Cleaning a Firebird boiler.

amandstu

I understand this a a common boiler.

Anyway , as a result of some very sooty smoke coming out about a month back , I took the top half of it off , removed the 6 baffles (the right term , I hope) and cleaned out all that area of the thick build up of soot.

That worked a treat but a week or so later I could see that the same problem was coming back.

I repeated the operation but this time I also took out the burner and cleaned out the "basement" are as best I could (not so easy as there was only a wrist sized hole to put my hand in and scoop out the worst.

A week later and the smoke coming out boiler is still sooty but not as bad

Could there be something wrong ? I don't think I should need to be recleaning the boiler so often . I didn't attempt to clean or even go near the actual burner itself .....

mickdw

Get a professional to service it. It should run faultlessly for a couple of years when correctly serviced.
I wouldnt be messing about with burner.

amandstu

There is no easy way to clean the area (the "basement" area) ?

What about putting is some chemical product through the burner hole that would speed up the oxidisation of the soot that has fallen down there?

I have seen products like that used on chimneys although I have never used them....

dixiefly

mickdw wrote: »

Get a professional to service it. It should run faultlessly for a couple of years when correctly serviced.
I wouldnt be messing about with burner.

100% agree.

If the OP has to come on here asking then they should be getting a professional to do it. We have a 13 year old firebird boiler that we get serviced every year to 18 months. Money well invested as we have have never had a problem and I reckon it's working as well as the day we got it. I havent done the math but would love to compare efficiency with someone that doesn't get a proper service.

I mean how can someone expect random people on the internet to know what is wrong with their boiler when (as seems the case) it hasn't been properly serviced for a while?

amandstu

It is fair to seek advice on the internet. After all you take advice with a grain of salt . It is like reading a book. You add what you learn to your own store of experience.

I have had a boiler for over 25 years that I was able to cope with. This is a new boiler that I have had for about a year now and the design is very different. I would attempt to do as much as I can on my own and just bring in a professional as required ( and learn from them in the process so as not to incur more costs -and waiting around-than are essential)

agusta

What model of firebird is it.Is it a firebird enviromax?,If the boiler is only a year old was the boiler commisioned and have you the readings of the flue gas analysis printout?
Also if you could post a picture of the boiler and the flue,it would help

amandstu

It is a Super Q 90/120.

As i did not install it I can't be sure it is even the original burner . Perhaps it is though as it seems a very good match.

But I did not buy this new.

So no gas printouts or anything like that.

agusta

What make and model of burner is it.Is the boiler inside or outside

amandstu

agusta wrote: »

What make and model of burner is it.Is the boiler inside or outside

G5T Firerbird 120D . Does that sound right?

There are also numbers and letters on the casing but they are a little difficult to decipher.

It also says Riello Burners on the surrounding box.

The boiler is outside . There is no danger of fumes killing anyone.

agusta

correct burner id say,
The soot is caused by incomplete or improper combustion of the burner flame.You will need a service technician to sort this correctly.The boiler/burner should be set up at the correct output for the house.The incomplete combustion could be caused by a no. of reasons.Without an oil pressure gauge and flue gas analyser its difficult to diagnosis the problem and impossible to set up to anywhere near the correct efficiency.What you can do that might help is open up the air very slightly on the right hand side of the burner if you feel comfortable doing this.It might buy you a little time and stop the sooting until you get a service technician in.Its not a very efficient boiler in comparison to the new high efficiency boilers

amandstu

Yes that seems like a good idea. I will have a look into that.

Merry Christmas to you all with a minimum of little sooty flakes!

dixiefly

amandstu wrote: »

Yes that seems like a good idea. I will have a look into that.

Merry Christmas to you all with a minimum of little sooty flakes!

We too have a popular 120. The one thing I do know is that the oil mix is also very important to the setup of the boiler.

As you seem to know a bit about servicing your boiler I would still suggest getting a professional out to sot out any issues and tell you the correct oil mix for your boile (ours is set for 50/50 kero / gas oil mix). Then service yourself every 2nd year and see how you get on. A boiler made in the last 10 years would probably be a lot different to one made 25 years ago.

amandstu

That is a surprise to me . I am sure our's must be set of for gas/oil as the professional who installed it is quite familiar with our set up.

Even so I will bring up the issue with him when I see him next.

We actually have 2 tanks . One holds kerosene and the other is for gas/oil.

I would be astonished if our new boiler was not set up for gas/oil in the same way as the one that was replaced but, as I said I will look into it and ,if necessary I will mention it to him next time.

agusta

dixiefly wrote: »

We too have a popular 120. The one thing I do know is that the oil mix is also very important to the setup of the boiler.

As you seem to know a bit about servicing your boiler I would still suggest getting a professional out to sot out any issues and tell you the correct oil mix for your boile (ours is set for 50/50 kero / gas oil mix). Then service yourself every 2nd year and see how you get on. A boiler made in the last 10 years would probably be a lot different to one made 25 years ago.

There is nothing in the firebird manual that mentions a mix of kerosene and gas oil.The setting in the manual are for either kerosene or gas oil,To set the boiler to manufacturers instructions it has to one or the other but not both

agusta

amandstu wrote: »

That is a surprise to me . I am sure our's must be set of for gas/oil as the professional who installed it is quite familiar with our set up.

Even so I will bring up the issue with him when I see him next.

We actually have 2 tanks . One holds kerosene and the other is for gas/oil.

I would be astonished if our new boiler was not set up for gas/oil in the same way as the one that was replaced but, as I said I will look into it and ,if necessary I will mention it to him next time.

Kerosene is cheaper.i would be setting it to kerosene.He will have to use a flue gas analyser with printout to do it correctly

agusta

Years ago people used to mix gas oil with kerosene to lubricate the pump in the burner.But these pump havent needed lubrication in over 20 years.To get maximum efficiency a professional service technician has to be able to set it up to mi with a pressure gauge and flue gas analyser .He cannot do this if the characteristics of the fuel have been changed

jimf

as you state your boiler is new I would guess its either a fb enviromax or silverpac both these boilers should be set to run on kerosene as per manf specs

passport should have been filled by installer and returned to fb for warranty to kick in


just cleaning the boiler will only be a short term fix it needs to set up as posted already by agusta

amandstu

Sorry jimf ,I did say it was not new (post#7) .

Although I did say it was a "new boiler" in post#5 I didn't mean "brand new" .

I didn't ask how old it was when I got it.

It is not the latest model but you should have seen what it replaced:eek:

Dtp1979

dixiefly wrote: »

We too have a popular 120. The one thing I do know is that the oil mix is also very important to the setup of the boiler.

As you seem to know a bit about servicing your boiler I would still suggest getting a professional out to sot out any issues and tell you the correct oil mix for your boile (ours is set for 50/50 kero / gas oil mix). Then service yourself every 2nd year and see how you get on. A boiler made in the last 10 years would probably be a lot different to one made 25 years ago.

Probably the worst advise I've ever seen. Mixing fuels? Are you mad? Service yourself? Good lord. If anybody is reading this looking for advice, please ignore the above rubbish

JamesM

The days of servicing your own boiler are long past. You have wasted more oil in the form of soot than the cost of a qualified service engineer. You certainly do not mix oils and, as far as I know, that burner is more suited to kerosene than gas oil. It is worth considering changing your boiler. When I changed to a condensing boiler, I got an extra 6 months from a tank of oil.
Jim.

PeterTheEighth

There are some great videos up on youtube. When I had problems with my capacitor, I found them great.