Oil burner query...

RoundyMooney

Hi guys and girls...

A very quick question on your bog standard OFCH (kerosene) burners. The one chez Roundy is a Grant model, seems to have the same innards as the bog standard Riello but larger (if that makes any sense).

Basically the burner was cycling and locking out. I pulled it, cleaned the electrodes and cell, there was a lot of sooty residue in there, and bled it through, which solved the problem. Now it's humming away nicely again. It's not smoking at all, but I have a feeling the previous occupant (a rental tenant) was tweaking it a bit (he basically said so), which may account for the amount of soot in there. I don't know what's normal for an eight year old burner which AFAIK was never serviced.

My question is this; on the oil pump body are three different adjustments shall we say. A 14mm bolt, which I assume is for bleeding, open it and out comes the kero, an allen bolt (4mm I think) which seems to do nothing, but obviously does, this has had its threads sheared, so I put some ptfe tape on it and shoved it back in as best I could, and finally a slot headed adjustment, which I think regulates the oil flow, at either extreme of its adjustment this kills the burner. Firstly, what is the purpose of the allen bolt? and secondly, am I right in screwing the slot headed adjuster home until the burner stops and then backing it off for a nice clean flame (I'm assuming that this will keep the oil flow down and make the burner more economical?

If worst comes to worst, I'll just hit the wholesalers and but a new burner, they're only about 250 notes AFAIK. I'd rather not though, seeing as this one seems ok?

I'd appreciate any comeback on this from someone who knows.

Thanks for reading.

JamesM

Hi Roundy,
First of all, Service Engineers do a lot more than clean out boilers
But, if you are going at it yourself !
Forget the bolts - as long as the one with ptfe does not leak.
Concentrate on the oil pressure adjusting screw.(You should actually have an oil pressure gauge screwed in instead of the bolt below the screw, when adjusting).
Screw in the screw fully. Then unscrew about 6 half turns or until you start to see the wider part of the screw coming out of the slot. You should know what I mean when you look at it. If the air intake has not been adjusted, this should give a fairly good flame. If there is soot in a kero boiler it has not been adjusted properly and is not burning well. If the flame looks bright and clean and not too blue, you may get away without calling in the experts. It is more difficult to get a good flame, by eye, with kero than diesel.
Jim.

RoundyMooney

JamesM wrote:

Hi Roundy,
First of all, Service Engineers do a lot more than clean out boilers

Indeed! It started cycling last night (in the rain!). I'm on a day off today and just gave it a "quick fix" this morning. Electrodes are clean and not worn, and aside from the soot and the ptfe bolt all seems as it should be...

JamesM wrote:

But, if you are going at it yourself !
Forget the bolts - as long as the one with ptfe does not leak.
Concentrate on the oil pressure adjusting screw.(You should actually have an oil pressure gauge screwed in instead of the bolt below the screw, when adjusting).
Screw in the screw fully. Then unscrew about 6 half turns or until you start to see the wider part of the screw coming out of the slot. You should know what I mean when you look at it. If the air intake has not been adjusted, this should give a fairly good flame. If there is soot in a kero boiler it has not been adjusted properly and is not burning well. If the flame looks bright and clean and not too blue, you may get away without calling in the experts. It is more difficult to get a good flame, by eye, with kero than diesel.
Jim.

Yep, did that, and all seems well. If I have any more problems, (which will be soot related probably if I got anything wrong), I'll get someone who actually knows what they're at! Thanks for clarifying what that screw was for, and for your input. Air intake hasn't been touched AFAIK so all should be well...

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

RoundyMooney

I'm going to bump this again with an update...

Burner choked itself two days later, and I was left with a boiler full of sooty crap. Bit the bullet, called in the pros, who diagnosed a faulty oil pump, (pressure was all over the shop). I decided to just change the whole burner, (pump and fitting was €120 as opposed to a bog standard Riello at €250 plus for anyone buying:eek: ). I cleaned out the boiler before the new one was fitted by the plumber-I got a good bit of soot out of there. New one was fired up, and pissed black smoke! New exchange one was fitted first thing the following morning, same problem... Now it's back to the fuel supplier, who filled the tank before the new burner went in.

It has to be bad kerosene, right? I compared some of the fuel with my neighbours, and it seems identical, so they hardly put diesel in there. The mix is about 60/40 new to old fuel...

JamesM

RoundyMooney wrote:

It has to be bad kerosene, right? I compared some of the fuel with my neighbours, and it seems identical, so they hardly put diesel in there. The mix is about 60/40 new to old fuel...

To be honest, it is seldom bad kero
Kero is red, Diesel is green. Is the new burner a Riello - what model ?
You have a Grant boiler - is it the one with 4 baffles with the triangular piece cut off one front corner of each, on alternate sides ? The top baffle is different to the next three.
You have taken them out to clean the boiler ? Have you checked that there is no soot blocking things from the flue outlet on the top of the boiler to the outlet on the outside wall.
Is the burner matched to the boiler - what size nozzle is in the burner. Should probably be .60gph or .75gph.
If you fire the burner with all the baffles out, leave the cover off and sit one of the baffles over the top of the boiler, leave a gap just so you can see the flame. The flame should be bright and clean - no smokey tips - but not too clean and blue. The tip of the flame should be about half way towards the back of the boiler.
That's all I can think of - it is difficult without seeing the setup.
Jim.

RoundyMooney

Thanks again James, you'll laugh...

I got on to a friend I know, (incidentally the same guy who supplies the burners-local hardware merchant), and he sent up one of his own people to look at it. It's a half size boiler apparently, which is even more unexpected given that this is a fairly big house. Anyway, the standard nozzle was too big and was starved of oxygen when coupled to the small boiler, so much in fact that it also melted the insulation from the electrodes after only an hour of operation! He told me that he had told the plumber this while selling him burners before, apparently there are a lot of miniature boilers about. It's now running a .55, as opposed to a .75...

Plumber has now been lifted on the phone and bottle of Jameson 15 is on the way to Mr. Hardware's home,given that he supplied and fitted nozzle and injectors for free, and the bloody house is now starting to defrost finally. It's starting to hail outside the sitting room window here as I type this!

Thanks for your help, and I hope this thread is of use to someone, to refer back to your first line, "Engineers do a lot more than clean out boilers". How true.

JamesM

That's great, Glad you got sorted. It's too cold to be without heat in this weather.
Jim