Replace wood pellet burner with oil burner (on existing boiler housing).

Pete M.

Just looking for some advice with regard to our ongoing heating woes

We currently have a Gerkros wood pellet boiler, but it has, at last, completely conked out. At this stage I don't think I want to keep it going. It has always caused us trouble and in the 6 years we've had it, it has been out of action for at least some of the coldest weather there has been.

So now I'm considering replacing it with a standard oil burner.

My main query is can I just replace the burner part?

The actual boiler seems fine and if I can just take off the pellet burner and replace with an oil one, that would be great.
The storage tank, piping etc. would all be grand and handy.

I have found that the 'warm' feeling supplied by using carbon neutral fuel for home heating is cold comfort when it's chilly outdoors.

And apart from the problems with the controls on the burner, more recently it decided to display a fault (it is the pre-digital, analogue one so no error codes) which decided to hide when the service buck came.
I'd been looking for him for weeks and when he landed the boiler worked perfectly. But then he took off and I was happy enough to leave it running over night (which was usual).

When I got up in the morning all the pipes were cold and when I went out to the shed the feed pipe has burst (thankfully) just before it goes underground.
And the fault had re-appeared. So the service chap was good enough to leave a replacement card, but when the pipe was fixed a few days later, I popped it on and hey presto! It decided not to work either.

That's the rant over :pac:

Any help or insight gratefully appreciated.

bubsy

We have been having problems since our wood pellet boiler was installed in a new build house about 6 years ago. Have decided now that enough is enough...getting too old for heading out to the shed to press reset button, clear out feed pipe etc and then having to ring the guy anyway and spend at least 100e.
would be interested to know how you sorted things out. Cost of new boiler and so on.

Iderown

I have done this - replace the pellet burner with an oil burner.
In addition to the obvious (oil storage tank, piping, fire valve and oil burner) an adapter plate was needed so that the oil burner could be fitted in place of the pellet burner. A local steel fabricators made one for me.

I did the control electrics myself.

There is a thread here.

Edit addition : The thermostat port at the top right of the boiler case had to be replaced with a slightly wider one. It had the same screw. A water thermostat unit was needed - water temperature and safety high cut-out. I did a cheap and cheerful thermostat to control the water circulating pump.
Later, I had made an additional 4 or 5 zig-zag baffles for the hot gas channels which were empty.

I'm happy to discuss all this further with you. I'm not in the plumbing and heating business.

scudo2

bubsy wrote: »

We have been having problems since our wood pellet boiler was installed in a new build house about 6 years ago. Have decided now that enough is enough...getting too old for heading out to the shed to press reset button, clear out feed pipe etc and then having to ring the guy anyway and spend at least 100e.
would be interested to know how you sorted things out. Cost of new boiler and so on.

Biggest factor to consider is a "A RATED" oil boiler running cost V converted
Wood pellet boiler X 20 years
€500-00 per year saving X 20= €10000
Figures are only an example to put my point across.

Also consider house insurance issues on a DIY conversion.

esox28

just a taught

My main concern with a conversion of this type apart from the fact its a diy job (no offense) would be the flue, as you were incorporating home made baffles the flue gas temp would be well in excess of 200*c. Would the would pellet boilers flueing system stand to this?
Was there any input from the manufacturers?
Was the burner set with a flue gas anlyszer?
Was the pellet ash grate blanked off?

Iderown

esox28 wrote: »

just a taught

My main concern with a conversion of this type apart from the fact its a diy job (no offense) would be the flue, as you were incorporating home made baffles the flue gas temp would be well in excess of 200*c. Would the would pellet boilers flueing system stand to this?
Was there any input from the manufacturers?
Was the burner set with a flue gas anlyszer?
Was the pellet ash grate blanked off?

The flue: It is a high level flue - NOT a combi type. It has a butterfly valve air pressure regulator. I can visually check at least the lower section of the inside of the flue. It is in better condition now (no soot collected) than when the burner was wood-pellet fired.

I hope that additional baffles within the hot gas flow section of the boiler case would DECREASE the flue gas temperature rather than increase it.

The exhaust gases were checked after the oil burner was installed. The oil burner was installed and commissioned by a qualified heating engineer.

The lower part of the combustion chamber - where the ash pan was located - was left as it was. The combustion chamber is probably a bit bigger than it could be.

I had tried on many occasions without success to contact the original pellet system manufacturers. It was a Swedish outfit. Don't ask me for the pellet-specific parts. They have been dumped.

Dtp1979

Iderown wrote: »

The flue: It is a high level flue - NOT a combi type. It has a butterfly valve air pressure regulator. I can visually check at least the lower section of the inside of the flue. It is in better condition now (no soot collected) than when the burner was wood-pellet fired.

I hope that additional baffles within the hot gas flow section of the boiler case would DECREASE the flue gas temperature rather than increase it.

The exhaust gases were checked after the oil burner was installed. The oil burner was installed and commissioned by a qualified heating engineer.

The lower part of the combustion chamber - where the ash pan was located - was left as it was. The combustion chamber is probably a bit bigger than it could be.

I had tried on many occasions without success to contact the original pellet system manufacturers. It was a Swedish outfit. Don't ask me for the pellet-specific parts. They have been dumped.

Would you still have the flue gas analysis readout that the heating engineer gave you? If so could you post a pic of it. I'm just curious what the readings would be