Firebird 70-90

dvae

Can anyone help i have a firebird 70-90 and it was working fine until yesterday.
I noticed the heating never went on today. I went out to the boiler and it was making a quiet humming sound not the usual firing sound.
there was a little heat coming from the unit its self.
Its like its on but its not if you know what i mean.
p.s. the pump is working and its not air locked.......

suitseir

I have a firbird like yours and when that happened to me sometime back, I was out of oil! Did you check oil level?

dvae

oil is fine, its actually running like its on half power heating its self but not heating the water.
Its making a humming sound like its firing but, not as loud as it usually dose.

Kashkai

That humming sound could be your pump circulating. The boiler might appear warm but that because its trying to fire but then goes out.

My Firebird 150 stopped working a few weeks back but I got it working again myself with about 20 minutes work. Here is a checklist of things to go through to see if you can get it going yourself without the need to call out a plumber (turn off the burner at the main circuit board first):

1. Is there oil in the tank?

2. Open the bleed screw at the bottom left of the burner to check if the oil is getting to the burner, i.e. no airlock.

3. Take out the photelectric cell (mine is on the top centre of the burner in a rubber housing) and clean it. If this gets covered in soot, it will falsely think that there's no oil getting through and will shut the burner off.

4. Undo the burner unit itself by taking off the lock nut which is located on the top centre of the burner housing and then just pull the burner unit out. Check for a build up of soot on the oil nozzle and in the boiler housing.

I did 1 - 4 above and found that in my case, the problem was a build up of soot on the photoelectric cell. Once this was cleaned, the burner fired and has worked fine since.

Check Firebird's website and you'll find the technical manuals for your boiler which will explain the various parts and will help you in finding the parts I mentioned above.

As an aside, my boiler is 3 years old and hasn't been serviced up to now as a plumber I called out said that unless the boiler is giving you trouble, you should leave it alone!! I'd took this advice with a pinch of salt - would you not service your car if it wasn't giving you any trouble???

dvae

That humming sound could be your pump circulating. The boiler might appear warm but that because its trying to fire but then goes out.


Thanks for you help. I had to get a plummer today and he got it sorted.
As above the humming sound was the pump, and it was hot because it was firing up for about 30 seconds at a time, every 20 min or so. (When it cooled down). It seems every time it fired i must of been inside lol.

The plummer said something about a failed pressure release valve on top of the boiler tripping it out.
Glad to get it working again as it was freezing.
Cheers.....................................................