GAS BOILER NO HEAT DAMPER OR THERMOSTAT ISSUE merch = teespring.com/... / stevenlavimoniere lavimoniere productions llc subscribe to my channel / @stevenlavimoniere lavimoniereplum...
Technical advice of the day: "The end switch on the damper may have gotten cattywompus", and, "Do you want to put in a new thermostat or do you want to fuck with that Nest all weekend?" This is why I love your videos, Steve!
Happy 2022 Steve. I am on Long Island and my longtime plumber has told me about 90% of the dampers here are locked open in place. He says they work for a bit but often go bad. Further, he says stay away from many of these new thermostats as he is constantly replacing them. He advised me to use a standard Honeywell setback unit with few bells and whistles. I have not had any problems since. Best to you and Molly in the new year.
@@rogerstlaurent8704 I am with you on that brother. It's a family business that is fourth generation and they are honest people to deal with. They have done a lot of work on my home over the years and I always defer and trust their expertise and wisdom, much like what I would do with Steve. Happy new year to you and your family.
@@kevin7151 Mr Kevin THANK YOU with that nice reply and you too have a grand 2022 new year and stay safe and BTW from Rhode Island in the Newport County Area
@@paulcimino3384 After you bypassed it, I hope you and the family had a nice Christmas. These dampers complicate matters and I would to reduce some efficiencies as opposed to dealing with them when they go bad. Glad to see you were able to bypass it. I figure that bypass switch will be locked on until you replace your boiler our furnace. Best to you and the family in 2022.
Jim Storm >> No trolling here but every person I know that's had nest thermostat (common to me) friends & family guess the issues they'd had with them, had common wire...... no end of trouble yes they like the ill advised remote control mode but really is it really necessary? Nope...... So when they call out a service engineer theirs $$$ down the drain oh you need a new guess what??? POS nest product..... more $$$$ How long are they lasting you ask @2 years before it kick out a fault or the bucket ! Hell I've had simple control - (bought new 2 > 1 spare) for over 6 years no faults it just works.... my old one I pulled stilled worked after 16yrs the last gen of the same model. How many nest thermostats has my they all gone through??? I lost count after 10 +4 in one home. I done them a favour after fourth failed - they got the cheaper simple control plus spares + I fitted them - that was wait for it... 11yrs ago none failed.......... Yet on their second heating system still no issues, the fitter tried selling them guess what? POS nest products!!! Guess what the answer was..... GTFO So my own 22yr of use of the same wires 2 but 1 if I never changed it out. Are they Value for money? Hell no look at the price of them.... over priced POS. Full stop! wise up.
The Nest is like anything else, if its not installed right, it wont work right. The 2 wire power stealing is the most unreliable means of wiring it as you will have the different behaviors based on the relays used in the system. Taco includes resistors now with their zone panels to increase the amount of current required to pull the relays in and stop power stealing from messing with heat calls. In this case, pop the Nest off the wall and charge it fully with the USB cable. If the problem goes away for a while, then the battery in the nest is probably running down because it cant power steal enough of the time to charge. He probably had no issues with the previous boiler as it had a larger relay that required more current to pull in.
When I worked for Honeywell and installed smart stats for the power company often the power stealing issue would make them fail. If another installer allowed a humidifier to steal power it would inevitably fail in the cold of the night and be a call out.
@@lcampm2 100% agree. It also places more stress into he relay coil as it's no longer an on/off duty cycle, it's constant pulling current, which it was probably never designed to do. Power stealing might work for short periods, but should be discouraged by both Nest and installers. The other thing to be aware of is that if you are using the nest for heat and cool with split systems like I am (Boiler for heat, Central Air) the C wire needs to be run to the AC unit or you will end up with Error 71 on the nest. The nest will always prefer power from the AC/cool vs heat and this is not a configurable setting.
The moment you mentioned it was a Nest thermostat and only using it as a 2-wire heat only operation, I knew the problem was with the way the Nest was wired. When there is a call for heat, the Nest cannot steal power from the closed circuit and when the power gets low the Nest *WILL* shut down. A Nest Thermostat can be installed in *ANY* system that uses a 24 volt heat only circuit (and never in a millivolt system) provided a third lead for the common is included. I wired my down-draft wall heater in our vacation house that was not designed to work with Nest by tapping a fused common straight off the transformer. I never had a problem with it in the seven years of operation. My neighbors who did not use my wiring diagram could not make theirs work for more than a couple of hours, then it would shut down.
...my wife and I purchased a house in NJ with an old wyle Mcclain boiler that hadn't been cleaned for like 4 years ! Been continuously flushed and was cleaned. But man, what a job !
This channel is awesome. It's nice to see a channels subscribers and views correlate to it's quality. There's actually something to learn in this space. Just wish I had more time to watch all the videos.
So many people have problems with those nest Tstat. I really like the Emerson Sensi Tstat if you want something programmable and wifi. Looks like a classic Tstat . Have them for many years in some buildings to electronically lock them down it keep control of the usage. Never have any issues... In my home I just use a traditional type. That's all you really need. Good job again Steve
I've had an EcoBee for nearly 5 years without issues. It will not run without constant power, but can take power from an external 24v AC wall wart hooked up in lieu of a C wire. Everyone I know that has bought a Nest has either dumped it for an EcoBee or a regular tstat and never looked back. I've house sat for friends/family with Nest units and the damn things are infuriating.
@@jblyon2 I heard the EcoBee are very good too. The older Homes/buildings are a real pain not having more than two wires. You have to get creative with C wire power. I was lucky with the buildings wall wiring since they had an extra wire not used. I used the extra wire and connected to the leg on the low Volt transformer of the old steam boiler and it work as the C power. Folks say the Lux Geo wifi tsat you don't need a c wire?. It just runs on only batteries or usb power. The wifi burns through the batteries without usb/c wire. Take care
@@frankm496 Yeah, my parents are stuck with battery thermostats because there's only 2 wires. I technically have a C wire now, but it's not connected at the air handler. Maintenance will hook it up for you if you ask, but I have the power adapter already from an old apartment which did not have a C wire, let alone a connection for it at the air handler. Easier to just use that. I'd hook up the wire myself but the air handler is in a utility room above the bathroom. Quite a show watching them get replacement water heaters up there.
I been installing Nest Thermostats since they came out, they need at least 4 wires connected so the Battery gets charged. It loses its charge if there are only 3 wires connected to it and tries to create a Common through its software. Hi Miss Molly!
Had this problem atleast 10 times with boilers and a/c cuz no common always check the wiring if they say or you c a nest one was a call back and guy before me replaced a $600 circulator
nest's are not reliable without a common wire. had one at my nephew's house and it worked for a year. Then the nest battery went low and it started going funky. Put in a seperate transformer and a relay and ran a C wire and it's fine now
Mine had the very same issue and somehow worked ha the beginning by gaining a common ground thru the a\c control wires until such time that it was cold enough outside when the auto lockout on the a\c kicked in and the common was lost...causing the cycling. Once I added a dedicated common wire, my Nest stat has worked flawlessly.
KADDY WOMPERS!!!!!!!!! DID I SPELL IT CORRECTLY???????? LOL.......... LOVE THE INTEGRITY THAT YOU HAVE FOR EVERYONE YOU DEAL WITH...KEEP DOING YOUR THING🙏🙏
Yep I think you got it licked. The Nest POS therm uses an internal electronic relay so if it has low voltage (no common wire to tap the 24 volts) then it's unstable. Another job well done!
It originally had no common. It used vampire voltage to charge the battery. They had so many problems that they updated the unit by installing a common.
yup the nest was charging when the boiler was off. by using the white wire as a common through the boiler relay and when the nest kicked the boiler on it had to run on battery and was short cycling... I would never install a nest without the common
I had this same problem. I had a common but I guess the control board wasn't putting out enough current to keep the nest charged. ( Before the nest it had a Mercury thermometer) I got a power supply for it on Amazon. The I put a diode on the control board and jumped the power supply red and common in, hadn't had an issue with the nest after. I've since replaced my central with Mitsubishi dual current mini splits. 22 KW solar array and a 50 KW battery system. First summer only tapped the grid second half of August, so far between the added insulation to the roof PV has been more than enough to keep the house nice and warm at 68°
I installed 2 new gas furnaces a number of years ago. Also t-stats. Manual non programmable Honeywell’s. Heat-AC units. 2 speed furnaces forced hot air. Zero problems. I’m an old school guy and can’t stand the programmable units. Did not know the Nests were so bad. I Enjoy watching all your videos. Good info and some funny stuff. 😆
@@johnkendall6962 That’s exactly what I knew was probably wrong with the Nest Steve replaced. I work on machines with PC board failures very similar. Relays or contacts on a sealed board won’t supply enough current to operate what the circuit was designed to. With a Fluke meter you see the right voltage but there is not enough current carrying ability.
Happy New Year to you Steve, i've got an old Honeywell thermostat from the 70's that gives faultless service, my heating engineer suggested it was replaced by a Nest but i told him no and i'm glad i did.
The main issue is the nest needs to be charged if not connected with a common. I've had an ecobee 3 years now and its flawless. My brother has a nest I don't care for the interface and design but it also performs flawlessly. Even Steve said must have batteries or something that proves the theory I would suspect its lasted 2 years with r applied and was able to get a trickle charge even without a common.
Some info from Europe. Nest is available as a normal thermostat (3 wire or 2 wire and battery power) or Open Therm (2 wire) where it becomes part of the electronic system of the heating system (boiler). It will only work with Open Term boiler. Open Term communicates with digital signals. It regulates the flow of gas. To keep it simple, when only a little heat is needed you have small flames, when a lot of heat is needed it makes the boiler run at max. It also controls the speed of the circulator (flow of water) For the last 5 or 10 years it has more or less become the standard in Europe.
Mine's not round, but same basic principle inside. A mercury bulb on a bi-metallic spring. A vertical rectangular Funnywell, with the sliding adjustment lever sticking out the bottom. I bet that sucker was put on the wall when the building was built in '72. Why mess with something that works? I'm on a common hot-water heat system, so spending money on a fancy programmable or remote-controlled t-stat would be a waste of my money, and simply asking for trouble.
I get A LOT of 2-3 year nests with no common that quit working usually on Sunday or a holiday when I want to be at home. Homeowner never believes they bought junk.
well done my friend sometimes its not about money its about folks you trust if i ever had a problem i would call you and molly to come fix it and be greatfull that you would i watch you not only to fix but the safety parts too
Programmable thermostats have always given me problems for my boiler. It takes awhile for the system to heat up and it over shoots the temp because of the old gravity system.
I have a nest.. but it has a 24 volt wire that keeps it charged up. I wonder if his transformer has something wrong with it to keep it from charging correctly. Maybe the battery in the nest is bad now that's why it worked for a few years now it doesn't.. it use to hold a charge long enough between cycles to keep the relay closed.
Steve, if possible the digital control went bad?! i have the experience . boiler will shut off around 140 degree ,and back on when water temp. drop a little. that makes boiler fire on and off. finally i changed an undated verison of the control and problem fix right away
A Nest thermostat has a rechargeable lithium ion battery. But with no common wire it can only charge when the system is running. So if the system were to be off for a while the battery would become weak and it would start acting erratic. Not nests fault "bad install"
Hi steven . Moved into familys house boiler is outside in garden its oil combi one iv noticed when i put it on i get headaches . Is there any carbon monoxide risk if boiler is outside in garden when wr first put it on there was lots of white smoke .
I wouldn't have any of those "smart" devices in my house as they are on line to the internet and they can be compromised. That's why we call then internet of "broken" things.