Best Of

@EdTheHeaterMan , said

. Never clean a Nozzle smaller than 1.25 GPH, and avoid cleaning nozzles below 2.00 GPH. It just ain't worth it


In a perfect world I would agree. But if it's 2:00 am and you don't have another nozzle or the right nozzle you do what you gotta do to get the heat back on.

I have cleaned many nozzles in a pinch and would always go back with a new nozzle especially on the small nozzles.

I had a school once with old Power Flame burners that used a Steinen 90 SS nozzle they are no longer made. Substituting different MFG nozzles NG could not get a good combustion test although with the Steinen nozzles it was fine.

Every year when I cleaned them I replaced the nozzle strainers, oil filters and pump strainers.

Then I moved into the office and they had another "tech" take over the oil stuff. I specifically told him about the nozzles........he didn't listen and threw them out.

2 months go by and were getting calls for smoke and soot. They suffered with it until they finally asked me if I could take a look. We tried different nozzles, different spray angles and pump pressures.

They just wouldn't run without the 90 deg Steinen. Ended up changing the burners. Too bad because they could have got some more years out of them. But those were like 6:00 gph nozzles.

My moto is never throw anything away until you know the replacement works.

The way I heard about the oil conversion in residential homes had to do with the returning GI's from WWII. My family has been in the Coal business since 1896. Delivering coal to residential customers by horse drawn wagons. Carrying 100# sacks of coal up hills to pour into the coal shoot, or 250# of coal in a wheelbarrow. Then in the 1930s grandpa purchased coal trucks with dump beds that had the ability to be jacked up in the air, and swiveled 180° to allow the shoot to dump directly into homes with basements that were above the street level. The modern age of coal delivery.

Since most homeowners heated with coal, no one actually thought of using oil. There were a few oil heated homes but coal was the norm. Then WWII sent the workers to Europe and Americans needed to keep those old boilers operating. Coal was the norm until the end of the war. But when the war was over, there were thousands of Sailors and Soldiers returning home with all that military pay in their pockets. New homes were being built with boilers and furnaces that used Gas and Oil. No more shoveling coal and cleaning out the ashes to stay warm. “The Touch of a Dial” is all you need to keep warm.

The family business saw the end of coal coming and the beginning of oil heat. They purchased fuel delivery trucks and started selling conversion burners for the existing homes that have coal heat. The big surge for oil heat was in the late 1940s and all through the 1950’s. The coal trucks were sold off in the late 1950s and the family business became strictly oil heat!

So even though the residential oil burner was available in the 1920’s and 30’s the real surge was after the War. Kind of like the “Baby Boom” was also the “Oil Boom”

Circa 1949

My Dad in the center.

Circa 1956

Circa 1956

Circa 1956

Circa 1956 Grand Opening of the new FP Young location at 801 W Olney Ave. Philadelphia Pa.