twice a year ?

Tony_8

This boiler was "serviced" twice a year by one the local oil suppliers. The last time that they sent an untrained two month old rookie and it sounded worse than when he got there, she called me.

I found most of the turbulators in a box with the majority of the refractory. Fire trying to escape through the siliconed seams. Unbrushed fire-tubes. She wanted a new one and someone to really service it, not spend five minutes cleaning a six dollar nozzle for a $100. I also found two birds, one in the collector and one in the 8X8 run-out. How they got that far through the build-up is beyond me. About 2-3 inches clear at the bottom of the chimney.

Ken_8

Certainly is reassuring that they cleaned it

twice a year!

Imagine if they cleaned it only once a year?

You'd be taking out dead bodies along with the boiler remains.

I am being sarcastic with the "purist" of intentions!

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Robert O'Connor_5

WOW!

I guess #039 can't be everywhere, maybe his cape was at the cleaners. Good work..Robert O'Connor/NJ

J.C.A._3

Looks a whole lot better now Tony,

Here in Ma. It would be shot out of the water upon inspection.(not to mention that the original pics/set-up would have gone over like a fart in church here anyway) Is that a low speed Winkler burner?

Burner MUST be a minimum of 5' from the tank, unless there is a firewall of "at least 2 hour fire resistant material", (5/8" firecode sheetrock and metal studs)between them.

You might want to check NFPA31. I think the rule is similar. I'm not nit picking, just warning that there may be an issue. Chris

tommyoil

Couple of points

Same here in N.J. J.C.A. We'd be reinstalling it farther from the tank or building a fire rated wall. Also burying the fuel line and putting a fusible at the burner. And Robert, the #039 crack made me laugh out loud. I'm still laughing. And not to raise the dead here,but, what happened to that thread? It was there in the A.M. and gone in the P.M. I'm guessing some toes got stepped on if the thread got yanked. I still have dreams about that guy. I've been playing that # every day since, w/ no luck. I'm about to give up. Now that you mentioned it(039) I'll play it one more day. Then,THATS IT.

Tony_8

thank you

I guess I've never had a reason to consider proximity of the tank to burner before. I'll look it up and correct it, probably with a firewall. I can't bury the fuel line, it's a concrete floor under that 1/2" of mud.

Unlike your world of inspections and protections, we have little of that here. No permit required, hence no inspection. Besides, that would require the inspector to learn more:) A lot of the little townships here have banded together and share an inspector. One guy will cover 4-6 towns at about $3-7,000 each per year. Not much incentive. Plus we've got hardware stores all over willing to sell anything to anybody. I know a competitor who's not installing LWCO's or BFP's on new installs, and there's virtually nothing I can do about it. I have repiped a couple of fuel tanks that had PVC fill lines this year. That'll curl your toes.

Not defending myself, I screwed up, I'll take care of it. Like I said in the infamous #39 thread, we ALL can learn SOMETHING from each other. (If the radio's not too loud)

Tony

Steamhead

Tony, welcome to the Nice Job Club

I wondered about the proximity to the oil tank too, but it depends on what code is in force in your area. It's already been covered in this thread so I won't belabor it....

Other than that issue, you really nailed it. I'd be interested to know how much her oil consumption drops.

Was that an old Columbia steel boiler?

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lchmb

One other thought

Tony you did a beautiful job and should be very proud of it. Just a thought looking at your pic's, I would recommend some sheet panning in between your vent and those very old very dry timber's..Not sure if it would be a code issue but here we are required if we are within 2x's the size of the vent... just a thought...Keep up the nice neat work!!

J.C.A._3

Steamhead,

Looked like a 60's version Axeman/Anderson to me.

I hope Tony comes back to answer. I'd like to know about the burner. Like I asked, is it a Winkler? Got the chance to TRY to work on lots of them years back, and it didn't seem to matter what I tried to do to them, I just couldn't make them run well.(Nothing mattered on adjustments, much like the dreaded Thatcher 1725 burners) Chris

Steamhead

Chris, did you mean

the low-pressure or high-pressure Winkler? Both used 1725-RPM motors.

I really liked the low-pressure Winklers- actually have two of them sitting around here. Once you got them set up they would hold their adjustment pretty well, unlike some of their contemporaries.

The burner in the pic, however, looks like it might be a Sunray or a Wayne. It's definitely a high-pressure one.

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J.C.A._3

I meant....

Winklers forray into the high pressure realm.

Did my time with the "low pressure units" too. Wobble pump, what a concept! (My old boss swore the things would run on goat wizz!).

I had the outstanding opportunity to remove the last one, from a Winkler boiler, that was STILL in our customer base in 1999. After hurting my back earlier in the year, I had to call someone to help me get it out of the 4' tall basement. I left it at the shop for "emergency use only". We didn't run into anymore after that, so I guess I should have donatedi it to NEFI. (New England Fuel Institute).

When I attended the NEFI classes, oh so long ago....they were still teaching these, AND Williams Oil-O-Matic burners. We also had a pile of Timken and G.E. boilers still on line, at the time!Had to learn , and understand all the different things back then. (My state license test was pretty much all about gravity burners, the instructor apologized for giving me the wrong test, gave me the chance to take it over, but withdrew his offer, when I passed the test with only 1 wrong answer! That was back in early 1985)

Time and technology change. The key is to move forward with it.I don't miss those old beasts one bit but I think I could still repair 1 if I had to. Thanks for the memories.(Wasn't that Bob Hope ?) Chris

Robert O'Connor_5

#039

I'm not sure but I might have caused the thread to be thrown under the bus. We figured out the HO & #039 may have been one in the same and I acually tracked him down and wrote the street address (not the number mind you) and I had his phone info too (bless the neighbors computor savy kid) I didn't expose either but it may have gone too far down an inappropriate road. If it was me, I apologize the thread was quite interesting and I'll still offer the ghost (#039) a job...Robert O'Connor/NJ

Tony_8

Axeman-Anderson

Late 50's-early 60's. The burner said Axeman-Anderson also, but it looks like a Wayne to me.

The angle of the pics makes the vent look closer than it really is. I couldn't stand up straight unless I was between joists, I'm 6'+. The vent is about a foot lower than the joists.

Part of the mess we had to deal with was my helper got in a hurry and cut the return with a sawzall. That let the PRESTONE run all over the floor. My 16 yr old son asked him, "Why do you always have to hurry ?" I might just have some influence on that boy