Just wondering
A lot of us who post here have been at it a long time. 1000s of years of experience here.
I started life as an oil tech and everything else came later. You can have untold problems with anything. Oil burners, gas burners, electrical refrigeration and AC etc.
Which one (and there are others) did you find the most difficult or have the most problems with?
For me my first 13 years were 90% oil burner work. Mostly commercial. i worked on burners larger that 100gallons/hour but most were in the 20-75 gph range.
2,4 and (yuk) 6 oil and gas and combination gas /oil. Luckily, starting around 1980 after the oil embargo most schools and commercial buildings were switching from 4 & 6 oil to 2 oil and gas which made life a little easier.
What gave you the most problems or was the most difficult to fix?
For me a #6 0il and gas combination burner was pretty tough.
Comments
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Don't Wonder too far, you may get lost.
My first years were exclusive residential oil heat. Mostly boilers, but some furnaces. I would look back and say the combustion adjustments using the old Bacharach Wet Kit on older "Non flame Retention" oil burners. We had a zero smoke spot test policy, so there were often times where the old Quiet Heat and SilentHeat burners would end up with a 6% CO2 reading and still have a #2 smoke. Then I would try a different spray pattern or spray angle nozzle to get the numbers up. After everything new boiler of furnace came equipped with Beckett AF burners, oil heat became very clean and very easy.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Refrigeration has alway been somewhat mysterious to me. Maybe just not enough experience with it to get comfortable.
Hydronics is understandable, is hot water being circulated at the correct temperature and flow rate, the answers are easy to come by.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream
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Refrigeration and AC you pick up little tricks. The second company I worked for I did the installs but they were mostly a service company, so I ended up doing a lot of service as well. That's where I really learned AC.
You would get called to a big store with 5 or 6 RTUs and they would say the AC is down but they couldn't tell you which unit. You would walk around the roof and if all the units were running you would look for the unit that wasn't dumping as much condensate as the others.
I am so old the first RTus I worked on with gas heat had standing pilots. When it got windy you would be out on call relighting pilots. Old Mueller Climatrol units.
@EdTheHeaterMan problem with the wet kits they were slow. By the time you adjusted the burner and combustion tested it you were always off on limit.
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When I read @EBEBRATT-Ed's post I thought he was writing for me except for my first 6 years were in residential, (90% gas and 10% oil). When I got out of the NAVY, I went to a tech school that is now out of business "thank the lord" that was teaching things like low side floats and high side floats and touted them as the latest devices. After school, I never again saw one of these. Since I got into the business in 1968, things have really changed and I learned to use all the above mentioned combustion testers including a Hays Orsat analyzer. As ED said, #6 oil was the worst. Get it on your clothes and it was there forever.
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There's no oil here; all NG. I've had difficult, hateful work, but nothing like you lot.
You guys are tough!
8.33 lbs./gal. x 60 min./hr. x 20°ΔT = 10,000 BTU's/hour
Two btu per sq ft for degree difference for a slab1 -
like what got replaced with a cap tube in the late 30's?
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Probably the thing that has changed the most in the last 50 years or so is the controls. Building controls DDC has taken over pneumatics. Almost all the equipment has a microprocessor or computer based control.
An oil fired residential boiler is about the same
An atmospheric gas boiler is about the same
Mod cons are a big change
variable speed pumps and VFDs are new
Some commercial burners have Lo Nox and exhaust gas recirculation
Residential oi burners are about the same with increased oil pressure being the change.
Residential gas furnaces are condensing high efficiency
Commercial boilers are about the same
Double wall oil tanks
AC & refrigeration is about the same.
Yeah, I would say controls are the biggest change and are a constant learning curve.
@Alan (California Radiant) Forbes
I didn't shed any tears when #4 & #6 oil started to fade.
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What gave me/us the most problems? The panic of customers in the month of October. This is the month in my area where and when the weather would change, and all manner of need for our services came charging in all at once. I started to call the month of October "A month of Mondays."
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Yes October/November. They knew they had a problem and hoped it would magicly heal over the summer
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Adams oil fired condensing furnace. They were poorly built, and had a lot of gasket leaks, which doesn't play well with t burner that is trying to pressurize the system to get the flue gasses out. There are if i remember, 40 very flimsy turbulator tubes in the secondary heat exchanger, and if that unit gets sooted up, you better put your hazmat suit on. Since it is in the secondary, they are generally wet, and wet soot is a nasty mess. Luckily I only had that happen twice, but what a mess.
Rick
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Anything built by ADAMS is JUNK afaik. The company I used to work for installed some of their condensing furnaces and they were ripped out after a few years. I never saw them but heard about it.
Then because they didn't learn their lesson, they bought a 500,000 btu Adams oil fired horizontal furnace to replace one in a DPW garage.
On start up I had flames and smoke coming out the flame observation port. Called Adams and they gave me a song and dance told me I didn't install it right BLA<BLA<BLA.
They finally sent a factory "tech" out. Turns out when they welded the HX it had pin holes in some welds and they "forgot" to weld in a 4 x 5" steel plate so the blower was pressurizing the HX.
The put a new HX on a truck and the guy drove all night from Cleveland with it.
Of course we had to disconnect the flue, oil,electrical and duct work and remove the burner and rig it back down 15' to the floor. Take it apart swap the hx and put it all back together.
That solved one problem. But we fired it up CO2 was ok but the stack temp was out of sight like 800 deg. They thought it was fine. (Adams)
I told my boss not to accept it its junk. Have them take it back we will get something else. But Adams sweet talked him and extended the warranty so they kept it. That was about 8 years ago.
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Yeah, that was my experience as well. Just bad workmanship. Bolts missing in the heat exchanger, labels falling off, bent cabinet pieces, etc.
When it was running right, the efficiency was very good though.
Rick
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systems that someone else worked on and screwed up. could be something as simple as raising a radiator 1" by using a 3" nipple and pushing condensate line down 2". ten years before i got there.
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