Damper Relay trips....

[ronyd]

Here's my weird situation:

Converted from oil boiler to natural gas boiler 10 years ago.

System:
Natural gas 3 -zone Peerless boiler, with a 41 gallon Amtrol BOILERMATE®
Indirect-Fired Water Heater.

Symptom:

Last year occasionally we would loose hot water in the summer months. My buddy came over and checked things out, and showed me where the reset switch was. Once the reset with depressed, the burner came back on and we had hot water again.

It happened again, so I had a plumber come over. He noticed there was a piece of clay flue broken off in the chimney and possibly restricting partial air flow. He removed the broken piece, the chimney was clear of any obstructions. He replaced the reset switch, since it is a thermal bi-metal switch that if reset to many times will be ineffective. Unfortunately, the next day, we lost hot water again. Call him, and he said hit the reset. Reset, burner on, and hot water again. He mentioned other customers was also having issues...???

I also installed a chimney cap in the event creatures don't settle in...

So 1 year has passed without any issue. Now it has occurred again this past month. My buddy checked the chimney which is clean, the burner is clean (which we anticipated since it's natural gas), and the vent damper is working properly.

Here's the caveat:
Appears that the issue Occurs when our weather is hot and high humidity. The weather is back to temperate and everything is working as it should with hot water when called for.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated...

 

[Jadnashua]

Are there any error lamps when the thing drops out and requires a reset? What does the manual say about reasons for it needing a reset (the theory of operation section of the manual may help there)? One thing that comes to mind, and it may not apply (I'm sure that there are other things that the fault isolation procedures in the manual would cover) is if the boiler is overheating. This could be caused by the circulation pump not turning on immediately either because the relay powering it is bad, the power to it is problematic (loose connection corroded?), or the circulator is sticky, and doesn't always start up immediately.

Does the burner actually light, or could it maybe have a problem with the ignitor? That one would be harder to try to observe. If the flame sensor is mispositioned, dirty, or the leads are not intact fully, it might try to start up, (it will usually try a few times), then gives up, requiring a reset.

The operator manual is your best source of troubleshooting your particular boiler.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Dana]

There needs to be more information to make reasonable guesses as to what's going on, such as the model number of the boiler and the model number of the damper.

What we have so far is equivalent to asking why your car sometimes stalls on humid days, given that it's a Ford, and it uses gasoline.