OT - Oil Furnace Follow-up

Follow-up to discussion a month or so back, see link if interested.

Went down to the basement a few days ago and did not see anything obviously amiss with the furnace, but still stinking up the house. Went over to the supply house and got a new oil filter and nozzle which I would have done anyway as part of fall start-up. Replaced both and fired furnace up---No Smell. Going to have to bring a professional out and check the set-up one of these days. Old nozzle was really sooted up, which doesn"t seem like it should happen in just a single heating season. It was the correct nozzle for the furnace though. Problem is finding a pro who even knows what he is looking at and has the equipment to do it right. Know one guy, but he has such a miserable personality I am not sure I can stand to pay him. Anybody want a cup of coffee to come look at this.

Kirk
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I remember yours, and had a similar one posted back in winter- Feb? I have circulating hot water, oil fired, one underground tank, another 500 gallons stored in the garage... unheatd garage just like the ground is unheated.... a new oil dealer who checked the burner, tanks... everything he could think of. Brought a 15% mix of kerosene, as he does to his customers with outdoor tanks. On Sept 12 we turned on the burner switch for the season, clean quiet steady burn every time- till.... On Oct 12 it got down to 25 gegrees out there... the top of the tank is atleast a foot deep.... the same skip 12 seconds in as it did early last year. The horror show was the deepest part of winter- when the skip would blow the stovepipe off the wall. Moral of the story is just ditch oil heat. Got to do something else next year- got 900 gallons? $2700? 3000? worth of something that got to get used up right? Or invent something really sad, like a small tank inside the house, and warmed with an electric heater... that will preheat a day's worth of fuel before it gets to the burner... like a battleship? Or the Canadian Pacific Railway? Just what I had in mind for a winter project... makes the stinkin hot days of mid summer look good again. Your forced air oil is the worst of all, keep us up to date- and good luck.

Cracked heat exchanger? Could of been just the nozzle.

same here.... When the nozzle starts sootin up, instead of spraying it kinda dribbles/squirts so all the fuel doesn't get burned. You'll see it in the fire chamber as a wet back wall...... Think it has something also to do with the temperature and it's like ping pong til you fix it... New nozzle = all good, clean, and dry.... As it gets dirty, ping = dribbles and you get a wet back wall= cooler temp=more soot........ If all it takes is changing the nozzle twice a year instead of once is a cheap "fix"...

Now, set back and watch while all the experts slam me for an idiot :roll:

That was my concern and still is a little bit. Not sure I can see a path for products of combustion to be getting into the air distribution system if things are working as they should be so not sure why a different nozzle would have that much of an effect. I did observe the flame through the little window while the air fan energized and did not see any change in flame so if the exchanger is indeed cracked somehow it is really small.

Will be monitoring it, did go out and buy some CO detectors.

Kirk

Do any work to the house? We put in new windows a few years ago and then had problems with an LP furnance sooting up. Just wasn't enough O2 in the house. New furnance that draw burner air from outside.....problem fixed.

Rick

(quoted from post at 08:03:05 10/14/12) Do any work to the house? We put in new windows a few years ago and then had problems with an LP furnance sooting up. Just wasn't enough O2 in the house. New furnance that draw burner air from outside.....problem fixed.

Rick

Click to expand...

Good point...... Our house never had a kitchen (or anywhere else) exhaust fan. First thing I did was install one in the kitchen and in that other room that the kitchen makes necessary. No problems at all... Later, I replaced all the windows. Then, the next winter when all (windows) was closed and wood stoves going, SWMBO turned on the kitchen exhaust and sucked the kitchen and dining room full of smoke. Bathroom did the same but not as bad because it is farther from a stove.....

did you take a shop vacumn and vac out the inside around the heat exchanger?
need to open it up and do that
do you have outside air piped into the furnace room or at least the return air duct?
got to have plenty of combustion air to the burner
defintly need someone to check the flame and percent of O2

Our tanks are out side only trouble we had was ice in the filter from water in the fuel gets - 10* here at times we do get the winter mix fuel.

Yep, it is warm out tonight, and just the hint of a skip, no miss or backfire, how can a machine sense and react to a few degrees of diff in temperature?... of a fluid? and so soon? Rotten machines. Are there oil furnaces in Florida? Hey between you and DonJr, mason dixon line ain't south enough.... I think sometimes, in some storms, you guys are worst off than new england yankees in January

you sure you don't have some water in that fuel? There's 1000 of oil furnaces heating all winter long in cold places, with no trouble

Delayed ignition can make a furnace stink.A bad gasket on the inspection door can fill the cellar with fumes.A smoke candle will find leaks in the heat exchanger.Common problem.