Will our new equipment last this long?

jfox

I'll bet she would recognize one my dad's favorite sayings, from the days of the Great Depression:

Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or do without..

All the best.,

jq

John@Reliable

Old Sunray burner keeps on ticking!

Someone tried to fix this burner but couldn't,we did.Lady of the house is in her 80's and can't afford a new unit so we did what we could.But I wonder if our new equipment will last as long as these old "dead men " units

Boilerpro

I hope so, but..

probably not. In our throw away world, not much is made to last that long...Its now cheaper to replace than fix...Its too bad.

Boilerpro

Steamhead

That's a keeper, John

look at the wonderful shape it's in after all those years of firing that snowman!

I've never seen a burner with that kind of angled air tube. Does it have an elevated firebox, and the air tube comes in the bottom (my best guess)? It's definitely a candidate for the Heating Museum- be sure you get the replacement job when the snowman is retired!

I believe Automatic Burner Corporation (ABC) bought Sunray at some point. The result is what you see on my boiler- the "ABC-Sunray FC Bantam Burner". This flame-retention unit is 19 years old and still working well- I added the solenoid valve though, to cure a rough-shutdown tendency.

I believe Sunray also made the Gulf Econojet, an early high-efficiency burner that was very popular in the Baltimore area. I still see them from time to time.



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Chauncey

Hey, it also had a rotary-hearth burner at one time.

This boiler had a Timken Rotary setup at one time. The power supply at the lower right is the oil pump/level control switch combination. There was one in the basement of the house we had when I was a kid. SOmetimes we had to light it by burning newspaper. One day the oil man gave us a good price on a refurbished "Torrid-heat" burner. This worked well for 10 years. I was told that the problem with burners like this was that the turning vanes on the drawer assembly spun the air in the opposite direction to the air direction imposed by the end-cone. The photo brings back memories

Steamhead

I remember the \"Toridheet\"

made by Cleveland Steel Products- they also sold boilers under that name. The 1940's-era Peerless gravity-hot-water boiler that used to heat my house had a Toridheet- I think it's still sitting in my garage somewhere. That thing was originally fired at 1.65 GPH. I had the oil tech downfire it to 1.35 GPH and the system actually ran much better.

The Burnham V-14 I now have is running .75 GPH. We really have come a long way.

I also have one of those instruction cards for a Toridheet that you sometimes see hanging in picture frames on old boiler-room walls (I have one for an Electrol too). That one was obviously much older than the one from my house- it had gas-pilot ignition!

The rotary-hearth burner setting explains the angled air tube on the Sunray. This was probably a "center-flame" rather than a "wall-flame" rotary so the hearth extended all the way in to where the burner sat, rather than just running around the outside of the firebox. The Sunray's angled air tube comes up thru the hole where the rotary used to sit.

Whoever came up with that was a genius.

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Tom M.

Rotary conversion burners

I can remember working on similar units which I believe were called "Vert-A-Flame". They were light blue and had a downward facing door with two wing nuts and a folding leg so you could reach underneath and retieve the firing assembly for servicing.
They had an upward facing shellhead design and the familiar "sunflower" shaped flame came up where the Timkin rotary head was.
Many basements in my area (Lowell/Lawrence,MA) still have 225 gal. oil tanks on 24" legs which gave the proper heaght for the constant level valve. Some still have the Timken Silent Automatic instruction card near the new heating unit.

John@Reliable

Steamhead, you are right

it fires through a hole in center bottom of boiler. These pictures are for 1St. floor unit,had to pull apart 2nd. floor unit two weeks ago.Took 3.5 hours to change electrodes, nozzle, and transformer! try to find trans. & electrodes on a sat. night for these bad boys.Afew phone calls and I got them. Funny thing the lady told me the "other guy" always had those parts with him,didn't have the heart to tell her that he's been dead for 15 years. All I know is I give some "dead man" a couple of smiles that night in a dim one light bulb New England basement.John@Reliable

Dennis - Reliable Services

Tough market

You are going to heaven!
A Saturday nite with no heat, I would have signed her to a contract and ripped that junker out!
Monday she would be so happy that someone finally made her use some of that money she was hiding in her mattress.

If she is that poor, the first mild day when this thing finally quits she will probably get a dozen bids. You probably will not get the job, as with your expertise you price will be too high.
I'm not a cynic but this has happened to me many times in 25 years.