New member as well as a new electrician, I finished my 4th year of electrical school a few years ago and am working on my own here and there and troubleshooting these kinds of things are not a strength. I guess ill just outline the problem as best I can.
Lady called and said she has 4 nest thermostats that arent working and the hydronic baseboard heaters arent coming on. First thing i did when I got here was pulled one of the dead nest T stats and plugged it into a micro USB to recharge it and then took a voltage reading on the Red and White wires, I was only getting 4V between the red and white at each of the 4 locations. I then went to the Taco box and tested the Line voltage and had 120v, then I tested each of the two transformers and was getting 27V, then I tested Zones 1-4 and was getting the 4V (no surprise) but Zone 6 which does the Hot Water Heater was reading out at 27V between the red and white and that is working properly. There are two transformers in this Taco Box and 2-5A Fuses and I tested those as well and they are working.
I then pulled all of the thermostats off the walls and went back to the taco box and started getting 9v on the red and white zones 1-4. I took the wires off zones 1-3 and was getting a reading of 13V on Zone 4. I apologize if this is scattershot, I'm certain my lack of experience troubleshooting Low Voltage controls is really showing here but just trying to walk you through my probably somewhat misguided process. Also turned the circuit off and put my meter on the Continuity Tone function and rang out each R/W Zones 1-6 and the only Zone having Continuity was Zone 6, the only Zone getting proper voltage and working properly.
Sorry for the giant wall of text, I'm out of my depth here and am ready to punt it to someone more qualified but its kind of eating at me that I cant figure this out, I want to become more skilled at troubleshooting these things but I'm inclined to believe that this may be a bad control box or maybe somewhere in this ugly rats nest of LowV wires there is a problem but it was working fine last winter so I'm not sure. Any tips or help from an old pro would be appreciated. Thanks. -Dusty
Lady called and said she has 4 nest thermostats that arent working and the hydronic baseboard heaters arent coming on. First thing i did when I got here was pulled one of the dead nest T stats and plugged it into a micro USB to recharge it and then took a voltage reading on the Red and White wires, I was only getting 4V between the red and white at each of the 4 locations. I then went to the Taco box and tested the Line voltage and had 120v, then I tested each of the two transformers and was getting 27V, then I tested Zones 1-4 and was getting the 4V (no surprise) but Zone 6 which does the Hot Water Heater was reading out at 27V between the red and white and that is working properly. There are two transformers in this Taco Box and 2-5A Fuses and I tested those as well and they are working.
I then pulled all of the thermostats off the walls and went back to the taco box and started getting 9v on the red and white zones 1-4. I took the wires off zones 1-3 and was getting a reading of 13V on Zone 4. I apologize if this is scattershot, I'm certain my lack of experience troubleshooting Low Voltage controls is really showing here but just trying to walk you through my probably somewhat misguided process. Also turned the circuit off and put my meter on the Continuity Tone function and rang out each R/W Zones 1-6 and the only Zone having Continuity was Zone 6, the only Zone getting proper voltage and working properly.
Sorry for the giant wall of text, I'm out of my depth here and am ready to punt it to someone more qualified but its kind of eating at me that I cant figure this out, I want to become more skilled at troubleshooting these things but I'm inclined to believe that this may be a bad control box or maybe somewhere in this ugly rats nest of LowV wires there is a problem but it was working fine last winter so I'm not sure. Any tips or help from an old pro would be appreciated. Thanks. -Dusty
