Smoke smell in house with oil boiler

Do you have a barometric damper in your chimney?

I don’t see one!

Are the bolts on the service door tight? Sometimes they get loose or the service tech forgets to tighten them sufficiently.

The lack of a barometric damper and flue liner is definitely a major contributor. You absolutely need a barometric damper and it’s likely the unlined chimney is leaking combustion products or suffering air infiltration that’s messing up the draft.

i dont see one.

On the chimney — yours is not that old. Which doesn't mean that it's in decent condition. Has a qualified chimney sweep inspected it, top to bottom? Is it lined at all, and if so, with what?

Be nice to eliminate the chimney as a problem…

You do not have a barometric damper… and they can help.

However, all that aside, I think we need to go right straight back to square one. If you are getting smoke smell in the house, that means that air is moving from the basement into the rest of the house, no? Assuming the chimney is OK. It would be worth figuring out where the air is exhausting from the house. Exhaust fans? Significant air leaks? Take a look around.

You don't have one. This is where the Barometric draft control would be located on your Boiler.

As a result of not having a Barometric Draft Control, the air fuel mixture will constantly change as the pressure inside the fire chamber changes. Since the chimney draft changes constantly with weather, barometric pressure and wind conditions at the top of the chimney, the amount of draft (or vacuum in the chimney) will change constantly. Since the top of that chimney is connected by a piece of connector pipe (Smoke Pipe) to the back of the heater, the pressure will change there constantly. Since the oil burner is connected to the front of the boiler, the pressure that is in the fire box chamber is constantly changing. and since the oil burner fan is pushing air for combustion into the fire box that is constantly changing the amount of air the fan delivers to the fire. When the fire box pressure is lower the oil burner fan will push more air into the flame. When the firebox air pressure is higher, then the burner fan will deliver less air to the flame. And this pressure is changing second by second, so there is nothing you can do to constantly adjust it. The barometric damper will do that for you.

Oil odors can change as the flame becomes rich or lean based on the amount of excess air that is delivered to the oil flame. So sometimes the odor will be stronger than other times. As a result of the age of the chimney and the possibility of the mortar joints leaking combustion byproducts thru those leaks in the mortar joints, I would strongly recommend that you get a chimney liner. That will improve the draft of the chimney in many cases. (by improve I mean make more draft). But that improvement will actually increase your oil usage because the more powerful chimney will suck more heat out of your heater. By adding the Barometric Draft control The cooler basement air will be going up the chimney while less air from the heater will go up the chimney. The draft control damper will open to let less heater air and more basement air go up the chimney. The damper, when properly adjusted, will constantly be moving open and closed as the chimney draft changes so the air moving thru the heater will stay constant. That way the fire box pressure will be at a constant pressure regardless of what is happening at the top of the chimney. You want that pressure to be about -0.01"wc over the fire and about -0.025"wc at the breach where the connector is located (smoke pipe). Your oil berher service person will need to make those adjustments for you.

This is as simple as I know how to tell that story. It may be a little complicated but the bottom line is that you want a Barometric Draft Control and a chimney liner in order to get rid if the odor.

Who do you purchase your oil from? If it is an old time full service company, they should know a good Chimney Professional. Look at online reviews of the different Chimney Professionals. Just remember that no one can please everyone. Some of the people that post bad reviews are just folks that have a problem paying their bills. I always discount a bad review from people that complain about the price. They are not telling you about the quality of the work, they are complaining about the price.

Look for reviews from people that don't mention price but only talk about the work that was completed and the results of a job well done. You get what you pay for!

Going up on a roof etc is time/ risk. So not unreasonable to charge for that.

@Hemlock

do you have any pictures of the area below your wood burning chimney? Do you have an ash cleanout or is there any cracks in the bottom of that chimney firebox where ash can be dropping down into the cinderblock or bricks below? Its the only thing I can think of where a light smell of something smokey may be coming from on windy days when your boiler is not running.

No expertise here, but I still do not see a barometric draft control? Has one been added?

This indicates that the mortar around the bricks is deteriorating.   That will let some of the odors inside the chImney leak out.   If those leaks are near an inside wall in your home, then whenever there is a positive pressure inside the chimney those odors will enter your home.  The repair for this can be expensive depending on how much mortar is missing and how easy it is to access. This type of repair is called pointing.   The chimney liner will eliminate the need for pointing the chimney due to leaks.  It won't reduce the need for pointing for structural reasons.

There is a few seconds of high pressure then the pressure drops to a draft or vacuum after that, when the chimney is new.   When the chimney is leaking, like yours may be, then the draft is not as good and can even end up becoming a pressure when the wind (or light breeze) is in a certain direction.  chimneys are a funny sort of thing and not very well understood by most folks.   

Even some chimney professionals that just clean chimneys (not a certified chimney pro) don't really know how they work and what causes them not to work.   I had a gentleman that advertised chimney cleaning for a low price in the local shopper guide. Lots of my customers used him for the simple stuff that is usually good enough. I had a customer with a problem similar to yours in an 1880's built home. That same chimney “Pro” took a look up the chimney with his mirror and saw light at the top and said that the chimney was just fine.   But whenever the wind blew from the northeast, north, or northwest the pilot light would blow out.  Even I could see that more than 50% of the mortar was missing from the bricks and there was no inner liner inside that chimney.  But the “Pro” said everything was fine.

How do you compete with that?