Beckett AF oil burner - factory settings

rick in Alaska

There is a metal rod in the nozzle line that is put in to help get any air out , if I remember the correctly. Supposedly squeezes the air down in the line to help it get out, and It doesn't hurt anything to leave it in there, but it does scare you the first time you hear it rattle.

Rick

MikeAmann

Thanks, it sure caught me off guard. 🤬

EdTheHeaterMan

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1815504#Comment_1815504

Hear is a slide from my oil burner seminar that I used to explain how trapped air in the nozzle line can cause after drip.

It shows that rod inside the nozzle assembly Mike

• I then showed the class how I would place a flare cap on the inlet side of the nozzle assembly.
• Hold the assembly so the adaptor was pointing up.
• Pour clean fuel oil into the assembly until is was full of oil
• Place the nozzle in the adaptor and screw it in and watch oil squirt out the nozzle orifice.

If I do it that way all the time, I get fewer "factory defect" nozzles. That is what mechanics call the nozzles that get clogged due to improper handling. "must have been a factory defect"

EBEBRATT-Ed

Don't know about that burner in particular but some commercial burners I worked on would put something (piece of welding rod etc) inside the nozzle pipe. It was put there to "take up space" so there would be less oil to drip out of the nozzle on shut down. Sometimes on shutdown with a hot chamber the oil would expand and drip out of the nozzle

MikeAmann

Thanks guys, I thought I was going crazy for a minute. For the 5 dollars a new nozzle costs, I am going to try a brand new Delavan .65x70A in the HWH again. I just gotta know for sure why the numbers went so far out in left field from just a pattern change. Besides the the boiler might not like the 80 degree I plan to try in the Carlin burner and then I will have my new nozzle for that.

EdTheHeaterMan

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1815553#Comment_1815553

What Carlin burner? They don't like 80° nozzles. The Carlin's I worked on all work well with Hago 60°SS that would be like a Delavan 60°W

MikeAmann

The Carlin CRD100 in my other post: Nearly 900 degree stack temp! Carlin 100 CRD oil burner and original steel boiler. - Page 2 — Heating Help: The Wall

To avoid confusion and to keep the posts separate, the short answer is I ran the Delavan 70 degree A nozzle all last year in the BOILER and it did great. I picked up .9% efficiency by going to 70 degree from the 60 degree the year before. I am thinking that the large combustion chamber might prefer the 80 degree, but the burner might not like it. I will find out tonight.

MikeAmann

It is 3:45 in the morning, dead calm and 62 degrees.

Draft was -0.028 Last winter in the cold I read -0.24 and that is is low as I can get it. There is even a washer added to the weight on the baro damper. Nothing relating to that was changed this time, so this where it's staying.

For this test, I am back to the very same nozzle that I used last winter - Delavan .65x70W. Smoke test revealed a 5, so I kept adding air with the bands/shutters to get down to a 1.5 before it hit the limit. I did not get a combustion analysis. I will keep playing with this.

MikeAmann

I set the air shutter in the middle at a 5 and the air band is now .750" open to achieve zero smoke. Not done yet. I'm going to test a hollow pattern.

MikeAmann

I have quite the result and I am not drawing any conclusions yet.

Water heater with Beckett AF burner - I added a gauge to the oil pump, 100 psi verified. I removed the .65x70W nozzle that worked great last year and again tried a hollow pattern .65x70A. But this time I used Ed's practice of keeping the oil line full. I used a rubber vacuum cap and topped off the line with carb cleaner just before I installed the nozzle. I thought that I installed the brand new nozzle, but I actually grabbed the used one that came out of the boiler. Oh well, but this now duplicates my first change when everything went awry (air in line?, metal sleeve?).

Just before this with the used W nozzle I had to open the air band to .750" to get zero smoke. I left everything set where it was and went straight for the smoke test with the A nozzle - .750" zero, .650" zero, .550" zero, .450" zero. Then the limit stopped the burner there at normal. I tried to go far a quick combustion test but I turned the limit to hot and that was a no go. I will have to wait.

Note: the W nozzle ran last year with the air band .500" open and the shutter at 3.5

MikeAmann

I did the combustion test, and the numbers weren't good. They were duplicating what happened when I first installed this used nozzle that came out of the Carlin burner on the boiler. So I swapped in the brand new one that I picked up the other day and now I have good results - FINALLY.

The camera battery needed a charge, so I quickly wrote the CA numbers down. I still have to find the trace of smoke point and then lower the CO2 by 1% for the safety margin, but I think that I am already very close.

O2 6.0

Ex Air 40.7

CO2 11.0

Stack T 383

Efc 85.2

Smoke zero

Now I will go back and get the results from the last 2 years. 2 years ago was a solid nozzle, last year was semi-solid, and this test (above) hollow. All were .65x70 It looks like the hollow works the best, as I suspected!

2022-23 2023-24

O2 6.9 6.5

Ex Air 49.1 45.3

CO2 10.4 10.7

Stack T 419 377

Efc 83.9 84.8

MikeAmann

I found the trace of smoke point, and again it coincided with the ex air being at 32-33%, just something that I noticed.

So then I added air to lower the CO2 by 1% for the safety margin and I am locking it there for this winter. Air band = .450" open, air shutter = 3

Does everybody agree that the hollow nozzle is the best choice?

SuperTech

What model water heater Mike? For what it's worth most of the oil fired water heaters I see are Bock 32E or 51E with Beckett AF or Carlin EZ-1 burners. The Becketts have a fixed burner head and use an 80⁰ nozzle. I know off the top of my head the Bock 32E uses a .75 80A Delevan. It's usually pretty easy to get them burning clean.

MikeAmann

TFI E30GL hot water heater.

When I got my hands on it 2 years ago, it looked like this.

After

EBEBRATT-Ed

In spite of any MFG recommendations the nozzle the MFG recommends is "usually the best choice", however I have seen numerous jobs for unknown reasons that a different nozzle will give better combustion.

And it's not an exact science. Combustion air temp, oil temp, different oil supplier can skew any readings over time. That is why the 1% drop in Co2 adjustment is better to allow some cushion

MikeAmann

OOPS, I should be lowering the CO2 by .5% not a full 1%. Now corrected.

The hollow nozzle gave the best results, as I suspected.