Replacing Thermostat, operates backwards...

[bluerayz]

My condo has a central boiler in the building that feeds hot water to baseboard heating in each unit. Theres a Thermostat that operates a solenoid valve to allow the flow of water to start and heat to come.
There are 4 wires at the thermostat, a blue and a white that come from the solenoid and a pair of blue and white that come from a transformer near the breaker.
the two blues are connected with a grommet and the two whites go to the thermostat (an old two wire, mercury type).
The mercury type doesn't work properly anymore and the wife wants new ones anyway. So i bought a new two-wire honeywell, installed it and it works backwards...
I.E. the heat is on when the room temp is above the temperature chosen and vice versa. (i'm not sure how clear that is so i'll say this, i crank it to 30 degrees (Celsius) and the heat turns on and down at 5 degrees it turns off.)

What the heck can i do about that? I'm baffled. and there doesn't seem to be any resources on the internet about it.

[HayZee518]

the thermostats work by sending a signal to the zone valve. when the zone valve opens it closes a set of contacts that start the burner.

[paul52446m]

My condo has a central boiler in the building that feeds hot water to baseboard heating in each unit. Theres a Thermostat that operates a solenoid valve to allow the flow of water to start and heat to come.
There are 4 wires at the thermostat, a blue and a white that come from the solenoid and a pair of blue and white that come from a transformer near the breaker.
the two blues are connected with a grommet and the two whites go to the thermostat (an old two wire, mercury type).
The mercury type doesn't work properly anymore and the wife wants new ones anyway. So i bought a new two-wire honeywell, installed it and it works backwards...
I.E. the heat is on when the room temp is above the temperature chosen and vice versa. (i'm not sure how clear that is so i'll say this, i crank it to 30 degrees (Celsius) and the heat turns on and down at 5 degrees it turns off.)

What the heck can i do about that? I'm baffled. and there doesn't seem to be any resources on the internet about it.

It sounds to me like the new stat is not a two . it sounds like it is a 3 wire.
Do you still have the two blues together? I you hooked the two wires on the stat to R and y it would work backwards . Make sure that are hooked to R and
w. Paul

[bluerayz]

The new one is definately a two wire. It's got two black wires coming out of it and it says two wire on the package. It's like this heating system works backwards from normal...?? When the circuit is open it turns on and vice versa.
The old thermostat goes right to left on temperature settings. Which is diff from others I've seen. Usually you turn or slide to the right to increase the temp I think.

[bluerayz]

the thermostats work by sending a signal to the zone valve. when the zone valve opens it closes a set of contacts that start the burner.

Actually the building has a central boiler room which maintains the water temperature and the zone valve simply allows the water to flow through the baseboard heaters.
Anyone else have any ideas???

[paul52446m]

Actually the building has a central boiler room which maintains the water temperature and the zone valve simply allows the water to flow through the baseboard heaters.
Anyone else have any ideas???

If you have a two wire stat and it is working backwards, Then you ether have
a two wire cooling stat or a bad stat. i would take it back, in my 40 years i have never heard of this. paul

[paul52446m]

My condo has a central boiler in the building that feeds hot water to baseboard heating in each unit. Theres a Thermostat that operates a solenoid valve to allow the flow of water to start and heat to come.
There are 4 wires at the thermostat, a blue and a white that come from the solenoid and a pair of blue and white that come from a transformer near the breaker.
the two blues are connected with a grommet and the two whites go to the thermostat (an old two wire, mercury type).
The mercury type doesn't work properly anymore and the wife wants new ones anyway. So i bought a new two-wire honeywell, installed it and it works backwards...
I.E. the heat is on when the room temp is above the temperature chosen and vice versa. (i'm not sure how clear that is so i'll say this, i crank it to 30 degrees (Celsius) and the heat turns on and down at 5 degrees it turns off.)

What the heck can i do about that? I'm baffled. and there doesn't seem to be any resources on the internet about it.

I don;t understand this message ether. You said you turn your stat to 30 degrees and the heat turn on and keeps going until it get down to 5 degrees in the house. I have never seen a stat made for a house that goes down to 30 or 5 degrees. If your talking Celsius, i only work in american degrees.
Can you explain this any better? Later Paul

[bluerayz]

Well 5c = 41f and 30c=86f.

To try to better explain i attached a picture.
It's 23c or 73f in my place right now (according to the thermometer i have on the wall), the thermostat is set at about 30 (86f) but the heat is off (as you can see in the picture). If i turn the thermostat down to anything below 18 (64f) the heat comes on.
Does that make more sense??

[bluerayz]

I think I have come to the conclusion that the solenoid valve works on the opposite principal of electric baseboard heat.
The way i under stand it on a normal two wire thermostat as the room termperature drops below the termperature manually set on the thermostat, the circuit is "completed" and the heat is activated. Like a standard switch.

Well in my condo the solenoid valve is "activated" or opened to allow the water to flow when the ciruit is "open" and the valve closes when the circuit is closed.
I know this becasue if i take the thermostat out of the picture and directly connect the two wires, the valve closes and the water stops flowing, and obviously when they are not connected the valve opens and the flow starts again.
Which leads me to believe i need a reverse acting thermostat.
Does that make sense to you guys?

[HayZee518]

I went looking and honeywell makes a reverse acting thermostat. a normal zoned system, the zone valve is in the return line or feed line. when the valve receives a signal, its heater heats up , opens the valve and closes a set of contacts to start the recirculator and burner relay. just go buy a reverse acting stat.

[paul52446m]

I went looking and honeywell makes a reverse acting thermostat. a normal zoned system, the zone valve is in the return line or feed line. when the valve receives a signal, its heater heats up , opens the valve and closes a set of contacts to start the recirculator and burner relay. just go buy a reverse acting stat.

Hi HayZee518 paul here. This guy is in a commercial building, so all his zone valve
does is open up to let water flow through his condo. The boiler heat a lot of condos with one boiler, so the boiler temp is controlled by a outdoor stat, and the pump on that boiler will run off a pump aqua-stat so it would run all the time
until the water temp. dropped below setting like 120 degrees.
I have never seen a reverse stat used in a condo, but there is a first time for everything. If he stills has the old stat he could hold it up, with the cover off and see if it makes or breaks when you turn it up. Paul

[paul52446m]

Well 5c = 41f and 30c=86f.

To try to better explain i attached a picture.
It's 23c or 73f in my place right now (according to the thermometer i have on the wall), the thermostat is set at about 30 (86f) but the heat is off (as you can see in the picture). If i turn the thermostat down to anything below 18 (64f) the heat comes on.
Does that make more sense??

Then like HayZee518 said, what ever stat you have , you need the opposite one. paul

[bluerayz]

Hi HayZee518 paul here. This guy is in a commercial building, so all his zone valve
does is open up to let water flow through his condo. The boiler heat a lot of condos with one boiler, so the boiler temp is controlled by a outdoor stat, and the pump on that boiler will run off a pump aqua-stat so it would run all the time
until the water temp. dropped below setting like 120 degrees.
I have never seen a reverse stat used in a condo, but there is a first time for everything. If he stills has the old stat he could hold it up, with the cover off and see if it makes or breaks when you turn it up. Paul

I'll take a pic of the old stat when i get home to show you guys. It's a mercury type. The only reason i'm replacing it is that its horribly innacurate and my wife bitches about the look of it (old beige and brown one).
If only i knew it would be this much trouble before i started.
I've done some searching for a reverse acting thermostat but all i can find is pneumatic ones. i asked honeywell and the said use their trusty TL8100. Yikes that thing is a bit pricey...

[HayZee518]

If you were the adventurous type, you could purchase a common two wire thermostat that closes on temperature increase and using the same 24 volt control transformer and a 24 volt normally closed, normally open relay wire the relay into your stat control. rotating the dial for temperature increase will close the relay but you use the opposite set of contacts to operate the furnace.

[paul52446m]

If you were the adventurous type, you could purchase a common two wire thermostat that closes on temperature increase and using the same 24 volt control transformer and a 24 volt normally closed, normally open relay wire the relay into your stat control. rotating the dial for temperature increase will close the relay but you use the opposite set of contacts to operate the furnace.

I thought about the same thing. A relay like that would not cost that much.
Now you will have to make him up a wiring diagram. Paul