Weil-McLain WGO with RIELLO burner?

I was on a Riello kick for some time in Cape May County. I installed one any time I could. No other oil company was familiar with them at the time. Kind of a job security thing. The customers would come back to me after someone else bad mouthed their new burner, that just saved them $200 to $500 per year. Cant be that bas of a piece of junk if it saves them that much money (of course a Beckett would also have saved them that much too)

The thing that impressed me was the sales rep that showed up at the family oil business in the 1990's to offer a class on how the Riello worked. He was near 300 pounds (kinda' big) and he took the cover off the burner and placed it on the floor next to the burner and told all of us technicians that ALL RIELLO BURNERS came with this nifty seat to use when working on the burner. Then proceeded to sit all 300# on that poor little red box. After going over every part on the burner, how to change the motor, pump, ignitor/relay, normal maintenance items like setting electrodes, cleaning the pump strainer, and how easy it was to replace the nozzle He got on his knees and places that red cover on the burner and it was a perfect fit. (well that was only half the reason. When asked about what parts are the most common to fail, He said they don't fail. Normal maintenance is all you need to keep that burner operating trouble free for years.

I put one in my home thet weekend, left if un maintained for 4 years and never had a problem. After 4 years I thought that i might be a good ides to do the maintenance. not a speck of soot on the boiler surfaces, the electrode setting were like the day it was new. Carbon buildup on the retention ring (air spinner) was as expected for a burner after operating for only one season. The nozzle was coaked over slightly. and since my fuel taknk was only a few years old and i delivered clean fresh oil to my home, tho iol filter was just fine.

That is when I started selling the 💩 out of them to every customer I could. And that guy was right, those burners don't break down. I had the parts kit in my service truck and I think it was about 8 years before i needed to use a cad cell eye from it. That was the least used tool box on my truck.

Anyway Since you are not going to be there after 4 years, what do you care about how long the thing works? Get what ever burner the supply house has in stock on your WM package boiler.

or buy the boiler less burner and use the burner you already have. Nothing wrong with that! Another $$$ savings.

No head protection. My turbulator doesn't have CTE because it's -.01 over fire.

If and when I upgrade, I'll post before and after pics. You'll all get some good yuks from my lamen brain piping.

Don't do the Riello. I would not recommend it in your situation. Use the Beckett you already have. It will need a different nozzle when placed on the WGO-2 and different air settings that your oil company's professional can do for you.

Amulet.

Just upgrade your Beckett burner. It's easier than you might think.

@seized123 is over thinking again?

BUT supplyhouse’s 3R doesn’t come with a burner; they provide a link to their page for the Beckett AFG burner for the WGO-3, no mention of the 3R, implying that that burner is good for both.

No implication here. the WGO-3 and the WGO-3R is the same boiler with a different sticker. There are no internal measurement changes that prevent you from increasing or reducing the firing rate GPH. And you can use an amulet or you don't need to. And you can connect it to all five of your zones or you can connect it to only one zone and get a different boiler for the rest of the zones.

What’s confusing me is this: I assume that burner comes with a head, whether F3 or L1 or whatever (Supplyhouse doesn’t say). Now It’s compatible with the WGO-3, that’s what it says on the SH burner page, but also with the 3R, as SH confirmed via chat and as is implied by them telling you this GO-3 burner is what you buy to go with the 3R. But as per Beckett’s spreadsheet you use a totally different head for the 3 and 3R. That burner that’s supposedly good for both doesn’t come with two heads, right? And I don’t think they ask you what head you want when you order the burner. What am I missing? So much for the theory that it’s the burner/head/nozzle combo that makes it a 3R. Can you see why I’m so confused? Anybody with experience with this 3R know what’s going on?

You already have the burner you are going to use with the new boiler. Why are you stressing over a burner you are not going to purchase?

I guess the bottom line is, if Beckett says it’s okay to use my AFG, head and nozzle with the 3R, what should I care. But I still emailed Weil-McLain to ask: what exactly, then, makes a 3R and a 3?

I bet they tell you that the difference is the nozzle size. There may be a 1/4 of 1% efficiency difference in one air tube combination when compaired to another air tube combination. All of these tests are done by the manufacturer so they can have brabging rights about who has the most efficient boiler this year. I remember when I was installing Columbia Boilers. They had a boiler that replaced the FT model with the new Emerald model. The same boiler basically, but the fire tubes went from 1-1/2" to 1-1/4", the slide out baffles had one extra hole in them and there were twice as many tubes. It was the most efficient boiler with a Made In America sticker and they advertised the hell out of that fact. the following year there was a more efficient boiler by .06, so it only lasted for one year, but the literature they printed that year, lasted for 10 years.

Not that I am really suggesting this, but, If you remove the sticker on the side of the boiler with all those numbers on it, you will not be able to tell that you have the wrong burner (the burner from your old boiler) installed on it. Just do not remove the sticker with the CP number. That you need for warranty reasons.

• I select the words I want to post and copy them to the computer clip board.
• I then pate them into the new post where i need them
• I then select the backwards IP looking thing at the left of the paragraph and select the " quote function.
• Just below that I select the Quote function again to get the grey line to the left to show what I am quoting.
• when I am finished the partial quote i hit return 2 times to stop the grey line to the left and return to normal paragraph mode.

Normal Paragraph mode

select the paragraph mode here

To get one grey line in stead of several lines, Select all the paragraphs. Once they are all highlighted (selected) then do the "  thing

I select the words I want to post and copy them to the computer clip board.

I then pate them into the new post where i need them

I then select the backwards IP looking thing at the left of the paragraph and select the " quote function.

Just below that I select the Quote function again to get the grey line to the left to show what I am quoting.

when I am finished the partial quote i hit return 2 times to stop the grey line to the left and return to normal paragraph mode

@EdTheHeaterMan thanks. Easy as flying a fighter jet or something, but it works. Oh, have to work on getting one solid gray line.

@seized123 , if your going to use the existing burner, make sure it can be set up for the 2 section. Beckett OEM specs call for an L1 head on the 2 section. The 3 section was offered with either the L1 or F3 head. Same static plate. Different air tube. Different pump pressures. You're already upgrading the burner with a new primary, and maybe an oil delay valve for pre purge, right? It might be best to just get an OEM Beckett AGF for the 2 section. It still needs to be commissioned and tested by a pro, but at least you know for sure the burner matches the boiler.

IOW, if your existing burner has an F3 or F6 head, it might need the low fire baffle with the 2 section firing at .75 GPH. It will be trial and error retrofitting a burner from different sized boilers. It can be done. It's the only way it WAS done back in the day. But the tech better know what they're doing. With OEM, it should be just some minor adjustments.

I am going to start a new discussion with a Poll.

Who is overthinking their heating system more @CoachBoilermaker or @seized123 Vote here>

We have lots of WM Golds here on the outer Cape; I much prefer the setup with a Carlin EZ-1 and the Carlin ProMax primary, set up with a 10 sec. pre-purge and 15 sec. post-purge; I find them the easiest to dial in and the cleanest firing burners. I have yet to run into one with a Riello. I know they have a reputation for clean and very quiet operation once one masters dialing them in. However, parts are proprietary to those burners, and are very expensive. You can pick up a motor for a Becket or Carlin for $75-80 (last time I checked, which was quite a while back); for the Riello, they can be three times that much. The ignitor is incorporated into the primary control, which is also very pricey. I recommend the previously described Carlin setup.