Becket burner lockout issue

kuzya

I am having an issue with my oil boiler.
The lockout happens once a week.
The control indicates no ignition.

This is our vacation house and I have a home monitoring system for the temperature.

I reset the control and it fires the first time. It seems to me that there is always
a delayed ignition. There is also a laud boom sound when it fires.
A week later the same thing.
I changed the oil filter, nozzle and cleaned the boiler before the season.
I also changed the electrodes, adjusted the electrodes and changed the oil pump filter before winter.
Is there any way to troubleshoot this issue. I am not at the house when the lockout happens.
It is a becket oil afg burner and Burnham 3wnh boiler. The control is honeywell r7284u

I had the tech come out and he didn't do any troubleshooting, the boiler fired and he left.

Thank you!

Jamie Hall

Did you -- or anyone -- do a proper combustion test, using the correct instruments, on the burner? That would be the first step.

STEVEusaPA

No ignition. I would start with a proper check of the ignitor. If that is working, then all the normal diagnosis. The tech shouldn't be allowed back, and you shouldn't have had to pay for the call, unless he plans on coming back for free.
If you have an electronic ignitor, as opposed to the older iron core transformers, they can be tricky to diagnose, and can work perfectly fine, and check out ok, then fail. Usually heat kills them.
The fact the the burner fires up, and you get the 'boom' would indicate to me to first, properly check the ignitor, if that passes, then on to the regular troubleshooting, with full, proper combustion test, as @Jamie Hall mentioned. My second check would be the motor, then the pump, as needed.
A boiler that isn't properly cleaned may retain a lot of heat during and after the run cycle, and that heat kills the ignitor.

kuzya

I agree with you about the tech. He wasn't interested in doing anything. The transformer is the old type (large) webster 3-28AB-BAF.
I went to the store today after work and the replacement is the allanson 2721-628G. They didn't have any in stock.
They guy at the store told me to purchase the electronic ignitor 51717U made by beckett. They have them in stock.

I don't have the tools to do a combustion test.
How long of a delay is normal after you hear the motor?

Thank you.

STEVEusaPA

kuzya said:

How long of a delay is normal after you hear the motor?

Depends. If you have a delay oil valve, 15 seconds. If you have a delay oil valve and prepurge, could be more.
If you don't, no delay is acceptable. It points to other problems/issues.

But once again, you have to properly diagnose the issue and not keep guessing and throwing parts at it.

It could be a stuck delay valve.
It could be air in the line.
It could be...it could be..
The loud boom could simple be an improper air adjustment, which you can only figure out with a smoke gun and performing a smoke test, and with a combustion analyzer.

kuzya

I just realized from the picture I took that the oil valve has a pd timer on it. It says 4 seconds. This would hold the oil for 4 seconds after the motor begins spinning. The delay is about 4 seconds. It makes sense.

I purged the air out of the line recently after replacing the oil screen filter.

I will call a different company tomorrow and will ask them to do the combustion test. I looked up how to test the transformer and I don't feel comfortable putting a screwdriver next to high voltage terminals.

I will report back. Thanks for all the advice!