Freezing Kerosene

[dontknowitall]

Just a quickie ... is it quite common?

(I'm having difficulty with a boiler that keeps cutting out after around a minute - I'm thinking it's fuel starvation with a part frozen oil line.)

 

[justlead1]

May well be the case, they use additives in parts of Northern Europe

 

[ecowarm]

Additives are added here too but will still freeze if it get cold enough

 

[dontknowitall]

Thank you for the quick responses. I've not experienced this freezing before but do know that lorries used to conk out in the 1970's, but not much nowdays. I was wondering how common it is for oil tanks and supply lines to freeze.

 

[djboyd]

-15 here a couple of nights ago, not problem with the oil tank.

 

[dontknowitall]

-15 here as well. Mine and neighbouring tanks are all fine - this customer's is a few miles away (probably same minimum temperature.)

 

[Gray0689]

Yes it is common for oil lines to freeze in very low temp

 

[cjg]

Q, when did he have his last delivery, its only when it starts getting COLD do they add the addative, so yes freezing is a poss,

 

[Dannypipe]

I've had probs with a clients oil fired boilers....he has two of them. One had stopped as the fire valve needed reseting, there was no sign of heat in the outside storeroom where the boiler lives, so don't know why it needed it.

The other has no flow through the tank filter. Going to change filter in the morning.

He asked me if the oil lines can freeze, and I said I didn't think so, it would have to be about -20, but I could be wrong??

While we're on the subject, doesn anyone know how much a pressure guage (for setting the pressure on the pump) would cost and where to buy from?

Also can you swap burners, only I have a spare burner that is the same KW output and could just swap them over while I clean the other one up...

I don't really like working on oil fired boilers, as gas is more my thing. Have had some training though with a Oftec engineer, so know enough to be safe.

 

[justlead1]

You can get a situation where water present on a filter freezes and cut of oil flow.