Help with oil

RayWohlfarth

Oil heat experts, I need your help. I have customer with two 2-pipe oil burners. One does not work. We have narrowed it down to a leaking suction line. I was going to try pressuring the line to see if I can locate the leak. The only issue is I do not know which pipe it is and am nervous to disconnect the wrong pipe and have two boilers down. If you look at the tank connections, you will see what I am hesitant to disturb the fittings, especially if I chose the wrong one and have both boilers down. They use it for domestic water in the summer and space heat in winter. Thanks for your help or suggestions.

BDR529

You should be nervous. To have 2 boilers down would be the least of the concerns.

You need new tank options and new line sets.
Looks like it had a good run. Time to upgrade

dopey27177

looking at the pipe I recommend replacing both lines. Hopefully you can do it with a home run with both oil lines.

If I am seeing right It looks like an underground tank. I would also recommend installing above ground tanks.

Jake

STEVEusaPA

Also, no teflon tape.
Doesn't look good. Oil lines aren't coated or protected (or insulated).
I don't have a lot of confidence in pressurizing the line. First of all, how?
Secondly, the first thing I would consider would be a pinhole leak in the pick up tubing in the tank.
How did you determine leaking suction line?
I'd probably pitch the 2 pipe and go single pipe and a Tiger Loop.
If you're lucky with no check valves on the return (against code anyway) and the return line goes down into the tank the same distance as the supply, you could just use the return.
What are the firing rates. You may be able to use the one good supply line, split to the two burners, and put on 2 Tiger Loops.

RayWohlfarth

@BDR529 Thanks Thats what I was thinking. We sort of inherited this job a year ago, friend of a friend. The radiant heat would not work and we figured it out and got heat to the place. It looks like the risers are pretty rough and I am a bit nervous.
@dopey27177 It is an underground tank and it was installed twenty some years ago. These were home runs from the boilers to the picture.
@STEVEusaPA I noticed the teflon tape. The lines were inside a 3" pic pipe from the boilers to the tank. The last two feet weren't protected, obviously. We tried switching the supply and return with the same results. We connected the boiler to the other supply and it worked. We also connected it to a bucket filled with #2 oil and it worked. The boilers are rated for 1.65 - 3.75 GPH.
The owner is supposed to get gas and was going to switch over from oil to gas. We usually just do maintenance and I am thinking this could be more than I would like to do
Thank you all for the expert advice.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@RayWohlfarth

Here's the fix especially since he is eventually going to gas anyhow. Buy a Webster oil transfer pump and pipe it into the two good lines you have supply and return.

Keep one boiler running by puttinga 55 gallon drum of oil there while you work.

Pipe the new pump into the supply and return from the oil tank. Take the new pump discharge and put 4 tees in it. In the direction of flow pick up boiler 1 return, boiler 2 return boiler 1 supply and boiler 2 supply. Doing it this way you can get by with a smaller pump and the transfer pump only needs to move slightly more that each burners firing rate. Run the pump 24/7. Put the return from the oil loop back into the return pipe going to the tank. You need to maintain a slight positive pressure on this loop 0-3psi. Depending on the tank elevation you may need a backpressure valve on the loop. I beleive I used to use a Watson McDaniel angle valve that was fairly inexpensive and worked great

Put the pump and the loop piping in first and tie the idle boiler into the loop. Then shut down the boiler on the good lines and switch over to the transfer pump to minimize shut down time

RayWohlfarth

@EBEBRATT-Ed Thanks That sounds like a good idea