Central Boiler Edge 750 Titanium

[Logging logginglogging]

So My new boiler is on the way, I am pretty excited and will install it over the summer. I have never really done step by step update post but I think I will give it a try, I am very excited to get it installed and have heard really great things about it. I will take pictures and do the best I can to tell everyone about it.
It will be at my dealer around Thursday, but unfortunately I will be out of town so I will not be able to take delivery until the following week.

[Roger2561]

logging, etc...  I'll be following this thread.  I just finished my 6th season heating my home with an E-Classic 1400 and DHW and I know nothing lasts forever.  I hope to get another 3 or 4 years out it before I have to replace it.  Heck, I have a professional welder/metal fabricator making a new air channel for the 1400 due to it coming part at the welds and cracking in many areas.  I had to make a trip to my dealer for a new test kit and looked over the Edge 750; very impressive and looks to be much easier to maintain and clean.  Roger     

[DDW_OR]

here is a link to my 750 install. it is not the Titanium
http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,92218.0/all.html#top

[Logging logginglogging]

Well!! My new boiler was delivered today, I promptly went to the web address on the sticker on it and registered for my warranty . It was awesome that i could register this easy, but the date of purchase field on the page did have a bug. It says it takes a date in this format dd\mm\yy but will actually only accept a date in this format dd\mm\yyyy. Took a few tries to figure that out. The boiler seems really well made. If a 750 edge has recently been shipped, and you find the bypass lever a bit hard to use, make sure that the cleaning mechanism (accessed through the rear Chimney Tee) is pulled all the way back Toward the back of the boiler, they can slide forward into cleaning position during shipping and cause the bypass lever to bind. No big deal! I am now reading all the great documentation that has come with the boiler. Hopefully I can begin installation soon. Really liking the way it looks, smaller footprint than my previous boiler and with a really modern attractive design..

[DDW_OR]

I painted the lever white

[boilerman101]

Logging - I really like the look of the new CB Edge from what I've seen. Some nice updates over my 2010 model Eclassic 2400. I look forward to hearing your comments on it after running the older 2300 which had less features than mine. Should be quite an upgrade. Are you putting the XP wifi on it? I wouldn't be without it after having it. $200 well spent in my opinion.

[Logging logginglogging]

I will eventually put the XP on it I just don't have the money now after this purchase. I was going to use my current ThermoPEX location going into the back of the boiler and "make it work" by routing it around the inside base of the new boiler, however It's brand new boiler that I plan to have for years to come so i decided to "make it right" and dig up and reroute my ThermoPEX to the correct side of boiler entrance location. Since I didn't want to damage my ThermoPEX, and the power wire buried with it I had to do all the digging with a shovel being very very careful. I had it buried about 4 feet deep and I also had built a wood shed over it so I had to tunnel under my wood shed as well. This was quite a bit of work, but I believe worth it. I have now run the pipe as needed but have yet to hook everything up and finish back filling.
Also, I believe the next thing I will invest in is a domestic water heating side arm. Since the whole system will be drained to allow for fresh water and fresh treatment for the new boiler it is the best time to do it.

[DDW_OR]

...........so i decided to "make it right" and dig up and reroute my ThermoPEX to the correct side of boiler entrance location. .........but have yet to hook everything up and finish back filling.............

add a 1.5 inch empty plastic pipe for future use, comes in a 300 foot role

[Logging logginglogging]

Well I  installed my new side arm, also changed the aluminum / magnesium anode rod in the water heater while i was at it, since this is a sacrificial metal rod that protects the water heater tank from corrosion. (I guess its a good idea to replace it every 5 or so years)
Any way, I did not have a port on my hot water heater like the central boiler manual diagram shows, but after some research online I found that you can actually do the following if you do NOT have a side arm port:
(This is all after shutting down cooling and draining the tank)
1. Remove the Temperature /  pressure valve off the hot water heater
2. Install a "T" in its place
3. Position the T so the side arm top line can run into the T
4. Purchase and extended Temperature /  pressure valve that allows the temp sensor to go down through the T and still be within the top 6 inches of water in the tank "no deeper than 6 inches".
This allows for the valve to work as it should and the side arm to have a reentry port.

Next part of the project I will install my circular on the new boiler and fill her up according the the manual.  Being stainless it is required to use the Central boiler "mollyboost" product in conjunction with the rust inhibitor. The After testing the water I will send my first water sample off to central boiler.

[Logging logginglogging]

Well I just went to buy the chemicals,
3 x gallons of the inhibitor plus (2 required, one for backup if i need a bit more) at 48 bucks a jug
2 x 32 oz of the mollyboost. at 40 bucks a jug.

when i was finished with tax I spent just about 200.00 on chemicals.

Here is the annoying part:
I am fine with adding the additional protection of mollyboost at 40 bucks a jug, what I am not impressed with is that they do not state actual ounces on the jug it comes in. upon some research, I found that the jugs are 32oz a piece. I am annoyed that my boiler requires 33 ounces, so essentially I just paid 40 bucks for one ounce of this stuff. I am not sure if you are suppose to add it later on for maintenance or not yet, or if it's just at the first fill. I hope that it is something i can use later and i didn't just completely waste my money.

 I also Still need to do a bit more research and see if i need to use Ashtrol in the stainless steel boiler as well. I read something in the manual that sounded like i might not need to but I want to make sure.

[Logging logginglogging]

 I filled up the boiler and ran it for the first 24hrs circulating the water, per the manual.  First thing in the AM I conducted my water test I was extremely impressed with the efficiency and was beginning to gain confidence in the new install. Before heading into the house for the evening I thought I would check the water temperature and the reaction chamber temperature and found the information panel on the "Fire Star II" to be completely off with no lights on. Upon inspection I found that the circulator was still running, indicating that the outside boiler still indeed had power supplied to it. Finally after some investigation I found that the boiler's internal breaker (above where you plug in the circulator ) was tripping itself when power was applied by flipping the power switch on that beaker to the on position. I turned off the main power breaker to the boiler and turned it back on (in an attempt to reboot the system) to no avail. Finally I turned off everything and I am now dead in the water. I am going to contact my dealer today, and hopefully get this sorted out. Man what a bummer, whatever is wrong with it after that part is replaced, I am goi ng to buy a spare one that's for sure.

[DDW_OR]

I have never had any problems with my 750, electric nor mechanical.

[Logging logginglogging]

Wow, Talk about a fast response. CB got back to me and I was able to talk to someone to help me troubleshoot the problem. It is believed it could just be a bad solenoid. I will check it out tonight.
I will say though when it was running it was amazingly more efficient than my older boiler. So far I am quite happy with the unit, once I get through these first hiccups I think it will be great.

[Logging logginglogging]

it was the solenoid,  after unplugging it worked great. I got a new one today and found the old one was much harder to actuate by hand as well.

old one was at .4ohms new one is at 20ohms.
anything lower than 14 is a bad one.

[Logging logginglogging]

Well this thing seems to eat up solenoids every 24hrs. At first the company seemed quite helpful, calling and returning emails. There was even talk of sending me some solenoids since I am now forced to buy spares out of pocket for a brand new boiler that is under warranty. In fact I just bought a spare yesterday at $37.00. After doing tests and measurements  and sending the results they seemed to have run out of ideas. and stopped replying to emails. When getting a measurement for them I discovered the problem and have a couple of fixes that i even suggested to them but got no reply. It appears that there is a slight film of creosote that coats the solenoid air intake plate plate when this happens and the plate closes for an extended period of time (such as in between burn cycles) the film hardens and "glues" the plate down to the top of the air intake cup. When the solenoid attempts to lift the plate at the beginning of the next burn cycle it seems to just make a humming /  welding /  melting /  cooking sound and can not lift the plate. If you are lucky and catch this you can tap the plate sideways to break it free so it will lift. After doing this i felt the solenoid was hot to the touch in just seconds. (this does not happen on the other air intake because the lid is not lifted straight up due to double stage solenoids).

Proposed fixes:
1. The intake gets a surrated edge cut into the top rim with teeth all the way around it to lessen the seal-able contact area. (The downside is it would let more air in depending on tooth cut side)

2. Three tiny 1/16" or so high teeth could be added to each side of the top rim of the intake lessening the plate d contact area as well. (this would also let in some air but the space would be very small)

3.The fix i actually did to "rig this thing":  With the plate lifted, I use some very small stainless steel (piano string sized) wire. wrapping it over the intake entrance under the plate and twisting it together down under the intake elbow where the plate spring goes to keep it in place. This ensures the plate has a very small gap like the above ideas and stops the plate from making a complete seal and getting stuck. So far this has worked.

I should not have to re engineer a brand new boiler but at that point this is what i need to do as they have stopped replying and I have cold weather season on the way. I am hoping i can get through this winter with this thing without minimal down time. I am hoping to undo my fix this weekend and take a video of it malfunctioning without any intervention (let it burn up the solenoid) so that people can see the problem and better understand whats wrong with this thing. possibly i can post it here or YouTube.

[DDW_OR]

this is what mine looked like when new
going outside to take photos of what it looks like now

 

 

[DDW_OR]

 
 

 

[DDW_OR]

I wonder what could be put on the bare metal to prevent creosote from sticking to the air intake plate.

I thought of High temp grease rated for 1200°F, like Brake caliper Grease

[Roger2561]

With your "fix", won't it allow for air to enter the fire box during idle time perhaps even causing the water temp to creep a bit?  What's the purpose of the spring on the primary solenoid?  I have an E-Classic 1400 with a similar style of air intake set up but there is no spring to hold it down on the solenoid opening only it's weight does it.  I'm wondering what would happen if the spring was to be removed, if it were to make any difference in operation, essentially taking some of the load off the solenoid thus lessen the chance of it "sticking" to the elbow?  Just some thoughts.   Roger

[Logging logginglogging]

Thanks for the replies,
@DDW_OR, mine has not had much run time so its a bit cleaner than that now, but its good to see others are operating in a similar fashion. You know i really like the high temp grease idea. In fact I think ill take my fix out and try just that tonight.

@Roger2561 Yes, a slight amount of air goes in. I literally check ever 1.5 hrs the first whole night and found it made no temp creep. Also when i had a failure and told them about when i had done "originally with a nail" to get through the night they didn't not seem concerned in the least and said "do what you need to do to get by" for the night. I also see that the other Intake has a small hole drilled in it anyway to allow a small amount of air.