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Riello 40 F5 issue

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mitchxy
mitchxy Member Posts: 8
in Oil Heating

I have a 20 yr old Riello 40 F5 as is the entire system. Please read carefully as I have gone thru a lot of troubleshooting already.

Last spring, while still heating season, the burner failed to fire every several days. A reset would do the trick. And it was already serviced the previous fall. So this fall, I had it serviced again with someone else, thinking it was poor work from the last guy. Nozzle, filters, inspection. Tested and worked right away before he left. Two weeks later when starting up for the first time for heat, it didn't fire. Tried reset once every few days since it wasn't that cold yet. Never worked. Got the guy to come back and it worked when he pressed reset, of course. I had him look over everything. No air in the line. Working relay, power at the control box. Tested low water and other controls. No problems. Suggested control box, saying that Riello likes to combine functions in the box and more complicated to diagnose than Beckett's. I ordered one from Amazon, put it in the beginning of November and it worked instantly. So happy for a month straight.

Now it's happening again. Seems like every other day it doesn't fire in the morning. Press the reset and it works all day and maybe the next day. Nothing happened to make it not work, didn't run out of oil or anything. Maybe the box was poor quality? Bought another control box and put it in. Pressed reset 3x, no workie.

What could the problem be? These are aftermarket boxes I paid about $75 for. Could these just be poor quality? Is there an OEM brand? On supply store websites, I see them going for $200. Are these really better?

Thanks for any insight.

Comments

  • Grallert
    Grallert Member Posts: 1,041
    edited December 11

    Could be the control. Could be a number of things. Does anything happen when you press the reset button? I should add, Does anything happen when you press the reset and it does not start? Is the light illuminated in the red button befor you press it?

    Miss Hall's School service mechanic, greenhouse manager, teacher, dog walker and designated driver

  • HydronicMike
    HydronicMike Member Posts: 253
    edited December 11

    There's no way I would buy an aftermarket control box for $75 dollars…and trust it.
    I see no mention of combustion numbers, over fire draft, etc.
    And how did they determine 'no air in the line'?
    What is it firing into? Any pictures.
    Where is the oil tank in relation to the burner, distance and elevation. IOW something like the oil tank is 20 feet away and the bottom of the tank is x amount of feet above or below the oil burner.
    Gravity fed to burner? Oil line in bottom or top of tank? Over head lines? 1 line or 2? Oil deaerator?

  • HVACNUT
    HVACNUT Member Posts: 7,244

    Do you have a copy of the combustion test? What boiler? Chimney vented? Interior or exterior chimney? Draft readings?

    If I showed up on site with the burner in safety, I'd pull the assembly and see if the turbulator is wet.

    If combustion, draft, and smoke tests weren't done, find someone else. My guess with those symptoms is high draft and 104% excess air.

  • jmhajoca
    jmhajoca Member Posts: 2
    edited December 11

    Former Riello Burner Area Manager here.

    Draft, draft and draft! I cannot count how many jobs I went on that DRAFT was the issue. Guys first line of defense was always "that's the draft regulator that came with the boiler". That's fine…but if you read the instructions, it says something like it's good for 25 ft high chimney. So, if your chimney is 60 ft high - then you need to go up (2) sizes on the regulator - so that 6" regulator needs to be an 8" draft regulator. I went on a RIELLO commercial burner call 20 years ago in a Weil McLain 94 Series, (2) boilers and the other boiler had an old Kewanee burner in it lol. PLUS, (2) commercial AO Smith water heaters, all (4) appliances going into approximately 3x8 ductwork breaching - NO DRAFT Regulators. Chimney was approximately 125 ft high. I opened the flue cleanout and almost got sucked up the chimney ;-D. The contactor ended up putting (2) 20" barometric dampers in that breaching ductwork to get the draft right. See, big or small boilers/burners work off the same principle!

    Now FYI that 530 control is not digital - it's completely analog with a bi-metal heater for the reset. The more times you reset the control - the shorter the TFI is. So if you hit the reset button 5 times in a row - you'll be down to about 1-2 second TFI. Nothing wrong with that control - just the way its designed.

    Next thing I would check is vacuum on the pump. Everyone always makes in fun of that little pump, but I've seen those pumps do the unthinkable, and I've seen them do nothing out of a 5-gallon bucket. At this point if you're grasping at straws, put a vacuum gauge on the pump. Check the pressure while you're there, if someone turned down the pump pressure - now you're probably grossly over-aired. Just reviewing basic burner set up is key on problem jobs like this. I went out to help a local contractor two weeks ago that had a problem gas burner with nuisance lockouts for 2 years straight. Carlin EZ Gas burner. The contractor had replaced (3) 60200 FR controls and (1) ignitor over the two-year period. I simply found that the burner was NEVER set up with a combustion analyzer. It was running at 100% excess air, waaay too much draft and the wrong gas orifice size. Once we dialed everything in - burner is now purring like a kitten ;-)

    So, whether its oil, gas or dual fuel - big or small - same principles apply.

    neilcEBEBRATT-Ed
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 19,640

    @jmhajoca

    Did you work with Ross? I forgot his last name (Comptom?) and I know he retired before I did. I used to work on some Riello commercial stuff and did startups for Buderus maybe 18-20 years ago. Went to the school in Toronto once. Never worked on the smaller stuff much.

  • jmhajoca
    jmhajoca Member Posts: 2

    Yep sure did- Ross was a cool dude and wicked smart.

  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 19,640

    @jmhajoca

    I remember when I went to the Toronto school, he had a small burner he was demonstrating with and it wouldn't fire right.

    I forgot the details its been so long but I think the burner has some wrong parts on it. This happened at the end of the first day and he was frustrated.

    We came in the next morning and I think he worked on it part of the night to figur it out.

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