More boiler problems.

[billconner]

So it continues, or restarts. No heat this morning. Boiler cold. I manually restart it - reset button on the gun. Fires up and runs maybe 4-5 minutes, stops, and then I a minute or less restarts on its own. Keeps cycling like this till house warms up. Starts to get cold and manual reset. Short cycles again, getting shorter, down to 2 minutes on and maybe 55 seconds off. Each restart there's the faintest puff of smoke or maybe dust from boiler upper right corner and from damper on flue.

Any ideas?

 

[billconner]

photo

 

[fitter30]

Burner control brand and complete model? Have you called your oil company to see if they have a service person or a recommendation. Oil burners or not like gas. There are a lot of different things going on. Nozzle pressure, electrodes setting , uv eye and smoke/ flue gas. Takes someone that works on them a lot for proper set up.

 

[billconner]

Riello burner in a Reliant boiler.

Service person buttoning up now and seems to be ok. Cleaned (again since fall), new nozzle and filter. Suspect was a tiny flaw in swivel union into fuel filter admitting air.

Here was earlier thread on this: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/fuel-oil-tank-leak.536793/

As noted, their first plan after replacing bottom draw tank with top draw was to go to 2 pipe system BUT the pump on this Riello burner only had an inlet port. So, suspicion and fixes have always been air getting sucked in. We talked again about replacing pump - a part Reillo no longer makes with hydraulic damper port - and I learned of another customer who had same plastic tank and a 2 pipe system. Apparently 2 pipe circulates a lot of oil - 25 gallons an hour? - where as the single port only the 1 gallon an hour that is burned. The other customers oil supplier includes biodiesel and that can deteriorate the plastic which caused his pump to fail. Two in two months. So now service people are rethinking the idea of two pipe supply..

I'm learning a **** load about oil fired burners, and calling my oil dealer about whether they include biodiesel in their deliveries.

 

[Kaizen]

that air reason doesnt make sense to me. If it was getting air and dying because it lost fuel vacuum then it would either sputter and maybe keep running or die. If it dies from no fuel it would either trip then or try and restart and not have fuel. No company just includes biodiesel. Its a premium product made from cooking oil waste. Usually you can find some filling stations for diesel cars to use it.

 

[billconner]

Well, I found on the Internet and just what my supplier said:

"All heating oil sold for use in any building in New York must contain at least 5% biodiesel by July 1, 2022, 10% by 2025 and 20% biodiesel by 2030."

It did sputter - a blip now and then - before going out and then sometimes restarting. I may have explained it wrong or unclearly or I didn't understand, but what I thought I understood was an imperfect flare fitting allowed the pump to **** in some air and that made it sputter. I thought if enough air the photocell thinks it's out and shuts down.

Just to restate, problem started when replacing original bottom discharge steel tank with new top discharge Roth tank.

Let me be clear, I don't really understand how an oil burner works. I'm just watching and listening to the service man, a very polite and seemingly competent person, and trying to figure it out.

 

[PCustoms]

Any ideas?

1. Merge this with your original thread for continuity
2. Have your boiler serviced, possibly by another company that did not do the tank installation
3. Demand company that did tank installation rectify issues

 

[American Locomotive]

Just to restate, problem started when replacing original bottom discharge steel tank with new top discharge Roth tank.

There is probably an air leak. There should be a bleed port on the pump, if you crack the bleed port open and see lots of foam/air coming out with the oil - your pump is sucking air. It's a common problem on top-discharge setups. The pumps have a little recirculating reservoir internally and can deal with a little bit of air, but eventually they will lose suction.

There is a oil de-aerator product called the Tigerloop. You run two pipes from the pump to the Tigerloop unit, and a single pipe back to the tank. Oil continuously circulates between the pump and the Tigerloop housing, and any trapped air is purged. They have a version compatible with bio fuels as well.

Tigerloop® Bio Oil Deaerator | Beckett Corporation

The Tigerloop® Bio Oil Deaerator improves efficiency and extends the life of oil heating systems combining the benefits of a single pipe system with a two pipe system. Compatible with standard heating fuels and Biodiesel up to 100% (B100). Reduces air in the system by up to 95% Reduces running...

www.beckettcorp.com

 

[billconner]

The tiger loop was their first plan at time of tank install but the particular model burner has a pump without the second port. May be bad description but they would have to replace the pump, not inexpensive. In retrospect, maybe they wish they had because so far they are not billing me for this. Now, looking at replacing pump, riello discontinued the pump with the hydraulic air damper (on side of burner) and would have to use a work around. I guess new burners control that damper electrically.

I have to believe they did they bleed port thing.

Clearly easier to get fuel to burner with bottom discharge. And it seems they habe overcome the problems of biodiesel effects on plastic. Certainly hope Roth has.

 

[billconner]

Continues. Stopped in night. Able to reset several times.

Clearly air getting into fuel. Don't know where. A microscopic leak in fuel line or leaning toward a seal on the pump. Air and foam when bled as American Locomotive noted. Decided to replace pump, put in fill two pipe system (less than 10' and all on top of basement floor) and put in all new fuel lines. That would have been the easy first answer but they thought they could fix it. We're all discouraged by the don't fix just replace solutions. At least not the entire gun.