I have a Dettson Hydra20. Two days ago we woke up to 17C inside the house instead of the 21C set on the thermostat. The water temp on the boiler was at 40C and not moving. I also have a gas fired boiler (dual energy setup), I switched to gas and the water temp quickly went up to 80C.
Today I did some troubleshooting on the electric boiler. I changed a relay that I think was faulty (I wasn't hearing clicking, though in retrospect, I should have checked voltage at the heating elements to be sure). After that, I ran the electric boiler again, water temp got up to about 55C after thirty minutes or so. The problem is that the water temperature is set for 75C using the set screw. Even after an hour, it never gets past 60C. Pressure stays at around 18psi. From what I recall, before it was getting up to 75C and about 25psi. The radiators seemed hotter before, though I don't have temperature readings to prove it.
I tried rolling back the set screw water temperature control and the boiler turned off as expected. Rolling it back up turned the boiler back on. So this seems to be working normally.
All four heating elements check for continuity and do not have shorts (touching terminal and other metal on the element with meter). Each shows ~12 Ohms resistance and when running, ~240V.
Is it possible that I have a bad or under-performing element? Anything else I should check? Thanks a lot!
Best Answer
Unlikely an "under-performing element", they usually either work or don't work.
2 things come to mind: 1) The flow rate thru the electric boiler is just too great to get the water up to temp, or 2) You have a control problem. Did you check to see that all the elements get power? Is there any staging involved? Your thought that it might have been a bad relay was a good one and it sounds like it might have addressed at least part of your problem.
How closely were you monitoring the system before the problem? Maybe what you are observing now is how it was operating before, but just didn't know it.