Oil Burner not firing...

I was on the hvac talk forum for a very, very short time. I encountered a few, very self-righteous types and decided it wasn't for me.

Bingo!!!!!!

Chance the circulator impeller is stuck from lack of use and GF is just hearing the hum of the stuck motor?

Did you try a hammer?

Wood'nCoal wrote:

Chance the circulator impeller is stuck from lack of use and GF is just hearing the hum of the stuck motor?

Did you try a hammer?

sledgehammer.jpg

It's cold and if it's a B&G, the impeller housing is cast iron - might break.
He needs a LFH, not the BFH in the picture, unless you choke up a lot

Real easy check to see if the circulator is moving water is to grab onto the return and see if it is warmer than room temp. If it isn't I would go with wood and coal's recommendation . A slight rap ( don't slam it a rubber nmallet may work as well) on the cast housing may jar it loose. I had to do that with my taco 007 on my coil between my stove and boiler . so now I run the circulator biweekly in the sumer months to keep it freed up.

As cold as it is maybe a frozen heat line.If the oil boiler had not been cirulating water due to the coal stove being used???

liltractornut72 wrote:As cold as it is maybe a frozen heat line.If the oil boiler had not been cirulating water due to the coal stove being used???

Check the corners first! Happed in the corner for me two times - how could I forget

Here in Maine a "boiler man" can not work on a coal unit. A "solid fuel license" is a separate license.

240?! Be careful! Something is seriously out of whack for an oil boiler to get that hot. It's time to call a pro before something awful happens.

I've been having the same problem...My oil burner will run fine for days then for some reason it just shuts off. It seems like when I turn the thermostate down it shuts off but I'm not sure if that's what's triggerin it. It ran fine then I got it serviced in November and it's been doing it since. I know they replaced the nozzle to like .8 something per hour...It's a Gentleman Janitor 90-DB and the orig was 1.3 something per hour. If I hit the reset button about 3 times it starts back up and runs for several days...then shuts off. Can someone tell me what the HI LO Diff should be set at. ON the box it says "Hi set at 20 degrees Min to Low" Not sure what that means. FYI I have a Electric Water Tank backing up the Hotwater for the house. I turn the oil burner off in the summer and just use the electric hot water heater. Any feedback is welcome

kysenrahl_GJOIL wrote:I hit the reset button about 3 times

Nooooo, no, no, noooo. As I mentioned earlier, never hit it more than once. You are asking for trouble hitting it more than once. Each time you push the reset it runs for 30 seconds. That means for 30 seconds you are squirting raw oil into the chamber. When the service person gets there, they HAVE to hit it for diangosis purposes, adding more oil. When it's finally repaired all that oil laying in the bottom has to burn off. With good luck, it burns. With poor luck it fills the house with black smoke. With bad luck it either causes a chimney fire or vaporizes and explodes.

stoker-man wrote:I was on the hvac talk forum for a very, very short time. I encountered a few, very self-righteous types and decided it wasn't for me.

Wow, I had that same experience. Well put.

Your problem is the smaller nozzle. Couple things have to change and be tuned to the new nozzle size. If that is not
done and done correctly(tuned), grief will come your way. Even if you do everything right, some burner designs will not work
properly with out the designed nozzle size. Good Luck!

Man, we hit a raw nerve with this one. I just returned from a house that has been without heat since the ice storm 3 weeks ago. Husband went off the wagon, wife also.They have moved out.......blah, blah, blah.
Everything is frozen and water was running out the back door. (walkout)
I don't think a reset or two will solve this one. It's all gonna be replaced, what a mess.
Yes. I got the curb stop turned off so the flood stopped, but imagine 2" of ice on you first floor. I know what I'm doing this weekend. Perfect candidate for a 520 I think.

Wonder what the insurance company will say? Call a pro for an analysis? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, by gawd, it IS a DUCK!

crazy4coal wrote:The burner is shutting down on high limit because the pump is not dumping heat. If it's a B&G with a spring coupling the coupling may have broke. (motor runs no water moves) If it's a taco one piece or cartrage style you can get a new cartrage. Also if you have a flow check see if is stuck or try to open it buy hand ( little knob on top). Let us know how you make out.

Thanks for all the help. I have narrowed it down to the fact that the circulator is running just not actually pumping water. IT is a Taco unit. Obviously the boiler is shutting off because the water it is heating is reaching temp, which is actually 220 not 240 as I originally indicated. Feeling the pipes and they are hot until right after the circulator. I don;t seem to have any frozen pipes that I can find. I have a friend coming down who has some more experience on the issue so hopefully by tonight we can get back up and running. With it -2 outside the coal stove just isn’t keeping the house warm enough on it’s own.

I will provide an update later on tonight after we check out the circulator.

The circulator won't move water if there is air in the lines, but aren't you using those lines anyway? Is there a handvalve turned off somewhere?

Regarding resetting the primary control several times, it can be scary when the fire lights off, but I always cut the power to the burner and just let the fire burn out. You might indeed get smoke in the house, but usually the noise is scarier than the fire itself.

Modern primaries are 15 second shutoff and you can reset them 3 times and then they lock out. Beckett was kind enough to show you how to reset the locked primary in the instructions that came with the control. The older primaries are 45 seconds and unlimited resets. These are the ones that can really cause a scary fire in the combustion area. You ask the person how many times they reset the primary and you always hear the answer......only once or twice. To get the real answer, multiply that by 10 and get ready for the freight train effect when it lights off. Sometimes the chamber is so soaked with oil that you have to replace it for safety reasons.