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Jim & Lil
 
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Default Oil fired Furnace maintenance

Hello,

I am in Canada and have an oil fired furnace I use in my back yard to heat
my "play shop' where I woodwork ...fix cars...etc.. I have this furnace on a
switch so when I am done woodworking or whatever I simply shut it off when I
am not using it. The problem is that on a weekend when I decide I have time
to go back to the shop to play...I walk into the shop and throw on the
furnace (room temp about -10 Degrees Celcius)and the furnace dosen't light
right away but still pumps fuel into the combustion chamber....when it does
light some 15 or so seconds later, it is trying to burn all the deisel oil
from not lighting up right away which freaks me out...IE:.....big
roar...black smoke etc... then it settles down and works fine... I think
it's something inside that needs cleaning.............. perhaps the contact
points that make the spark to ignite the fuel? Would there be a website
where I can see a "hands on" cleaning of one of these things?....I did a
Google search and came up with nothing....Thanks in Advance...Jim


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My Name
 
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Default Oil fired Furnace maintenance

"Jim & Lil" jim.morris-at-sk.sympatico.ca wrote in
:

Hello,

I am in Canada and have an oil fired furnace I use in my back yard to
heat
my "play shop' where I woodwork ...fix cars...etc.. I have this
furnace on a switch so when I am done woodworking or whatever I simply
shut it off when I am not using it. The problem is that on a weekend
when I decide I have time to go back to the shop to play...I walk into
the shop and throw on the furnace (room temp about -10 Degrees
Celcius)and the furnace dosen't light right away but still pumps fuel
into the combustion chamber....when it does light some 15 or so
seconds later, it is trying to burn all the deisel oil from not
lighting up right away which freaks me out...IE:.....big roar...black
smoke etc... then it settles down and works fine... I think it's
something inside that needs cleaning.............. perhaps the contact
points that make the spark to ignite the fuel? Would there be a
website where I can see a "hands on" cleaning of one of these
things?....I did a Google search and came up with nothing....Thanks in
Advance...Jim



Hi Jim....
First..I know what you mean. I live about 10 miles from Quebec and 70
miles from Montreal so I know what cold is all about up here.
First of all, it's possible that the oil you're burning is getting too
thick to atomize at the nozzle. When it's cold out, the spray coming
from the cold metal of the oil burner just can't break down well enough
to light off. In essence, all an oil burner does is try to break the oil
down into something like a liquid "gas" that'll burn better. If this
doesn't happen the oil burns in "globs" and burns dirty like you mention.
I run a huge boiler room here in NY state and we have 7 boilers (the
biggest is 600HP and the smallest is 250HP) and our tanks are outside.
We have to have electric heat trace tapes on the lines to keep the oil
flowing.
One other thing you might try is taking the burner assembly out of the
burner and doing a good cleaning. Replace the nozzle too. They're only
good for about 1 year or so in regular use but if your oil is thicker
than normal, it could wear it down sooner. Yes...oil can wear out a
nozzle just as they use water to cut metal. Check your electrodes to be
sure they aren't burned too far back. If they are, you might be getting
post ignition. This is caused by the chamber filling with oil mist and
lighting only after there's enough of it in there to finally hit the
spark that the electrodes make. They should be about 1/8" apart, 1/16"
past the front tip of the nozzle and about 7/16" above the center hole of
the nozzle that the oil sprays from. Start there. It might take a
little tweaking to get them just right depending on the spray angle of
the nozzle. As a rule, the narrower the nozzle angle, the further ahead
you put the electrodes. Normally the setting above will give good
ignition for nozzles around the 70 to 90° angle.
Try all the above and repost if this doesn't do it for you. I'll watch
for you.
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Jim & Lil
 
Posts: n/a
Default Oil fired Furnace maintenance

Thank you 'Myname"...I printed out your posting and am going to do what you
say. I had a furnace guy come by here two yrs ago and replaced the nozzle
and a photo-electric eye he and charged me like 500 dollars for the visit
and cleaning (200 dollars more than the cost of buying it used). The furnace
probably has been turned on a total of 1 month total days at the most in
running since his visit(shut off most of the time) so it may be fuel gelling
perhaps?

"My Name" wrote in message
. 166...
"Jim & Lil" jim.morris-at-sk.sympatico.ca wrote in
:

Hello,

I am in Canada and have an oil fired furnace I use in my back yard to
heat
my "play shop' where I woodwork ...fix cars...etc.. I have this
furnace on a switch so when I am done woodworking or whatever I simply
shut it off when I am not using it. The problem is that on a weekend
when I decide I have time to go back to the shop to play...I walk into
the shop and throw on the furnace (room temp about -10 Degrees
Celcius)and the furnace dosen't light right away but still pumps fuel
into the combustion chamber....when it does light some 15 or so
seconds later, it is trying to burn all the deisel oil from not
lighting up right away which freaks me out...IE:.....big roar...black
smoke etc... then it settles down and works fine... I think it's
something inside that needs cleaning.............. perhaps the contact
points that make the spark to ignite the fuel? Would there be a
website where I can see a "hands on" cleaning of one of these
things?....I did a Google search and came up with nothing....Thanks in
Advance...Jim



Hi Jim....
First..I know what you mean. I live about 10 miles from Quebec and 70
miles from Montreal so I know what cold is all about up here.
First of all, it's possible that the oil you're burning is getting too
thick to atomize at the nozzle. When it's cold out, the spray coming
from the cold metal of the oil burner just can't break down well enough
to light off. In essence, all an oil burner does is try to break the oil
down into something like a liquid "gas" that'll burn better. If this
doesn't happen the oil burns in "globs" and burns dirty like you mention.
I run a huge boiler room here in NY state and we have 7 boilers (the
biggest is 600HP and the smallest is 250HP) and our tanks are outside.
We have to have electric heat trace tapes on the lines to keep the oil
flowing.
One other thing you might try is taking the burner assembly out of the
burner and doing a good cleaning. Replace the nozzle too. They're only
good for about 1 year or so in regular use but if your oil is thicker
than normal, it could wear it down sooner. Yes...oil can wear out a
nozzle just as they use water to cut metal. Check your electrodes to be
sure they aren't burned too far back. If they are, you might be getting
post ignition. This is caused by the chamber filling with oil mist and
lighting only after there's enough of it in there to finally hit the
spark that the electrodes make. They should be about 1/8" apart, 1/16"
past the front tip of the nozzle and about 7/16" above the center hole of
the nozzle that the oil sprays from. Start there. It might take a
little tweaking to get them just right depending on the spray angle of
the nozzle. As a rule, the narrower the nozzle angle, the further ahead
you put the electrodes. Normally the setting above will give good
ignition for nozzles around the 70 to 90° angle.
Try all the above and repost if this doesn't do it for you. I'll watch
for you.



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