Most common air tube / retention head combo

gator

so I’m stocking parts for the hard winters in alaska. Most all I see are Beckett AFG. The occasional Carlin. But mostly AFGs - is there a most common air tube / retention head combo a person would want to stock? I’ve fixed two broken retention heads this year and the air tube combo kits are so dang spendy - wondering which ones I should stock. Can’t afford 20 of the things. Most of what we have here are oil burning boilers. Some forced air but not a lot.

HVACNUT

Unless you see really big, one each of an F3 and F6 air tube and assembly. I forgot the exact lengths but 7 3/8? should cover most. Maybe some Carlin electrodes, an EZ head, a 99/100 head.

In all honesty, I don't carry air tubes, or heads. Because if they need replacement in 2024, there's a lot more going on. So I'm curious how 2 retention heads got broken in one season. I've only seen one I can remember, and that was a POS Aero burner and water heater over 20 years ago.

gator

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1828561#Comment_1828561

2 diff units. Dont know - I think a previous guy knocked one off because it was probably ready to go. I think he knocked it off and didn’t know what to do. Wasn’t a professional. One of those “my buddy from work said he can do it” situations. Next one was due to improper nozzle assembly depth. I agree you don’t see if often.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Usually the only time the Beckett heads go back if the unit is not drafting well….plugged boiler, overfired or the head is not protected properly by the insulating block refractory

gator

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1828652#Comment_1828652

yea - we have no company within 200 miles on winter roads. Yet we have about 4,000 boilers and 2,000 furnaces (guesstimates on mix based on what I see) so I was out as an engineer on pipelines for 10 years when home def wasn’t working unless emergency in my fam / friends group. I got diagnosed the big C but real slow mover. Years in most cases. So at first - panic- stop working, gonna just live, then you get to new normal and think “well I gotta do something” the moral is the guy that was running a company servicing these passed 9 years ago. All 6 boilers that had issues so far that weren’t routine maintenance. They haven’t had a nozzle change even in 9 years 😬😬😬 believe it or not - several hadn’t had a filter change. They are running like dog crap. Filter housing look like it has a nasty custard in bottom 1/3 😂😂😂

so, the one unit was approx 45 year old Williamson furnace heating a 1800 sq ft home and was the size of a damn restrain walk in freezer. It’s mammoth. that one was just aged out, retention head only hanging on by 1 tab I think when the “buddy” showed up. I know him too, he knows a bit, so he knew to clean the air tube and get soot off head - I think he knocked it off. It’s possible “i suppose possible” he didn’t know. Boy that thing really ran like crap and tripled out quick. But it would run a while believe it or not. I didint have a head for it. So I re-worked it into a conventional head burner for a few days which was interesting to get right, then went back and read-worked to retention head. He put the wrong nozzle too, and didn’t fix the original problem which was the unit was tripping to shut down before set temp was close to reached. But not every time - just most the time.
You’re gonna love this. So this poor lady (we know the head hadn’t been off long right cause it ran for several full cycles sometimes before shutting down and no smoke - no puff back, etc) So, I tested it all and couldn’t find a damn thing wrong. So I figured well - intermittent primary control glitch. It’s a cheap one and I had it. Went to take the one off, the thermostat wires were already loose and the CAD eye. So, over the years, no guy here to work them over every so often, the screws thru all those heat cycles and vibrations - they loosened. Then from vibration and heat expansion they would loose contact for a bit and shut it off.
So 4 loose screws cost the poor lady 1500$ bucks if I had charged her. I didn’t, no chance she could afford it. I have to go back and move her tank this spring - I told her to save 500$ for that. I billed her 300$ was there twice - first time quite a while to convert to conventional. Anyway the first guy just got unlucky really. It was clearly about to fall off when he showed up.

The other one was same deal. Years sense service. Old unit. The nozzle depth to the head was super tight. Damn neat not behind the head at all. Jt burned it off. 👍 prob ran like crap and burned a ton of fuel too.

Here’s a question - what would we say the average depth of a normal size unit depth to head be? I checked online and set it right. But I’m thinking they are all pretty common. I see almost nothing but Beckett AF or the occasional rare Carlin

Steamhead

@gator , you can download Beckett's OEM Spec Guides here:

https://www.beckettcorp.com/support/burner-settings/

and Carlin's are here:

https://carlincombustion.com/oem-burner-settings-guide/

What I'd do for the F-series Becketts, is stock each air tube length you might need "less head", then have at least one of each size of head available so you can make up whatever you need. Also have a mounting flange and gasket (p/n 5432) with a replacement gasket as well (p/n 31653). Also a large static plate (p/n 3384) which is used on some lower firing rates or with some hollow nozzle or shallower (front-to-back) chamber applications, and a low fire baffle (p/n 5880) which AFAIK is used only on AFGs. I bet this would take care of most of your units that use this type of burner.