Thermolator Help!!

[SRPlasPros]

Does anyone have any ideas as to why my safety relief valve on my TCU spits steam and hot water as soon as it reaches temp!!?? I put a brand new one on, same thing. Is it possible my thermocouple went bad?

Maintenance for life,
Frustrated Tech.

[chrisprocess]

What is the Set and Actual temp when this happens?
Also note the To and From system pressure in the unit?
Do you get good flow in your waterlines before it overheats?

Maybe dump valve is stuck or broken - hit it with a rubber mallet a few times that'll solve your issues.
Or Possibly the inlet cooling line is crimped so it's unable to dump hot water?

[SRPlasPros]

The set temp is 170. Its so old, and I have no way of telling the actual temp. I have tested the cooling line, and just yesterday put a new thermocouple into it. My first instinct was that the pressure was too high, so I turned the water down a bit-not that its easily controllable with our set up. Is there a way to take the thermostat off of a SRV? The one I took off, the thermostat was not on it, and it was just leaking...the new one, has one, and its pouring. :confused:

[chrisprocess]

I wouldn't mess with the SRV and if it's "steaming" out it may be much hotter than 170F - which may be an indication it's overheating from failing to dump hot water, failing take in cold water, or your waterlines are severely clogged and you're TCU fails to shutoff when it overheats. Is your water system closed looped? Definitely get some pressure gauges on the To and From lines so you can see what pressure it runs with pump off and what it runs with pump on, and if it builds pressure over time.

Then again you indicated the original SRV was missing a thermostat - so someone took off?
Probably for some reason, maybe same reason you're experiencing now.. Question is if the SRV is performing nominally or if there's a flaw in the assembly? Odd though two of them would fail, even a brand new one.
Definitely don't recommend tampering with the brand new SRV. Could just be a band-aid for the root-cause issue..

If it were me I'd bury it deep in the ground before it blows up :)

[chrisprocess]

Plus if there's steam coming out it's likely much hotter than 212F because your system is under pressure..
If you can't accurately measure pressure and temperature in those lines I would stay 100% clear away!

[brentb]

Plus if there's steam coming out it's likely much hotter than 212F because your system is under pressure..
If you can't accurately measure pressure and temperature in those lines I would stay 100% clear away!

YES!

KOM
brent

[SRPlasPros]

Well, I gave it a thorough work up, cleaned it all, made sure there was water flow, lines were clear, changed the thermocouple just to be sure, new SRV, aannnnndddd same thing. I'm gonna have to talk someone into scraping the POS. I'm about done fidgeting with it, unless anyone has another idea to try?