Old boiler and prep pics posted right now. Progress pics posted as things go the next 2 days.

(why does there have to be an ice storm of all days today?)

 

 

Looking at the gray floor standing tank I thought it was a well water supply update. But then seeing the size of the expansion tank on the ceiling, I'm thinking that the gray tank with the blue caps is the new expansion tank?

Looking forward to the final install pic's.

Al.

 

This would just be me, I wouldn't think of critiquing any sort of boiler install, but....

How the heck do you get to the power panels??? That can't be up to code..is it?

Was this some sort of commercial building? I'm sure there was another thread somewhere, but I don't normally look in the boiler section (unless there are pics to check out...lol)

 

Gunguy, I wondered about those panels also ... the pictures probably make it look closer than it actually is... but still...

Sorta looks like the kinda mech room you'd expect to see in an old haunted hotel! I expected to see Jack Nicholson peering around a corner...

That is one huge extank, ain't it?

Ohhhh, so it's YOUR fault!

Just funnin' with ya Lucky... keep the pics coming!

 

Yes new tank, I forgot i was getting one and was wondering what it was when he brought it in. It will sit on the floor and is 32 inches so will fit under my window in there.

A few years ago, a bunch of people were in front of my house so i went out to see what was up. According to them, they were Armenians who built the house in 1952 and they were on a tour of homes where their parents used to live. They did know about the back yard so I'm assuming they were telling the truth. So blame them for the old boiler install you need to be 3ft away from the panel so it's not up to code. And look at the stack too. But you cant move that! so it's grandfathered in automatically.

I am not sure if the expansion tank can legally be in front of the window (egress issue) but there is a door literally 6 inches from that window and you cant get to the window anyway with my dryer blocking it. So id have to think why would they worry about blocking a window that's already blocked by the dryer so i think the expansion tank should be ok. I never realized they can be on the floor either, thought they had to be hung. From all accounts Ill gain a decent amount of space with this change

and no this was always a house not commercial. But Jack is behind the one door.

BUT the coil was added later. There used to be an electric hot water tank here, i can see the electric for it.

 

4 guys could barely move this out. The wheels on the handtruck looked like they would explode and now they are cleaning up the floor and all that (he said vermiculite?) that fell out. Hope it wasnt asbestos...cough cough. Then he asked me why I had no hot water to wash his hands

 

Great pics and you have been a great contributor to this forum with your excellent questions leading up to this install. Hope all goes well and keep the pics coming.

 

Lucky, thanks for the pics. Pretty good first installment.
I never even try to move those old boilers. It doesn't take long to section them. The sections can be hard enough to move, let alone the whole boiler.
If you don't know, ask your installer what is the purpose of that coil of copper near the flue pipe in the second picture. Never seen anything like it.

 

I bet you a Beer 4U2 that it's some form of hammer arrestor.

LuckyD, if that new boiler and ODR setup doesn't save you a TON of $$$$ compared to that beast, I don't know what will. I hope you can report back in the future to give us some idea of the savings. If you can do K factor from your oil bills, that would be great.

Pete

 

Good possibility particularly since it appears to be on the domestic.

 

personally i thought the coil thing was an arrestor as mentioned above. But i heard him tell another guy it was a vent. So the truth may never be known

here's the end of day 1. Couldnt get a lot done because took a long time to clean up that 'greasy' mess all over the floor (per that dustpan pic above). Note the boiler was just put in from outside right before he left, not in final position. He had intended to use my newer circulator but couldnt find a gasket for it so i got a new one

 

 

Hey, that boiler is way too small! The other one was 4 times as big...man are you gonna be cold ...LOL

Holy Crapola things have really changed haven't they?

 

I guess when it got ripe & went from green to red, it shrunk.
Looks like the installer is using crimp on fittings on the copper. Makes a job go really fast but the fittings & tools are EXPENSIVE. You have to do a lot of copper fitting to justify the cost.

 

I like that little boiler. It would have been my choice if I didn't go with the rebuild of my old one. I'd be interested to know what the noise difference is, with the higher speed burner and lack of shrouding.

 

Yea so far i'm not happy. The boiler has been inside my house for over 3 hours and i've gone from 68 to 66 degrees...not gotten warmer. Can you look at the pics above and find out what may be wrong?

Oh yes it's fully mature now and shed the outer green skin. And i never saw crimped like this but i'm no plumber. He did tell me that the tools were very expensive....i think a few grand..or was that the pex tools? Well he definitely does a lot of work and pays attention to details and isn't cheap or taking the ez way out. At least that's all indications so far. He tossed in the 'free' new circulator in place of the one he thought he could re-use. Said his time wasnt worth finding a gasket.

 

Pro Press fittings. Looks good so far.

 

I assure you a full review (novice level of course) will be in this thread after install.

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one question. The wiring for the 260 is a pain in my house (access issues/crawlspace). I thought i didnt get sun outside my one window next to the utility room even though it faces SW but now that the leaves have fallen, i see some sun does get there in winter. I 'think' the plan is to install the sensor on that SW wall (late afternoon sun) down between my tanks and that wall (it's an L shaped 'inner' corner at that point of the house). He will run the wiring out the same hole he has to drill for my new tigerloop setup.

i know the thing should be installed on north and so does he, but i'm not sure how possible that will be right now. He has to go in my attic to see if things could be dropped down that way to the north side. So is the winter sun really going to mess up the sensor if it does hit it? Ill try my best not to have it put there though. but maybe the tanks will block the sun

 

sounds like my 8K was well spent..so far

 

look at post 12 the 2nd pic. He now wants to mount the board where the tekmar/emergency switch will go right under the stack pipe, next to the electrical box. What do you think of that. Initially he thought it would put it to the left of the hot water tank but now changed his mind. As you can see there's clearance to easily walk back there, totally around the boiler, but just wondering pros or cons of mounting it there vs near my water tank?

i guess less lines to run etc?

 

piping done..now just waiting for the new oil line and hopefully the 260 install today..maybe into tomorrow even. And now my laundry room sink is mysteriously clogged. pressure is a trickle but all other faucets ok. Maybe some debris from the water line ?

 

Man, that looks so much neater and more professionally laid out than the old one. I mean of course it should, right?

I'm no boiler guy...never really lived in an area that they were common. Did grow up in a house built in about 1890. Had a coal furnace "modernized" with an electric stoker(?). Guess they call that an octopus now? Man was our basement warm around that monster.

 

hmm they started the new oil line and it's something bright and shiny (some kind of plastic?). I guess copper is expensive but was wondering is this common in the industry to use this new stuff? I guess with one nice long solid run vs all the joints it's safer though.

also talked to him about the outside sensor. He said he's going to hide it pretty well and even put in porches it's worked well. Of course ill monitor the outside temp to see if it's overshooting if it gets any direct sun.

 

The new copper oil lines have a protective plastic sheath to prevent damage from corrosion (laying against cement) and also to make them highly visible.

 

very interesting...and i never really saw copper rolled like that but i do no plumbing work so why would i oh it's very VISIBLE alright

edit: just heard it turn on for the first time. Doesnt seem too loud but the door is closed. Opened the door and tons of wiring yet to be done. I thought was near completion but i guess not after seeing wires everywhere lol. The 260 isnt even up on the board yet. Just playing with the burner and stat.

 

Where in your home is this boiler located? Does not look like a basement. Looks like a nice neat install. You must be quite happy with you 8K toy. Nice pictures

 

located in utility room. I only have a crawlspace and nothing is down there.

Will post more pics tomorrow and he's coming back for a short time. Then ill ask him why this is SO loud when it starts. Scares the heck out of me as if bomb going off. Also i hear 'gurgling' but i dont think it's air..he said no air really in the system since the pipes stuck 5ft out of the floor. And he did bleed it thru the vent. But you can hear like rain tapping on a roof all thru the house in the baseboards and also from one of the pipes in the utility room. Like a tapping.

he did tell me it would run a lot tonight. But i imagine i even had a few short cycles. Oh well. will find out more then

 

This isn't good. I would shut it down for the night and let him know about it first thing in the morning. From your description is sounds like delayed ignition. Which has the fuel/air mix filling part of the boiler then being ignited.

If the next time is a bit longer delay the boom will only be louder...

Al.

 

final pics will be posted in my next posting within the hour....sorry if any repeat shots..all the pics are newly taken but may show previous work.

He spent all morning today with me answering my silly questions. I understand what everything does but not what everything does...or rather why it does it Hard to explain. I still dont understand how the cold gets back to the boiler..seems like it's all continually mixing!

also my old thermostat didnt play well with the boiler. Apparently it was calling for heat all night. No wonder went on ever 10 min or less. but it never got above 70 so that was good, he said that means he got the set up right. He replaced the thermostat with a nice new one..free! the loud booming was because he needed to adjust things more. Plus he said i get so much draft i probably should get a chimney cap. Apparently after it was short cycling so often it 'built up' or something like that and then boom.

From memory(i may get things out of place or wrong or misquote him, just warning you)

The aquastat is set at 160 or 170 high, i forget which. He may want to put a relay on it because as it stands now the tekmar starts the boiler and the circulator at the same time. With a time delay relay, when heat is called for the thing will circulate 1-10 min (depending on setting) and then use the residual heat in the boiler and only THEN will it fire up if it's needed.

Water temp is set at 137 and he played around and decided on a 16 differential (129 to 145). This was based on the performance overnight. The min water temp is set on 125 and max at 167. I'm very impressed the house was that warm with the 135 it was set at overnight. Even my cold room front of my house was warmer. More water circulating cooler (vs 180 in the old unit) but more often DOES keep you more comfortable. I'm living proof of it in only the 1st day of use. So any other newbies, this tekmar 260 IS worth it! I have 191 ft of baseboard and he estimated 100 gallons of water in there.

He has a firing delay of a minute vs keeping it on auto. I forget the reason now. I think to help it stop short cycling, which is why he choose the differential he did. We sat through MANY on/off cycles and he changed things many times. Not short cycling was important to him. the (co?) is 11.6% and he said he cant go above 12. this was in response to my complaints about the boom overnight.

Hot water is something i can play with. I understand about the mixing valve setting vs playing with the temp. he recommended keeping the tank at the factory half way point and if too hot, just turning down the mixing valve. He warned me if the water is too cold in the tank (ie i mentioned ill crank it all the way down), that the recovery may not be that quick. He said maybe 1/2 degree a day lost in the tank so keeping it hot wont be as costly as the old coil i had. My goal is just to avoid burning my hands like i did before with the 180 degree faucet water. He did show me in the manual all the temp settings so i can know what i'm doing

he said when hot water is being called for the heat circulator turns off for about 30 min max. Domestic has priority. I also saw all the shut off in line valves he put in and how you can just change out a single part without having to take down the entire system. Very well thought out and his partner said it was all put together as a test the previous night at his house.

It's 86.2 efficiency now and i have the little ticket it printed out with all the other info but i'm not home now to read all that off. he gave me the go ahead and play all i want with the settings...showed me how to work the board and if the differential isnt enough etc, go right ahead and change it. his goal was to give me longer cycles of heating up and cooling down vs short cycling. Also left tons of paperwork and manuals so Ill have some reading to do because I like to know what i got.

The only thing i'm not happy about is the (checkvalve)? On the pipe that feeds the house, that is supposed to stop the water from coming the other way. Well it 'rattles' and you can hear it if you are sitting in a quiet house...it is heard thru all the baseboards. I liken it to a loose ball bearing or that noise on your coffee maker just before it shuts off from boiling. He said he heard it but cant do anything about it? I know i'm supersensitive about new noises but anyone have any experiences where you can hear it throughout the baseboards?

 

I'd like to know more about his Tekmar settings. The Tekmar should determine the best differential and control short cycling, but I've been fiddling with mine doing some of the same things for the same reasons. (Going to a fixed differential, etc.) The firing delay is interesting... I wonder if that also gets the water circulating before the burner fires? Something to check. It sounds like your guy really cares about his work and making things right!!!

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

before i forget

THANK YOU to all those that sat through my tortuous questions. I may not always understand but i do try my hardest to soak up the knowledge Beer 4U2


He did tell me that the 260 usually does control that diff and that it takes 2 weeks to learn things, but maybe because I told him it was turning on ever few min or so that he figured it wasnt the 'best' it could be and did the manual setting. Also i think he said the 'boom' i heard was from too much short cycling.

the firing delay doesnt mean the circ. comes on first. He said he needs another relay on the aquastat so that when it calls for heat, it will first turn on the circ. THEN if after the 1-10 min (user programmed) it still needs heat, it will fire. He said right now the burner and the circulator are tied together and are on and off at the same time. But maybe if running a minute prevents the burner from coming on too soon, more savings can be achieved.

fire delay is this per the manual:
The Fire Delay is the delay time that occurs between the time that the 260 closes the Boiler contact and the burner fires. This delay is usually the result of burner pre-purge, or other forms of time delay built into the burner’s safety circuits

I pretty sure he put that in to help stop any short cycling

 

This reads as if you got a really good install. I am especially impressed at how your installer has worked at getting your boiler and ODR to work. I'm thinking that you definitely got your money's worth from this guy although there are a few little nit-picky things I would have done differently.

 

found my 'receipts' and i guess these numbers mean something to you guys..not me

initial firing

Ex/A 33.9
O2 5.3%
CO 58ppm
Coaf 77ppm
CO2 11.7
DRFT -.04 IN H2O
AT 59.1F

FINAL

Ex/A 35.4%
02 5.5%
FT 386.1 f
CO 55PPM
EFF 86.2%
COaf 74PPM
CO2 11.6%
DRFT -.04 IN H20
AT 65.9f

 

Sure do! I can't speak to the actual numbers because I have no hands-on experience with these little baby boilers but I'll tell you what the abbreviations are and what they mean. (my comments in blue.)

 

Looks like a lot of thought and care went into the install.

Is there straight water in the boiler or antifreeze?

 

CO(af) stands for carbon monoxide (air free). This is a calculation of what the CO would be if there were no excess air in the flue gases. The 77 ppm is well below the "100 ppm max." generally accecpted limit.

 

I dont know I'm assuming just water. Here's why: I asked him about air in the system and he said there is "none" because all the pipes that came out of my floor were 5ft high and he never disturbed them so just the air that was in all his new piping was vented. (his partner got him with hot water so that was funny)

So I still have the same 60 yr old 'water' that was in the house originally i guess. I know when i have bled the baseboards it always looked like straight water and i never smelled or saw anything that indicated any antifreeze. But i'm not gonna taste it to be sure.

I'm glad to hear everyone say he did this right. For that amount of money i was hoping he would and my gut about him being anal about things was right.

i'm sitting here in bare feet (normally my feet are freezing) and the new 67 degrees does feel warmer than the old that i had with the other unit.