Newbie here - To start or not to start the boiler?

shas595

Hi all - new to the forums; seems like a great place to get some info.

I have a peerless WBV-03-110-WPC - Oil Fired Water Furnace. I opened it up yesterday to start the cleaning process and noticed my target wall was in bad shape; real bad shape. Crumbled and in pieces and the base of whats left was cracked beyond repair. I cleaned, scraped & brushed the pins, exchanger and chamber. However now I don't have a target wall at all. I've got one on order to be here 3 days; but its going to be cold the next few days. Is it OK to run for a couple days without any target wall? I can replace the kaowool roll on the bottom of the chamber and the top access panel seal, and have replaced the door seal already. Just not sure if its OK to do without the wall for now. Let me know your thoughts or if I am completely off point here!

HVACNUT

As long as the flame doesn't impinge on the CI, it'll be ok.
Is it max fired? What burner?

shas595

the burner is Carlin - and I do not know what you mean by CI. Thanks for the reply!

Fred

shas595 said:

the burner is Carlin - and I do not know what you mean by CI. Thanks for the reply!

CI = Cast Iron

shas595

Makes sense! I was afraid of creating an external hot-spot. The cast is in good shape; I am not sure when the target fell apart, I would assume during its last use as i cant imagine it crumbling while just sitting over the summer. Im just nervous about letting it run without any insulation or anything to help spread the heat and make a good combustion.

STEVEusaPA

How do you plan to set up draft, smoke, combustion air, combustion?

shas595

SteveusaPA - I am not sure what you mean by that, in terms of setting it up?

HVACNUT

> @shas595 said:
> SteveusaPA - I am not sure what you mean by that, in terms of setting it up?

Oh boy. Carefully back away from the boiler.
You said you removed the old chamber so nothing is in the path of the flame, correct?
If so, you'll be ok to use the boiler until you get a qualified pro (this week) to replace the chamber and properly adjust the burner with a combustion analyzer and smoke tester.
Please don't work on your own burner if you don't have an analyzer. I just went to a call this week for a problem with the water heater. The homeowner said she and her dad service the equipment. She asked me to replace the nozzle in the burner for the boiler while i was there. After checking my Beckett OEM book, I found they were using the wrong nozzle. I installed the correct nozzle and cycled the boiler. The CO was so high (over 10,000 PPM) my analyzer read "sensor error".
After some air, fuel pump and Z dimension adjustments, it's now down to 0 PPM CO and 86.7% combustion efficiency.
Bottom line. Bad things can happen if your not experienced.

newagedawn

when cleaning in the future dont stick the brush to far through the heat exchanger as thats what destroys the fire walls

STEVEusaPA

What I'm saying is you don't know what you are doing, you're not a trained professional. So you shouldn't have touched it. You probably damaged the chamber yourself, as @newagedawn suggested.
After the unit is cleaned, and if you manage to install the chamber correctly, a full combustion analysis set up is need, with proper instruments to make sure the unit is operating correctly, safely and efficiently. And to make sure it's venting correctly.
If you don't manage to put the chamber back in correctly, especially the door panel and door gasket, you'll get very poor combustion with either sooting, and/or combustion gases leaking into the room.
Please don't tell me you did it to 'save money' and because 'no one around here knows how to work on oil'.
This could easily turn into a life safety issue, sorry for being so harsh.