F

.75 head 25 air

They also moved the T in the chimney pipe from the low position up to a the highest position. (it also faces towards the wall instead of towards the room now) I forget exactly what they said but something about giving something more room to go/expand etc.

I asked what the tiger loop noise was and it actually did it while they were here. They said it's just normal noise of the thing pulling oil and when it was very loud in the very cold weather the oil was probably gelling up outside. So i guess i have to live with the noise.

The circulator didnt make the horrible screech while they were here and i did ask about the check valve been right next to the vertical on the boiler pump. He assured me the valve had nothing to do with air buildup in the pump. I also asked if the time delay relay could have anything to do with the new noise and he said no. He also said all the air may never come out of the system and did check that the bleeders are ok. And we did hear a bit of air while we stood there but it didnt make that squealing noise. I may go buy a tape recorder that is 'voice activated' to try to catch the noise.

They said the tiger loop does vent so maybe that's what i'm smelling but i said sometimes you can smell oil just entering the room and i doubt it's venting that much ...or why wouldnt it be consistently smelling?

so ill wait a few weeks to see how the booming and smell come along. Hopefully this new nozzle fixes things though.

 

UPDATE 11 16 09

I just had him back for the cleaning and he said it looked good...there was nothing bad in the pipe or the boiler. he continued using the .75 60w nozzle and said that's what's worked best in his other installs this year as well. He's meticulous keeping everyones readings together to learn and adjust as needed. I'm at 84.7 eff and CO is 48ppm and he adjusted air to 3.0 for higher O2 reading.

also discovered that there was water in my oil so dumped some water dissolver in there. Maybe that's what has been causing my irregular booming upon start sometime? My tanks were 'open' for about a month while other work was done so perhaps some rain did get in by accident.

Also there are no other noises that i was complaining about earlier this year that are still there. apparently i just had a lot of air whistling in there after the install. Matter of fact, one noise just came back in the tigerloop and of course that's because the line was open

I told him i shut off the return valve because it backs up into my system and heats up the baseboards in summer and he really didnt say anything about it. I really didnt want another check valve installed anyway, just something more to go wrong.

It's very difficult to tell how much i'm saving since i dont have one full season yet to track on the new unit but i do have the following numbers for the 'fun of it' to compare. I understand degree days etc are needed for true comparison but just never spent the time doing it.

1/27/06 to 12/8/06 bought 1062 gallons

1/29/07 to 12/18/07 bought 1247 gallons

1/31/08 to 12/31/08 bought 1252 gallons

new install 2nd week of december 2008

2/6/09 to 10/28/09 696 gallons. and 339 of that was from 2/6 to 8/5 and he thought 339 gallons for 6 months was pretty good (i couldnt fill the tanks during summer because of another project going on)