On Saturday, November 15, 2014 5:54:23 PM UTC-5, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 11/15/2014 3:02 PM, micky wrote:
A few miscellaneious questions, if you can help me. The first are more
important. At the end, it's just curiosity. If you answer any of them,
it will help. If it matters, I live in Baltimore.


How do I know if the burner in my 1979 Carrier furnace is Beckett or
not? I don't see a name other than Carrier anywhere.

CY: Look on the web for pictures, that might give
you indication. Riellow is one other brand to
compare.



I'd be surprised if a Carrier furnace had anything but a Carrier
burner, assuming it's original.




My control unit is giving me trouble, but now is not a good time to buy
a whole new furnace . If it fails, do I need to buy the exact model
control unti from Carrier, or can I use a fancy new thing like this
which costs** only $72.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beckett-7505...em19f402 066f
Are these things fairly universal?
Or even something like this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Honeywell-R8...em35d3f6 cf2c

**Way back in 1983, the supply house wanted $260 dollars for a
control unit, but eventually suggested a separate power-supply
transformer for $10, which is still working fine. .
About the first control above it says "Replaces Honeywell R7184A,
R8184G, and Carlin 48245, 40200, 42230, and 50200", but maybe that's
EXACT replacement, and I can still mount it for my furnace??

CY: Don't know.



A friend in a nearby townhouse with the same furnace thinks his furnace
### would fire better with new electrodes. Ours are curved but online
we can only find straight. Does it matter, as long as the tips end up
where the curved tips do?

CY: I don't know, but I doubt there is much difference.


What does "fire better" mean? If it lights up reliably, doesn't go bang,
then the electrodes are working OK.




And can the
electrodes be bad, anyhow? They don't seem any shorter now than they
were 10 years ago, and even if they're shorter, can't they be bent
closer? I have the diagram that gives distances. Seems to me it's
broken insulators that wouldl be the problem. But to buy new
insulators, no one gives the diameter, only that they're Beckett, and
two reviews of Amazon-sold electrodes said they didn't fit. (Didn't
they mean the insulators didn't fit??)

CY: I'd also expect the porcelean to crack or break.



Everything I've seen shows that there should be a filter, the size of a
V-8 engine oil filter, in the line between the tank and the furnace.
Yet I don't have one, and in 31 years, I've never had a problem with a
nozzle clogging in less than 2 years. (Most were routinely replaced at
one year, but two years I couldn't get an apointment and I let an extra
year go by.) I've used several different oil companies over the last
31 years. How am I so lucky that I don't need a filter? Or what?

CY: Not sure. You might have a good oil supplier, or
the pickup tube might be way over the bottom of the
tank.


Agree, who knows. It should have a fuel filter, but I have seen some
installs that don't too.




On the left side of the burner, where the oil comes in, as part of the
pump, I think they have something they call an oil filter. It's only 2
pieces of metal. How much filtering can that do? Does it just chop up
clumps of oil??? Hard to believe there are clumps, and hard to believe
chopping them up would make them small enough not to clog the nozzle,
but that's the only thing I can think of. I looked into this "filter"
20 years ago, and saw no sign of clumps, only a light coating of oil.


I see now that new ones have digital displays and electronic controls.
What do they do better than my 1979 control board does, that has iirc
two transistors, two resistors, a relay, and a red button?

What and where is the air tube? They refer to this a lot. Maybe I
don't have one on a '79 furnace?

There's been a lot of talk about increased furnace efficiency, but
that's really for gas, isn't it? dividing the output BTUs given in the
manual by the input BTUs, I get 80% and iiuc the new oil furnaces are
only 82 or 83% efficient. That's a 2.5 or 3.8% increase, only.


CY: Ed Pawlowski wrote that his new oil furnace
saved him a pile of fuel the first year.


Two things. First oil furnaces are available with efficiencies well
into the 90's. How much more they cost, IDK. Second, the fact that a
25 year old beast has a rating plate that says it's 80% and what it's
really running at could be very different.

Given all the uncertainties and unknowns, if Micky wants to keep this
one going, the best thing may be to have it serviced by a pro, get his
opinion on the options to replace the control unit, find out what else
is wrong with it, etc. Probably better
to pay a couple hundred bucks now, instead of having no heat when in
the middle of winter.