GE downfire

Jnawskon

I can’t seem to find where the library section that has the manual. I only ever saw one of these boilers and unfortunately it it. I would love to see what the burner a better understanding of how it operated why it was thought to have been a good idea and why they were all removed

pecmsg

A Classic--1930s GE Downfire Boiler for Donation, Collector, Heating Museum, GE Museum? — Heating Help: The Wall

Saw my first GE Downfire Boiler today - Page 2 — Heating Help: The Wall

Old GE down fired — Heating Help: The Wall

mattmia2

the burner and the controls worked very well and were i believe more efficient than a standard oil burner. the problem was that all of it was proprietary so when ge stopped supporting it you had to retrofit it to a standard burner and controls if you needed to repair it.

EdTheHeaterMan

In the 1970s about the time General Electric stopped supporting the GE oil fired Boilers they manufactured.  In the Philadelphia area, FP Young company took over servicing that boiler.  You could get a service contract on that boiler for $21.95 that included the annual tune up which included vacuum cleaning the heat exchanger and cleaning out the strainer, nozzle and electrodes and a combustion test.   We covered the Master Control, Flame Rod, Compressor (combustion air and fuel oil pump), the nozzle and electrodes, and some other miscellaneous parts.   

All the parts were rebuilt since GE was no longer making new parts (except the flame rod)  . We had over 1000 GE boilers under contract.  As the parts became more and more scarce, we would install a Carlin CRD 100 in the down fire opening in order to keep the boilers operating.  The new burner would not increase the efficiency very much because the GE’s  flame was already very efficient.  The only thing that was beneficial was the fact that the customer did not need to pay over double the price for a new complete boiler.  

I don't know where to find the literature you want about that burner/boiler system. I can tell you that the compressor was a low pressure oil pump that mixed air with oil under pressure so the oil spray would atomize. There is a fan on the compressor that forces primary combustion air through a 1-1/2" steel flexible tube into the nozzle / electrode assembly just like a standard gun burner. A secondary air duct would force more combustion air to the bottom of the boiler thru a turbulator at the bottom of the combustion chamber

So there were three ways the combustion air got mixed with the fuel. Primary air from the top, secondary air thru the bottom and pressurized air with the oil thru the nozzle.  This was the reason the burner was so efficient.  

Hope this info helps you @Jnawskon

mattmia2

is that white stuff aircell?

EdTheHeaterMan

This was a special design boiler with a lot of water surface exposed to the flame

See the combustion gasses path with the yellow arrows?