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WHPES

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Just a reminder to folks that when you come across a sooted up boiler (usually where a conventional flue is blocked, a balanced flue gasket breaks down (ex the early Trianco square balanced flues) or a pump wears out), after you have de-sooted the boiler and fixed the problem, it will take several hours for the loose soot to burn off and give you a reliable CO reading on your analyser.

Use your smoke pump to get the smoke down, leave the boiler running and come back in a couple of hours to set up with the analyser.
 
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I'd add to that, leave the boiler running over aired or lower jetted for a few days if bad. Smoke tests early will show yellow which is your unburnt soot.
 
Great tips! Thank you. Any other tips or tricks please add to this thread

Gonna sticky this one.
 
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Better still chuck in a soot stick or spray with dualx to get rid of it all
 
Top tip:

Black nozzles/ stems often mean late ignition. This doesnt mean the electrodes come on late, it means the oil actually 'catches fire' after alot of oil has already been sprayed in. This causes a whump on start up which, as well as being noisy, blows oil back down the blast tube.

The best way to check is to take the burner out, remove the coil or the coil connector, and fire it up. A bit frightening at first but with the coil off it wont actually fire (although handle it as if it will, just to be safe). You can then watch the ignition arc and where the air takes it - it should be pushed by the air beyond the nozzle and into where the oil spray should be.

This can be caused by a few things including:

1. electrodes too close together so not much of an arc - bend apart, being careful if ceramic insulation.
2. electrodes too far back or forward - adjust to suit
3. electrodes too close to blast tube or nozzle and the arc not then being blown into the atomised oil - adjust to suit

The above is not comprehensive so please feel to add to it.
 
Sooting up can be caused by several problems if it just happens suddenly.

Blocked flue (birds nest etc)

Debris on baffles if not serviced for some time

Blocked air intake or fan (leaves, cat fur, dead mouse etc)

Faulty nozzle
oil leaking from behind nozzle (a few turns of PTFE round the nozzle thread will cure this)

contaminated fuel

Failed flue seal between the inlet and flue on a balanced flue. Common fault on the early Eurostars. See here: http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/o...ianco-leaking-balanced-flue-fault-repair.html

The part number for these gaskets is Trianco 221647 and you need 2 of them and a bit of silicone grease for assembly.

Some of the early eurostars don't have the red gasket in which case remove the flue sections and reassemble with high temperature silcone
 
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or sticking a wrong nozzle in - I did that recently, lord knows how I picked up the wrong one - .85 instead of a .75.....this is the result over 3 days:
 

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Sooted up boiler and other Trick.

oil leaking from behind nozzle (a few turns of PTFE round the nozzle thread will cure this)

The nozzle seals on the flat face of the nozzle assembly to the rear of the nozzle, not the threaded section, sometimes get a bit of dirt in the wrong place causing them to drip, if eroded then a replacement nozzle assembly is required.
 
If the nozzle assembly mating surfaces get slightly marked or deformed you can get a leak. A lot of the problems tend to be on old and obsolete burners where the nozzle has been taken out many times and as such spare parts are often unavailable.
 
Perhaps we should have a section where, when taking out an old boiler, we can announce it and if anyone has a problematic version, they can ask for parts from it.
 
My garage does look like a burner graveyard at times, tend to keep a couple of old burners around for emergency use.
 
I always save burners and have loads on my racking in various stages of dismantlement where I have raided for bits. I've got 2 RDB burners ready to go.

I've got loads of baffles for obsolete boilers so if anyone needs anything drop me a line.
 
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I find rdb's are a bit like rocking horse poop as far as a standby burner. I've broken all my burners down bar a b9 and I'm down to my last BH011.
 
I find rdb's are a bit like rocking horse poop as far as a standby burner. I've broken all my burners down bar a b9 and I'm down to my last BH011.

I have so many BHO 11s, I have no idea what amount are lying about.
 
I kept a couple of really decent burners from a couple of boiler changes I did to a house, where the bloke moved in and just wanted new boilers. Didn't care that the old ones worked fine and were only 5 years old. He wanted peace of mind. So in they went.

In the end, when I moved house last year, I threw them out.

In fairness, I mainly do installs on the oil side. So please excuse this if it's a stupid question. But do you keep 'standby' burners for use in particular boilers. Or do you have standby's which you fit the right nozzle in, set up the pump pressure and air ratio and put them in just about any other boiler? (As long as the blast tube fits, ect ect).
 
I always save burners and have loads on my racking in various stages of dismantlement where I have raided for bits. I've got 2 RDB burners ready to go.

I've got loads of baffles for obsolete boilers so if anyone needs anything drop me a line.
You could always start up a boiler scrapyard
 
Standbys for most boilers. Just fit nozzles and set up to suit. The RDB will fit most boilers.
 
Couple of tips I'm sure I posted in the general section but specific to oil:

Most motors take one 6202RS and one 6202zz bearings. These are the same as many alternator bearings and are readily available from car parts suppliers and as such a good deal cheaper than from plumbers merchants.

For tanks below the level of a burner you need a priming pump to draw the fuel into the burner. This is a bulb shaped squeezy rubber thing. Again obtainable from most automotive tool & parts dealers. Fit a flexi hose with male swivel end at the fuel pump end then you can push a rubber pipe onto it between your priming pump without having to mess with fittings.

When installing fuel lines to tanks below the level of the burner, remember to use the correct bore pipework, (usually 8 or 6mm diameter but given in your OFTEC installation file). 6mm plastic coated copper is cheaper to buy from a hydraulics merchants than an oil fired heating suppliers.

If you are into night fishing or night activities, get a Tilley lamp as you can run this on all the waste kerosene from cleaning filters / emptying old tanks etc.

If the ignition coil has failed, you need to replace the control unit as well, as the ignition relay has probably got stuck down which is usually the reason for the failure of the coil. Just replacing the coil is an expensive mistake as the fault with the control box will wreck the new coil.

Always remember to put your nut onto the oil pipe before you flare the end over
 
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For soot, I think DualX is the business!!
Cleans it out like a new one!

Nice one WHPES - How many of us have flared the pipe twice?? Doh!
 
I know I put this in the general section but I'll put it here as well.

Don't leave bits of kit you have replaced lying around at the customer's place as it's bad practice. One local engineer I come across seems to leave debris and junk with customers and today I was presented with a shoebox of worn out oil pumps, used flexi hoses, nozzles, bust control box, broken solenoid etc. Fair enough if something still functions (such as an old nozzle, but only one), leave it there, but otherwise If you replace something faulty, show it to the customer and ask if they would like you to dispose of or recycle it for them. If they say they want to keep it, fair enough, otherwise take your junk away with you.

It is one of my main pet hates, tradesmen leaving junk for me to clear away, whether they be electricians, joiners, plumbers etc. Wire trimmings, empty PTFE spools, rubble etc swept under floorboards really annoys me. I only use tradesmen for my own jobs who are tidy. Came to one property and there were half a dozen old flexi oil lines tied around a horizontal pipe like dead moles on a molecatcher's gibbet, totally ridiculous.

In industry for commercial work, it is an absolute no-no to leave junk on site and if you do so, the customer will take a dim view of it. Domestic is no different. There's also a potential liability risk if you leave a broken component and someone later tries it and something goes wrong, they could blame you.

On another note, as a previous post has said, make it obvious what you take off is useless by breaking it so it can't get mixed up with good stuff again. I always bend old immersion heater stats in half for example as soon as I take them out.

I worked in a printing works once. In the past, a plumber had left a short pipe offcut on a gantry which months later had accidentally been knocked off and fell into a printing press, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
 
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I quite like finding a little stash of old nozzles in a boiler, helps my scrap pile along a little :)
 
How many nozzles would you reckon you would have to find to have enough scrap to buy a pint of beer?
 
A fair few, but then I do replace a fair few, generally have a bucket full of the little fellas when I do a scrap run :)
 
Im so glad you said that Roger, thought Id be alone in that one - I have hundreds of old nozzles i my scrap bin all the time, all adds up :)
 
l like clearing up after scruffy gits, it all goes in my scrap tank
 
CHECK THE OIL LINE FILTERS.....aaaaaarrrgghh! Mind you, keeps me in business on breakdowns if you don't....
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Dont overtighten compression joints from HWOS :) (and yes, I should have used a copper olive but couldnt find one at that moment)

IMG_1571.jpg
 
Nice to see the insert, I presume you didnt have any flared fittings with you either.
 
I don't use flared fittings either. Just never have.

Bunker the photos you take seem very good quality. This isn't being taken with a phone is it?
 
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