Carbon monoxide diagnostics on oil burners.

captainco

Because manufacturers on analyzers are using slower pumps, the CO spikes at Light-off and Shut-down may be between 80ppm to 100ppm or higher.

Although we don't cover oil in the combustion class normally, this chart and an explanation of this chart is included in our manuals.

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captainco

Sorry, I meant to add this. Later, I will add actual CO patterns and situations that explain how these diagnostics work. No one is more nitpicky on oil than I am. But when you are solving complaints that no one else could solve, nitpicky worked. Frustrating at first but then it became a lot of fun. Oil, fun???

DJD775

@captainco
Can you please explain what the numbers in parentheses mean as compared to the numbers below them. Let's use line 1, shut down as an example:

captainco

The numbers in parentheses are the ranges that the CO will normally be with a certain problem. (+100) means the CO at this point will always be above 100 ppm. (0-99) means the CO will be between 0 - 99 ppm when this problem occurs. When multiple problems occur these numbers will be different. That explanation will come with my next post on these numbers. Just wanted to initially show how watching the CO numbers from start to finish tell us a lot of information. Almost all combustion testing tells us not to put our analyzer in the flue on oil until it has been running for a few minutes and that is not correct, You will not hurt your analyzer even if the oil burner is smoking heavily. If you don't know how it is running from the start it is pretty hard to know what needs to be fixed.

DJD775

Thanks for the explanation and for sharing this information with this forum! I'm not a pro but I like to be as educated as possible so I have, at minimum, a working knowledge of all the systems in my house. Helps me weed out the real technicians vs. the techs that just do the bare minimum at most.

captainco

Okay, I was going to wait until there were a few more questions, but here is the more defined troubleshooting guide for these numbers.