Kodak Moment: Yet Another Oil Boiler that had been "maintained"
Older Weil-McLain WGO-3 with Beckett AFG that we serviced for the first time yesterday. Took most of a day to get it clean:
You can see the rug had come loose and the sulfur deposits got behind it and made it curl inward. You can also see where the flame was hitting it, causing sooting in the flue passages. The oil company must have been laughing all the way to the bank.
We also replaced the old 3-wire primary and added an oil-delay valve. I know there won't be much cleaning to do next year!
Towson, MD, USA
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Consulting
Comments
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My son does Oil Burner service as a side hustle since I sold by business. He knows what he is doing, I guess he learned something from me over the years.
There was an oil burning home in the next small town over that needed to be maintained. It was serviced every summer by the oil dealer. My son overheard the homeowner talking about this while at a local convenience store and pizzeria. The homeowner also had no AC and my son said he could look at it right away. The homeowner took him up on the AC repair, and while talking my son said that he could tune up his sooty oil burner (a Weil McLain WTGO) so that there would no soon next year.
The homeowner was skeptical but made an appointment for the following Saturday. My son opened the front door to find a loaded combustion chamber and the HX was also mildly sooted up. The customer explained that "no one ever opened up the front door before. Are you sure you know what your doing?"
The following year my son called him and asked if he wanted him to tune up his oil burner again? The customer replied yes. To the customer's surprise there was no soot in the boiler HX or combustion chamber. He also happened to mentioned that he may have used less oil this past winter. My son said that he wont need to brush the HX next year either and will only need to inspect it over the next few years, until there might be enough to brush off, but the SootVac could stay in the truck for that.
He charges the same price for the maintenance as he did the first time, but the time it takes to change the oil filter, strainer, nozzle, do a combustion test and pop the relief valve each maintenance takes a lot less time. But the customer gladly pays. (he actually does a lot more than those 4 things like brushing off the oil burner blower fan and looking in the chimney base, are easier without all that soot.)
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Yup. Most of our customers tell us the oil company only spends 30-45 minutes on their "servicings". When we open the boiler, they can see the result. We always say the first time might take a few hours, but after that, there shouldn't be much to do.
In a few cases, the savings were enough that the oil company called the customer to see if they were buying oil from someone else. They really were counting on selling all those gallons.
All Steamed Up, Inc.
Towson, MD, USA
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Consulting
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I only take a short time to change the nozzle and filter and toss in a soot stick to clean the boiler while running the vacuum, so the homeowner thinks you're doing something.
That is why oil heat gets a bad rap.
With the new equipment the boiler should only need a real cleaning every 3-4 years and even then you only get a coffee can full of soot….maybe
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I don't see dirt in oil boilers like I used to, but is it just the new equipment? I think the low sulphur fuel has really cleaned things up.
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It's definitely helped. Burner technology really hasn't changed that much since flame-retention became standard- the main differences being how much static pressure the burner fan can produce, and the updated controls.
When I see one like this, with sulfur accumulations, I know it's probably been a decade since it was properly serviced.
All Steamed Up, Inc.
Towson, MD, USA
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Consulting1 -
This, is a dirty Weil Mclain! I actually took the entire boiler outside and power washed it . Boiler was being moved, so it was easy enough to do. As you can see, it was still running. I wonder what its efficiency was? Rick
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did someone vent their dryer through the boiler…
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When I started in the business I worked for an oil co. Being new they started me on cleanings. They were scheduling me for 4 a day. I quickly found out that wasn't enough time. Most were really old boilers and burners installed in the 20s-50s and they made a lot of soot. The company had been installing Petro burners since the 20s and they wern't the best as far a combustion. As I gained more experience I down fired some and did some nozzle substitution tests and raised the pump pressures to 120 and got them to run ok. Most had hollow nozzles and they worked much better with Delevan Ws. Even if the boilers were not too bad no one ever took down any smoke pipes so I found chimneys full of soot from the clean out door to the height of the flue pipe sometimes higher. Oil was about $.25 /gallon then so you couldn't sell a new boiler or a new burner. This changed a little after the oil embargo in the 70s.
I had them only give me 3 a day which was doable unless I ran into a really bad one. We had the larger soot vac and sometimes that wouldn't hold enough to get through the day. Every day i looked like a chimney sweep.
I guess soot must be healthy to breathe because I am still alive.
When the Beckett AF and the Carlin 100CRD came out around 1970 we thought we died and went to heaven. there were a few low speed burners that could burn like a Beckett SR? and a Carlin 400N2R and Texaco (Ducane) had the low speed TWJ burner that was half decent. Used to buy those burners for $60 with no cad cell control and used them on jobs when the customer was short on $$. Reuse the stack control. The good old days.
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@rick in Alaska, there was a person in my long ago past that was convinced that operating a smoky burner with a 13.5% carbon dioxide was more efficient than operating at 11.5% carbon dioxide with a zero smoke. …and in fact that may be true for the first 6 minutes of operation. Once all that carbon settles on the boiler walls as you have so nicely illustrated, there is a problem with transferring the flame's heat to the water on the other side of that soot. I still believe that smoke is an indication of unburned fuel, and the heat content that unburned fuel never was actually generated… So you didn't get all 138,000 BTUs from that gallon of energy. (but there was no changing his mind, he just brushed the soot off the boiler walls every week as part of his "efficiency program")
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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smoke is particles of carbon that have not been reacted in to carbon dioxide so it is unburned fuel going up the vent…
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That blanket was cut waaaaay too long. It should stop right after the curves before it goes completely vertical.
Is the Beckett with the L1 head and a .85 45° B?
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And of course the oil co was "servicing" it, right?
With regard to @HVACNUT 's question, if that's an L1 head and someone puts an 80° nozzle in it, you'll get soot like that.
All Steamed Up, Inc.
Towson, MD, USA
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Consulting0 -
That boiler had a partially blocked nozzle. I don't know how it kept running without tripping the cad cell, but it obviously ran quite a while. This was in its own room, and there was soot on everything from about 3 feet up. The floor was also pretty wet with oil, so had to remove the boiler and rebuild the room. That place was a mess
Rick
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are you sure the cad cell works….
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They used an 80° nozzle with an L1 head? Can't see the head from the pic.
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Depends on which primary and the ohms reading. With all that soot a tighter fire in front of the air tube probably keeps the ohms low enough not to lockout the burner. Some of the newer primaries may not lock out to 5500 ohms or more.
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SMOKE Damage is covered by normal homeowner's insurance fire policy. The soot is considered smoke damage. If worded correctly, the policy can cover all your work top clean up the "SMOKE" damage but it wond pay for the cause of the problem. So if you state that the nozzle replacement was needed because the defective nozzle causes all the other "Smoke" damage, your customer may be able to recover a good portion of the work to clean the room and any surrounding rooms that were effected. Even dry cleaning of clothes and repainting of walls.
Just FYI if the customer is interested. How much do you charge for replacing the nozzle only? That can go on a separate invoice.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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The cost of making a claim in the long term might be far more than just paying for it.
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That boiler was 12 years ago. If I remember right, the homeowner had been messing with it himself, and did not turn in a claim.
Rick
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