Heating system recommendations

none

Hello,

I moved to Maine in 2004 and had a house built with a hot water base board oil fired boiler. The system is the Buderus G 115 direct vent boiler with a Logamatic and a Riello BF 5 burner. This system has been nothing but trouble from day one. It has had a persistent locking-out problem due to rapid soot build-up and nozzle fouling that no heating tech has been able to resolve. A year ago, Buderus sent out one of their techs who pulled the Riello burner and exchanged it with a Becket NX. This solved nothing. I have been thinking seriously about pulling the entire system and replacing it with a wall hung high efficiency propane system (natural gas is not available in my location) and was wondering if anyone can make some recommendations about these systems or any others that might prove more reliable and less problematic. Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Rob

toilburn

CARLIN

PUT A CARLIN EZ-1 OIL BURNER ON IT AND YOUR PROBLEMS WILL BE OVER

Steamhead

A properly-installed oil-fired boiler

does NOT behave like that. There is something wrong with the installation or set-up. It may be a case of cross-contamination between the exhaust and the fresh-air intake. Another possibility is the wrong type of nozzle, Buderus has changed their recommendations a couple times recently.



Propane will cost you more to operate, because its cost per BTU is generally much higher than oil.



You need a REAL pro to straighten this out. Try the Find a Professional page of this site. 

Bob Flanagan_3

Steamhead is right

Once again I think Steamhead is right.  Oil boilers do not behave like this when porperly installed.  The Riello BF-5 is a great burner.  I too think that there is a cross contamination porblem. 

Contact a well trained technician, he/she will solve the problem without ripping parts off your boiler. 

Goodluck!  And don't be afraid to conact or reach out to the Techs at Riello/Becket for help. 

Bob Flanagan

Vice President

Slant/Fin Corp. 

kcopp

Direct vents.....

can be tricky. Where in Maine are you... I have someone who can help. kpc

Rob Lussier

thanks

I'm in Boothbay Harbor. You should know that over the past 5 1/2 years with this system I've had it checked over by at least 15 service technicians from differing heating companies, reps from F.W. Webb, 2 techs from Buderus and a Maine State inspector. No one has had any luck  making this system run reliably or can offer any suggestion for making it work the way it should.

Thanks,

Rob

kcopp

ok so your are

I am in NH but in a stones throw from the stateline....

What is your set up? Buderus boiler....size? Nx burner. No any experience but Buderus says that this is the best burner for the DV set up.... not sure I agree.

Here is what I have found in doing several.... I have usually used the Carlin EZ burner,. reason being it has a oil nozzle heater. DV's do not like cold oil.

Where is the oil tank? Cold basement?

Concentric vent or separate terminations? The concentrics warm the intake air up a bit... BUT they also risk the possibility of having cross contamination....sucking in oil exaust.... not cool.

Cold intake air w/o a intake damper is not favorable.(especially when it gets cold... I had one  here @ -16F that has frosted up 2' inside the house. Cold air on the intake will not allow the oil to atomize properly.

Is this set up w/ the Logamatic... might do better to disable that.

 The warmer the boiler stays (and the area around it) the better the unit will operate...The problem 115's I had  were in cold basements. 

On the flip side of this the longer the post purge after firing the better say 3-4 min vs. the std. 2 min.... this cools the oil nozzle down and then you will have less/ little  after drip.

This help at all?

Before dumping the unit totally a chimney would be a better solution.

kpc

Rob Lussier

follow up

Thanks for the opinion on this. The buderus 5 section boiler is in an unheated full basement where the temperature has never gone below 51 farenheit. The oil tank is in the same space. The system was installed originally without the Logamatic but after the first 3 years of trouble, the Logamatic was installed in the hope that it would solve the problem. The intake air and exhaust are on separate vents on the same wall of the house with 71/2 feet between them. I've thought seriously about retro-installing a Metalbestos chimney and converting the boiler to atmospheric but the cost is getting pretty close to the cost of a propane unit and since the chimney won't guarantee the problem won't persist, I find myself leaning towards the propane unit.

Thanks again,

Rob 

Charlie from wmass

Rob get a better tech

Something is missing in the info you have shared. these things should work better than what you have been experiencing. It only takes one good tech to fix a problem, it can take 100 to make it worse.

Robert O'Brien

Since

you have an NX ,what is the ohm reading during a failed cycle? The GeniSys control will save this info.



http://www.buderus.us/files/201001221723430.G115_DirectVentInstallationManual-122006.pdf

kcopp

Are you Right...

on the water? 51F is not warm.... What exactly is happening and when... time of year?How often locking out? Baseboard? Radiant? Panel Rads? Hydro Air? Dos it have the vacuum Damper on the burner?

If the burner is set up at 1 temp. and them you get a huge temp change the oil set up will change... Is the logamatic set up so the system is on constant circulation?

kpc

Rob Lussier

additional info

51 degrees is the coldest ambient temperature in the unfinished basement in the dead of winter. The home is heated with hot-water baseboard. There is a vacuum damper on the intake pipe and the Logamatic is set up so that the boiler will fire occasionally without a call for heat to keep the system from cooling down too much. The locking out has occurred mostly in winter but also a few times in october and march. It has occurred after as little as 5 months, 6 months being the typical average and the most oil I've ever managed to burn before a lock-out was 590 gallons. (That was after the Becket was installed).

Thanks,

Rob

billtwocase

sounds like

a post-purge problem to me. Also I find myself using a new Honeywell cad cell kit that has multiple mounting brackets, and mounting the cad cell on the gun assembly  where it will be more effective. Great burner, but even with the upgrade kit, was still having lock out problems due to OHMS. This has been working for me, maybe that would help you also.  Takes a few extra seconds when removing the gun, but ends the lock outs caused by poor eye positioning. Also what control, and post-purge time?

Jim Pompetti

Same problem with a Vissamann

After changing the nozzle spec  we had no further problems . We call Glenn @ Beckett he came out and with an hour the problem was solved

Jim Pompetti

Same problem with a Vissamann

After changing the nozzle spec  we had no further problems . We call Glenn @ Beckett he came out and with an hour the problem was solved