Oil boiler

tart29016

I had my oil tank filled last week and am starting to smell oil inside the house. The smell appeared on the day when the tank was filled. That is even without turning on the system.

Does anyone know if this is a sign that the oil boiler needs to be serviced?

The boiler is outside the house and the oil tank is above the ground. There is no apparent sign of leaking from the oil tank and actually there is not a huge smell near the tank as well.

Still I can smell the oil in the house and it's been nearly 5 days.

Any idea or suggestion?

Wearb

Was there any spillage or overflow during delivery? Did you mark a dipstick (wooden handle for instance) to see if level in tank is dropping, when boiler is off? When was boiler last serviced? You might have a leaking flexible hose at the burner.

tart29016

Wearb wrote: »

Was there any spillage or overflow during delivery? Did you mark a dipstick (wooden handle for instance) to see if level in tank is dropping, when boiler is off? When was boiler last serviced? You might have a leaking flexible hose at the burner.

To be honest I am not sure if there was any. I was in work at the time and my wife was in the house with our daughter.

I did not have a dipstick to measure.

The oil boiler has not been serviced for 2 years.

I called a oil boiler service guy and he said he will need 80€ call out charge to identify the issue. I asked him if the identification of the issue could be included in a service as I was thinking to get him to service the boiler and also identify what the issue might be.

Am I being ripped off?

Wearb

Probably not ripped off, but I would expect some work to be done too. From serviceman point of view, it could take 10 min or 1 hour trying to find the problem.
Book a service for very little more. Obvious leak check is part of a proper service. You could also ask how much extra he would charge to pressure test oil line if he doesn't see any obvious leak.

Andy From Sligo

did the tank run totally empty before it was filled? - has it got a thing called a 'tigerloop' ? its a glass bowl thing near the boiler module and has 2 pipes this helps with bleeding the oil and getting rid of any air in oil before it reaches the boilers oil pump.

The reason I ask is that one house I lived in it had no tigerloop, and the tank ran empty and when I started it up for ages (not 5 days though) there was a very strong smell of kerosene oil coming out of the flue. I put this down to air in the oil feed until all the air purged through and that the oil burner in the boiler was not what is called atomising (burning fully) so the fan of the burner was pushing out unburnt kerosene out of the flue until the air had gone in the oil line - very strong smell it was.

If the flue of your boiler is anywhere near a wall vent in your house (even though its an outdoor boiler) it would find its way into your house that smell.

There is a bleed screw on the oil burner oil pump (normally they are riello oil pumps) to help purge through air in the oil if you let your tank run empty and havent got a tigerloop aireator device - maybe you still have some air in the oil piping still and the boiler is not burning the kerosene properly in the boiler because its still got some air in the flow of kerosene - does the Boiler still sound like its lighting correctly or does it sound like its having trouble trying to light, or does it go into 'lockout' and you have to press the red lit up button on the burner inside the boiler housing?

Is it a conventional oil boiler or one of these newer type efficent condensing boiler if you know because this normally sets the price of what an oil boiler service engineer charges for callout/check/service. - Normally cheaper for old type oil boilers - around 50-80eur ... but if its a condensing boiler they could charge 80 to in the hundreds for callout / check / service - theres more to cleaning out a condensing boiler for a start as opposed to cleaning out a conventional older boiler.

If you havent had a service for 2 years , the baffles inside the boiler could be full of soot and the flue partially blocked with soot and the oil nozzle in the burner needing replacing and more than likely the flexible hoses and then finally a co test at the flue and a smoke test at the flue - I reckon you would be paying 150eur (could be more) including callout and service but as I say if you havent had it cleaned out for 2 years could be lot of soot in there. Dirty time consuming ol job taking out the baffles and cleaning them this is most probably why they charge what they charge. Make sure you get an engineer that has the co and smoke tester kits , I still hear these days of some 'engineers' calling out and not having this test equipment , or not using it, but if you have strong smell of kerosene out of the flue and in the house the boiler could be running very rich with lack of air getting to the flame.

Hope this all helps - good luck.

Andy From Sligo

ooh also suffice to say - even though you got an outside boiler , if you can smell oil/fumes inside the house, would be a good time to get some carbon monoxide alarms (portable ones should do) even useful if you get the boiler serviced and the smell goes - its one of those just in case things. Try and put one in every bedroom and one in the living room (especially if you have an oil or coal burning appliance/ open fire in the living room) and also in the room(s) where you reckon you can smell that strong smell of kerosene oil at the moment - you cant be too complacent when it comes to carbon monoxide these days from faulty appliances. Heard of loads of people falling asleep and never waking up again

Wearb

Andy I know you are trying to be helpful, but be careful about giving poor advice. You post suggests that carbon monoxide has a smell, it doesn't. So the absence of a smell doesn't mean there isn't carbon monoxide present. So regardless of smell, a CO alarm is always a good idea with any fuel burning device.

Andy From Sligo

Wearb wrote: »

Andy I know you are trying to be helpful, but be careful about giving poor advice. You post suggests that carbon monoxide has a smell, it doesn't. So the absence of a smell doesn't mean there isn't carbon monoxide present. So regardless of smell, a CO alarm is always a good idea with any fuel burning device.

Sorry about that - yes , thats the thing I was ultimately getting at , that it is good idea to have Carbon monoxide detectors rather than not.

tart29016

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

did the tank run totally empty before it was filled? - has it got a thing called a 'tigerloop' ? its a glass bowl thing near the boiler module and has 2 pipes this helps with bleeding the oil and getting rid of any air in oil before it reaches the boilers oil pump.

The reason I ask is that one house I lived in it had no tigerloop, and the tank ran empty and when I started it up for ages (not 5 days though) there was a very strong smell of kerosene oil coming out of the flue. I put this down to air in the oil feed until all the air purged through and that the oil burner in the boiler was not what is called atomising (burning fully) so the fan of the burner was pushing out unburnt kerosene out of the flue until the air had gone in the oil line - very strong smell it was.

If the flue of your boiler is anywhere near a wall vent in your house (even though its an outdoor boiler) it would find its way into your house that smell.

There is a bleed screw on the oil burner oil pump (normally they are riello oil pumps) to help purge through air in the oil if you let your tank run empty and havent got a tigerloop aireator device - maybe you still have some air in the oil piping still and the boiler is not burning the kerosene properly in the boiler because its still got some air in the flow of kerosene - does the Boiler still sound like its lighting correctly or does it sound like its having trouble trying to light, or does it go into 'lockout' and you have to press the red lit up button on the burner inside the boiler housing?

Is it a conventional oil boiler or one of these newer type efficent condensing boiler if you know because this normally sets the price of what an oil boiler service engineer charges for callout/check/service. - Normally cheaper for old type oil boilers - around 50-80eur ... but if its a condensing boiler they could charge 80 to in the hundreds for callout / check / service - theres more to cleaning out a condensing boiler for a start as opposed to cleaning out a conventional older boiler.

If you havent had a service for 2 years , the baffles inside the boiler could be full of soot and the flue partially blocked with soot and the oil nozzle in the burner needing replacing and more than likely the flexible hoses and then finally a co test at the flue and a smoke test at the flue - I reckon you would be paying 150eur (could be more) including callout and service but as I say if you havent had it cleaned out for 2 years could be lot of soot in there. Dirty time consuming ol job taking out the baffles and cleaning them this is most probably why they charge what they charge. Make sure you get an engineer that has the co and smoke tester kits , I still hear these days of some 'engineers' calling out and not having this test equipment , or not using it, but if you have strong smell of kerosene out of the flue and in the house the boiler could be running very rich with lack of air getting to the flame.

Hope this all helps - good luck.

Thanks Andy for your helpful post. If you know anyone that you can recommend in the Dublin area, could you please PM me their details?

Andy From Sligo

tart29016 wrote: »

Thanks Andy for your helpful post. If you know anyone that you can recommend in the Dublin area, could you please PM me their details?

sorry i went on a bit in my post, reading my post back it was a lot to take in. Always the same I only intend to write a couple of lines and I end up writing a book!:) -

no, I'm afraid I dont personally know of any heating engineers up there in dublin area , i'm sorry about that - hope you get it sorted out though. good luck!