# Commercial grower repairs own boiler.



## dclark (Dec 12, 2010)

I went to a greenhouse for a no heat call.

The description was "there was a loud noise, so i came running, and found the place full of smoke and the workers running outside"
This owner's first language is not english.

The boiler is a correctly piped SuperHot SG180, mixed water heating about 20 manually zoned growing tables on a single thermostat.
A whack on the expansion tank hints that it's gone. A look at the tridicator (pinned at 60) says the feed prv might be bypassing. A quick glance at the control/aqua-stat, and all bets are off.

There is a jumper in place, bypassing the operating /high limit. Woops.

THe owner had installed it himself at the advice of someone to get it to come on. Uh huh.

What had actually happened was, the owner has gone to the wholesaler to find out why he had no heat, bought a pump and solicited advice there from 'a guy buying something' on how to get it to fire. ( I wonder if he gets medical advice in a similar fashion).
From the description of the advice, he was told how to bypass the end switch on the vent damper, which didn't work.

"Maybe i'll try jumping a few other things, which eventually led to the burners firing, and converting his hot water boiler into a steam boiler.
Tsat calls for heat, flame on, must be okay, I just saved myself hundreds of dollars-!! So he walked away, but not for long.

The smoke he mentioned was the entire contents of his boiler flashing to steam through his relief valve.

Replaced his controller / limit, well, gauge (prv was fine), relief valve, expansion tank, cleaned everything up a little (previously steam cleaned, so that part was easy), and made him out a nasty bill while explaining how lucky he was.

Goes to show that a LITTLE knowledge and a reluctance to pay for qualified service or repair can be dangerous.

Duh!


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