Can't get the thermometer on the oil furnace over 150

[salecker]

The dealer was different than the plumber that hooked it into my furnace, while he put the pumps on the G4000, a separate guy (one that was recommended to me) installed the heat exchanger (picture included)

View attachment 302783

so tiny and a horrible looking mess
You paid someone to do that?

 

[Dabster13]

so tiny and a horrible looking mess
You paid someone to do that?

what do you mean by tiny?

 

[sloeffle]

what do you mean by tiny?

Think he's referring to the size of the plate exchanger. The more plates, and the bigger the plate exchanger is physically the more BTU's it can put out. Dimensionally that doesn't look to be standard 5x12 plate from your pic. Hopefully it's the correct size plate for your load.

Second glance, the ports look to 3/4" x 3/4". It should be 1" ( OWB Side ) x 3/4" or maybe 1" on your boiler side. The 3/4" port on your OWB side is really going to kill your flow. Hate to tell you this, but they cheaped out on that too.

Dealer was over this morning, looking everything over - said the plumbing part looked right to him, so he's going to be calling the plumber and talking about how to resolve the issue. Measured the water on the house side with a separate thermometer, came in around 145, so there is definitely an issue somewhere.

Did he say anything about their possibly being air in the lines ? Is there any kind of temperature gauge between the boiler and plate exchanger ?

 

[Dabster13]

Think he's referring to the size of the plate exchanger. The more plates, and the bigger the plate exchanger is physically the more BTU's it can put out. Dimensionally that doesn't look to be standard 5x12 plate from your pic. Hopefully it's the correct size plate for your load.

Second glance, the ports look to 3/4" x 3/4". It should be 1" ( OWB Side ) x 3/4" or maybe 1" on your boiler side. The 3/4" port on your OWB side is really going to kill your flow. Hate to tell you this, but they cheaped out on that too.

Did he say anything about their possibly being air in the lines ? Is there any kind of temperature gauge between the boiler and plate exchanger ?

It's a 50 plate heat exchanger. 1" pipes on the OWB side, and 1 1/4 for the indoor side. - This one to be exact: https://altheatsupply.com/50-plate-water-to-water-heat-exchanger.html

I asked him if he thought air could be in the pipes causing the poor heat transfer and he didn't think so since he said you would be able to hear it. No temperature gauges between boiler and and plate exchanger, he planes on putting one in this week to test and find the problem

 

[sloeffle]

I’ve heard those are good plate exchangers.

The picture is deceiving, it looks like it’s necked down coming off of the wye to the copper. Sounds they installed the correct plate which shouldn’t cause any flow issues on both sides and give you plenty of heat.

I’m interested to hear what the fix is. Hopefully they’ll get it figured out for you.

 

[hedge wood]

I always plumb a ball valve ahead and behind a Y strainer to make cleaning them easier and put a ball valve in the end of the Y strainer instead of a plug. Its a good place to get air out of a system and you can blow down the Y strainer and clean it out some without taking it apart.

 

[sloeffle]

Someone mentioned this on Facebook. If you take a flashlight and put it behind the PEX pipe you can see air bubbles in the water. Might be something you want to do. I checked mine yesterday, no air bubbles.

 

[Dabster13]

Someone mentioned this on Facebook. If you take a flashlight and put it behind the PEX pipe you can see air bubbles in the water. Might be something you want to do. I checked mine yesterday, no air bubbles.

The OWB pipes are PEX, so i checked last night when it was dark. Checked at the heat exchanger as well as out at the stove - No noticeable bubbles. So it doesn't seem like it's airlocked, at least on the OWB side.


Took some more pictures of the furnace area. Attached. Red Arrows are the flow of water, blue arrows are pumps that run when the house calls for heat.

 

[brenndatomu]

Just because you don't see the air pocket, doesn't mean there isn't one...they can occasionally be extremely difficult to purge out, even for experienced pro's. Often times the best solution is to just go ahead and cut in fill and purge points, because it will pay off for the life of the system (every time you have to open the system for any reason)