Help with boiler temperature. Tired of cold showers!

Please help. I have a brand new New Yorker boiler with NO separate hot water heater. My settings are as follows. Start temp 140 HL 180 HL dif 10 LL 160 LL diff 10. Showers start out scalding hot and quickly go luke warm. If I wait long enough it will get warm again but sometimes end up with cold water. I have watched the boiler thermostat while my daughter is in the shower and this is what happens. Anytime I check the boiler temp starts at 170ish. after starting the shower within a minute or 2 the temp is down to 150. The boiler does not fire until it reaches 140 and the temp continues to decrease down to

120 or so. I did try to set the low limit diff to 15 but I got an even colder shower.

I have had this type of system for 20 years and never had a cold shower. The only cold water intake value is what appears to be a normal shut off. I have turned this down slightly to allow less water into the system at one time with out much luck. My shower head is an eco head and was fine with the last boiler so I don't feel that is the problem. I do not have a mixing value. The installer said the mixing value wouldn't solve my problem. He recommended a new shower head and scolded me for not getting the water heater that he suggested. As I said for 20 years and 3 homes I have never had a hot water heater and always had endless hot water.

Reply to
Kim C
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What's the recovery rate of the boiler? If used to heat domestic water, the rate will be on the label.

Steve

Reply to
SnA Higgins

I can not see recovery rate on the label. it is a New Yorker AP49OU gph .75 mbh 105 doe mbh 88 ahri net mbh 77

I installed a different showerhead yesterday with a 2 gpm rating. Most shower heads were 2.5 gpm. I am waiting to see if this helps. I still don't think if all was correct that i should have to go through all this to get comfortable. Also, would a mixing value be of any help? Thank you

Reply to
Kim C

How big is your hot water storage tank? If it's the same one you had with a previous boiler (and shower temps were ok) is the circ pump running? Your boiler has only 10 gallons of heated water inside. Without a storage tank, you're going to take cold showers.

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See page 10.

Steve

Reply to
SnA Higgins

No storage tank. Never had one before either.

Reply to
Kim C

Kim: what I can see possible of being wrong you recovery time or flow at maintaining temp. is about 3/4 gallon per hour if this is correct, suggestion is get yourself new water heater minimum 50 gallons capacity and good recovery time. (For one Family of 4 amx.) Two families minimum 90 gallons in some cases more with good recovery.

Please help. I have a brand new New Yorker boiler with NO separate hot water heater. My settings are as follows. Start temp 140 HL 180 HL dif 10 LL 160 LL diff

  1. Showers start out scalding hot and quickly go luke warm. If I wait long enough it will get warm again but sometimes end up with cold water. I have watched the boiler thermostat while my daughter is in the shower and this is what happens. Anytime I check the boiler temp starts at
170ish. after starting the shower within a minute or 2 the temp is down to 150. The boiler does not fire until it reaches 140 and the temp continues to decrease down to 120 or so. I did try to set the low limit diff to 15 but I got an even colder shower.

I have had this type of system for 20 years and never had a cold shower. The only cold water intake value is what appears to be a normal shut off. I have turned this down slightly to allow less water into the system at one time with out much luck. My shower head is an eco head and was fine with the last boiler so I don't feel that is the problem. I do not have a mixing value. The installer said the mixing value wouldn't solve my problem. He recommended a new shower head and scolded me for not getting the water heater that he suggested. As I said for 20 years and 3 homes I have never had a hot water heater and always had endless hot water.

Reply to
tony944

What he said. What was the model of your previous unit? Was it a tankless unit? Whatever it was you replaced it with a tank unit (one that has a small amount of storage) with way too small capacity and way too slow recovery. Three choices: Replace the new heater with a tankless. Add a storage tank minimum 40 gallon with circ pump and associated controls. If this heater is also doing building heat, add an additional domestic water heater.

Steve

Reply to
SnA Higgins

I am not sure at this time what brand the last boiler was. But i do know that it was at least 30 years old and it was the same type of system. I have not had a tank and always heated the water using just the boiler. I was avoiding the hot water heater cost because this is not my forever house. I replaced the shower head with a 2 gpm head and cranked down the cold going into the boiler. This has helped with the cold showers now I just need to solve the fact that when I do have hot water it is too hot. I have not comfortably washed dishes by hand since I have had the new boiler. Do you think a mixing value would help? Is the recovery rate something specific to each model? Should I have purchased a bigger or different model? Thanks for the help!!!

Reply to
Kim C

Kim C posted for all of us...

I presume you have an oil fired boiler w/ instantaneous coil for domestic hot water. The boiler is not recovering fast enough. One solution is to up size the nozzle- firing rate. You will use more fuel. You were sold the incorrect size, ask for the design specs. You may have to go to court to correct this or have a work around performed. This happens in winter because colder water is entering the coil, summer will "cure" it.

Reply to
Tekkie®

I think that is the worst thing you could do.

Something is wrong with your system. It is a duplicate of your old one which worked fine. So something didn't get installed correctly or adjusted correctly.

But you don't know what is wrong. Until you diagnose the problem correctly, adding complicated fixes like a mixing valve is just going to make it harder to figure out, and may add another problem.

A mixing valve MIGHT be the fix IF your system is working properly AND can only deliver a small volume of very hot water. You have not determined that yet (should be in the operating manual).

Reply to
TimR

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