Solo 30 up to temp 1st time

[Toyman]

Brought my solo 30 up to temp for the first time,no storage, every thing worked great,
but it seems very slow to bring rooms up to temp, took a very long time,it was between 180 and 190 when the fans kicked off,
It was also very warm outside about 54, but the rooms were cold, I have 3 zones and all were less than 55 turned on one zone at a time. I had about 500 on my stack temp, filled the fire box less than 1/3 of the way could this be the problem?
Thanks for any and all info.

 

[Nofossil]

Brought my solo 30 up to temp for the first time,no storage, every thing worked great,
but it seems very slow to bring rooms up to temp, took a very long time,it was between 180 and 190 when the fans kicked off,
It was also very warm outside about 54, but the rooms were cold, I have 3 zones and all were less than 55 turned on one zone at a time. I had about 500 on my stack temp, filled the fire box less than 1/3 of the way could this be the problem?
Thanks for any and all info.

You'll want to check the return temperature from the zones. Shouldn't be more that a 20 degree difference from supply to return. If it's more, then your flow rate to the zones is too low.

What if anything are you using for input temperature protection? There's been some discussion of Termovar valves that restrict flow too much. A good clue is if your boiler is going into idle and your return temperatures are 160 or less.

 

[chuck172]

I'm sure glad I installed a temperature gauge in the return near the boiler. It really helps.

 

[Toyman]

I am using a termovar valve but the draft fan seems to be cycling on and off correctly,at around 180*I will have to check the temp differance next time I fire it up, I used the same zone circulator pumps that were on the oil fired furnace and never seemed to have problem before, shouldn't they be ok if the temp is the same on the thermostat on the oil fired boiler?
Thanks for the info.

 

[Nofossil]

I am using a termovar valve but the draft fan seems to be cycling on and off correctly,at around 180*I will have to check the temp differance next time I fire it up, I used the same zone circulator pumps that were on the oil fired furnace and never seemed to have problem before, shouldn't they be ok if the temp is the same on the thermostat on the oil fired boiler?
Thanks for the info.

If you're putting water into the zones at 180 degrees and you're not getting as much heat as you did with oil, seems like the only possibility is that you're seeing much lower flow rates through the zones. That would result in water cooling more as it goes through the baseboards so that the last baseboards are seeing lower temps than they should.

 

[WoodNotOil]

Could there be air in your zone lines that is preventing flow through them? If you boiler is staying around 180, I see no reason why you should not have the same results as you did with oil. Try closing the balancing valve giving the termovar hot water most of the way. That should eliminate that as a possible cause. As Nofo said, check the sending and returning temps on your zones to see what they are using for heat.

 

[Toyman]

Thanks nofossil, I will check the temps on the boiler next time I start it, I will also pay more attention when the oil boiler kicks on to see how long it takes to warm up the rooms.