Sooty Season / Oil Boilers

scudo2

Is it just my bad luck / good fortune ?

Does anybody else come across an unusaly large amount of sooty boilers late January- Feb.
It not just a case of them getting a bad service in the Autumn as a lot of ones that I come across haven't been touched for years, so you would expect them to soot up any time over the year.
This has been the norm. every season.

Myself and another buddy ( he's not on boards ) in West Cork often commented on this.
Normally at other times of the boiler year I get one bad one once a week. This time of the year, normally mid Jan-mid Feb I get an average 5-6 a week ! Only the odd one due to fuel mix. SE+HE boilers.
Last week 4 in the one day.

Sooty Season ?


Her indoors made me get an old washing machine for the overalls.
She didn't see the funny side when I pointed out I already have one.


Anyway, question was sooty Season, anybody else notice it ?

Wearb

Maybe a little more than usual, but not noticeable. Mine has mostly been because of situation where it was installed and affected by wind. Sometimes wind blowing something up against or into air intake. Sometimes people themselves stacking stuff into boiler-house and interfering with airflow.

DGOBS

had 4 in one day last week, real messes…so yeah..was a day I wanted to forget

Dtp1979

scudo2 wrote: »

Is it just my bad luck / good fortune ?

Does anybody else come across an unusaly large amount of sooty boilers late January- Feb.
It not just a case of them getting a bad service in the Autumn as a lot of ones that I come across haven't been touched for years, so you would expect them to soot up any time over the year.
This has been the norm. every season.

Myself and another buddy ( he's not on boards ) in West Cork often commented on this.
Normally at other times of the boiler year I get one bad one once a week. This time of the year, normally mid Jan-mid Feb I get an average 5-6 a week ! Only the odd one due to fuel mix. SE+HE boilers.
Last week 4 in the one day.

Sooty Season ?


Her indoors made me get an old washing machine for the overalls.
She didn't see the funny side when I pointed out I already have one.


Anyway, question was sooty Season, anybody else notice it ?

Anything to do with lower air temps?

Wearb

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Anything to do with lower air temps?

Hard to see why (except for maybe cooling the flame) as the lower temperature air contains more O2 per cubic metre than warmer air.
Perhaps a combination of cool oil and cool air, but then December and early January should cause problems also. Interesting!

.jacksparrow.

Wearb wrote: »

Hard to see why (except for maybe cooling the flame) as the lower temperature air contains more O2 per cubic metre than warmer air.
Perhaps a combination of cool oil and cool air, but then December and early January should cause problems also. Interesting!

Wouldn't it be a warmer flame if there is more oxygen?

Wearb

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Wouldn't it be a warmer flame if there is more oxygen?

Yes from an O2 point of view. That is partly why I said it was hard to see why cold air was to blame. I put the piece in brackets because the cold air would cool the flame down more than warmer air, but I don't know if cold air alone can be blamed for the soothing described. The fact that it seems to be more prevalent at the end of January rather than the end of December is mystifying.

Any ideas about the cause yourself?

scudo2

Thanks all for the replys.
It just seemed strange the amount I come across this particular exact time of year, ever year, without any logical explanation.
Ta.

.jacksparrow.

Wearb wrote: »

Yes from an O2 point of view. That is partly why I said it was hard to see why cold air was to blame. I put the piece in brackets because the cold air would cool the flame down more than warmer air, but I don't know if cold air alone can be blamed for the soothing described. The fact that it seems to be more prevalent at the end of January rather than the end of December is mystifying.

Any ideas about the cause yourself?

People using their boilers more because of the cold weather possibly?

Wearb

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

People using their boilers more because of the cold weather possibly?

Could be as good an explanation as any. They would mostly be turned on mid to late October and manage to stay running until they soot up completely some 4 months later.

In Scudo's case I thought he was suggesting that they were running fine (correct fuel air mix) until about end of January and then soot up.

ike

Just jumping in on this one folks - I have an outdoor grant 70 90 condensing boiler and at the weekend I noticed it was smoking out of the exhaust instead of the usual steam. We had a look at it and it was caked with soot in the baffles and condensing chamber. Even the photocell in the burner was blackened as it wasn't firing a clean as it should

We gave it a quick clean but are setting aside a day this week to get a better run at it.

Any ideas what would have caused it?

scudo2

ike wrote: »

Just jumping in on this one folks - I have an outdoor grant 70 90 condensing boiler and at the weekend I noticed it was smoking out of the exhaust instead of the usual steam. We had a look at it and it was caked with soot in the baffles and condensing chamber. Even the photocell in the burner was blackened as it wasn't firing a clean as it should

We gave it a quick clean but are setting aside a day this week to get a better run at it.

Any ideas what would have caused it?

Not burning right is the obvious answer, without meaning to be smart.
Cause could be one of twenty reasons.

Simple to rectify for a service person with appropate experience and electronic combustion analyzer.
Not a DIY job I'm afraid.

jimf

scudo2 wrote: »

Not burning right is the obvious answer, without meaning to be smart.
Cause could be one of twenty reasons.

Simple to rectify for a service person with appropate experience and electronic combustion analyzer.
Not a DIY job I'm afraid.

+1

JamesM

For most of my time servicing I had around 500 customers that used to sign a service agreement every September, so I was mainly servicing the same boilers every year and they usually did not give much trouble. But there were always a few every year that seemed to soot up for no reason that I could find. Once I cleaned the boiler, everything ran fine.
By this time of the year, the oil in the tank is probably not much above freezing point. No matter what the manufacturers say, I feel that 7 bar is a very low pressure. In the old days before we regularly used FGAs and read the manuals :-) , I would never have the pressure for kerosene below 110 psi.
So, I believe that with cold oil, low pressure, and maybe a narrow angle 60 degree nozzle, the oil may not be atomising enough and the flame floating away. Even if this only happens the first time starting up from cold, it can very quickly build up enough soot to block off the flueways of a modern boiler.
Jim.

Wearb

JamesM wrote: »

For most of my time servicing I had around 500 customers that used to sign a service agreement every September, so I was mainly servicing the same boilers every year and they usually did not give much trouble. But there were always a few every year that seemed to soot up for no reason that I could find. Once I cleaned the boiler, everything ran fine.
By this time of the year, the oil in the tank is probably not much above freezing point. No matter what the manufacturers say, I feel that 7 bar is a very low pressure. In the old days before we regularly used FGAs and read the manuals :-) , I would never have the pressure for kerosene below 110 psi.
So, I believe that with cold oil, low pressure, and maybe a narrow angle 60 degree nozzle, the oil may not be atomising enough and the flame floating away. Even if this only happens the first time starting up from cold, it can very quickly build up enough soot to block off the flueways of a modern boiler.
Jim.

I agree with all of that. Strangely the amount of oil being pumped through a nozzle (in most domestic boilers) increases as temperature drops (whiten the normal temperature changes found in this country). This would cause a rich mixture and contribute to the other suggested causes of sooting.