hydronic heat for the barn - part 16

Yesterday afternoon the strong cold front hit Pacific Northwest. I was erecting more T&G plywood as wall panels. When I anticipate the work will create dust I switch off the mini split heat pump to avoid dust getting onto the air filter and the heat exchanger in the IDU. The barn stay at comfortable temperature even hours without heat. I left 2 loops of the radiant heat on. The wind was so strong it rattle the roof panels. The lights flickered a number of times which typically is a precursor to blackout. The power stayed on and I made good progress and finished one more wall. I armed with a flashlight and took a shower worrying the whole time if the power goes out and I could be soaped and naked and cold. Thankfully the power didn't go out. I switched off the breaker to the radiant floor system just as a precaution.

This morning I went into the barn and switched on the radiant floor heat. So far the boiler has work reliably but this morning it threw an error code 10. I suspected it may be ignition fail lockout and looking it up confirmed my hunch. The lockout occurs after 10 failed flame proofing.

the boiler ran at 74% capacity with all 8 loops enabled and most of the floor were cold

error code 10 is lockout after failing flame trials 10 times; they clearly took the trouble to reserve "10" for this key failure

My thought is it must be the wind disrupting the ignition flame proving, so I cleared the code and retry. Still the same code persisted upon repeated tries. I thought it odd as the wind was much stronger last night. Time to remove the boiler cover and investigate. I even went outside to check the PVC intake and exhaust just to be sure.

The first thing to check was to monitor the ignition at the burner's sight window. Each time there was ignition and the flame ignited but it flamed out shortly after. I concluded due to the slight differences with how the two pipes protruding the siding the wind blowing across them create enough pressure differential is causing combustion air disruption. The ignition is done at very low flame setting which is easy to fail even it is forced air combustion by a variable speed fan.

When I set the gas richness I knew I set it on the lean side and this event proved it. I open the adjustment screw 1/4 turn and the problem is solved.

Since I installed the hydronic heat I have been monitoring the propane tank supplying the barn. I am extremely pleased to see the gauge needle has hardly moved even with the usage and tests I conducted. My goal was to only need to fill the 600 gallon tank once prior to each winter.

These thermal actuators has more than what meet the eyes. It works by heating of a wax cartridge but it also sits on top of a warm manifold. How could the design avoid the wax cartridge being heated up unintentionally as the manifold temperature can change hugely from installation to installation. The designer has no control over this.

I measured the aggregate current when 6 actuators were activated for a while, the current was only 480mA. That works out to be about 2W each consistent to the spec.

one section of the far side wall is now done

I provisioned an Ethernet drop at the far end of the barn

the last panel in each wall section is rip cut narrower to fit; so far there is very little waste

good to see the pile of plywood getting lower