Oil Burner Not Firing...

liltractornut72 · Post by **liltractornut72** » Fri. Jan. 16, 2009 11:55 pm

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???

VigIIPeaBurner · Post by **VigIIPeaBurner** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 1:21 am

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

Freddy · Post by **Freddy** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 6:14 am

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.

kysenrahl_GJOIL · Post by **kysenrahl_GJOIL** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 8:06 am

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

Freddy · Post by **Freddy** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 8:37 am

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.

Dann757 · Post by **Dann757** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 11:10 am

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.

Paulie · Post by **Paulie** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 11:41 am

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!

billlindley · Post by **billlindley** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 3:27 pm

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.

Post by **stoker-man** » Sat. Jan. 17, 2009 10:25 pm

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.

billlindley · Post by **billlindley** » Sun. Jan. 18, 2009 1:50 am

Well we replaced the circulator and that wasn't the issue. The check valve after the circulator was also working properly. Narrowed it down to some type of blockage in either the stem release or expansion tank. House is warm though with the coal stove so the saga will hold thru the night. Hopefully better luck tomorrow before the Eagles beat the Cards.

Post by **stoker-man** » Sun. Jan. 18, 2009 8:15 am

As you explained it, I don't see any involvement of the expansion tank. That would cause unexplained high pressures at lower temperatures. I never heard of a stem release.

Post by **coaledsweat** » Sun. Jan. 18, 2009 10:13 am

billlindley wrote:Narrowed it down to some type of blockage

Do you have zone valves? Are they opening properly?

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Sun. Jan. 18, 2009 11:32 am

This happens every year to my 1st floor zone when it's in the single digits for more than 24hrs. -- that zone doesn't get used due to the coal stove so it freezes solid. The only way it thaws is if the temp gets up in the 30's for at least a day, & I manually open that zone valve & rap on the pipe with a hammer in all the corners of the house. Once it freezes, it's tough to thaw......unless you have 3 friends with heat guns!

I'll bet the same thing happened here.

Your high limit shouldn't be above 180*-190* . I've found that when I set mine to 200* or above I get MEGA DHW & the rooms heat up quick, but it uses almost 50% more oil! Not worth it IMHO. When my coal stove is off for the season, I set mine at 180* HI with a 10* diff. (most aquastats have no diff adjustment for HI), 150* low with a 10* or 15* diff. Keeps my indirect hot water heater hot & doesn't burn too much oil.

djackman · Post by **djackman** » Sun. Jan. 18, 2009 1:36 pm

billlindley wrote: Narrowed it down to some type of blockage in either the stem release or expansion tank.

Most likely air bound or frozen pipe, stuck zone valve if applicable.

This is a long shot but what's the pressure reading on the boiler?

What's a "stem release"?

billlindley · Post by **billlindley** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 12:10 pm

A steam release is probably not the right word. At the top of the expansion tank thier is a valve that will release steam should the system get over loaded. I gave up and called in a friend who knew something about the boiler system. Seems like a frozen pipe now and I can figure where the pipe is but it was very hard to get to. We placed some Heat tape aroudn the pipe last night so I will look to turn it on again tonight.

Fingers are crosses.