Whenever our new oil boiler starts up, there is an overwhelming smell of oil for a few minutes. I never had this happen with F/A furnaces. Is it because the house is too air-tight. I think that’s where the furnace guy is going with it. It’s connected to RF heat and DWH, so it runs in the summer too (windows open, no A/C).
Another problem I have with it is that it continually sends HW to the DWH. Is this more or less efficient than sending HW on demand. The boiler guy has a computer that he can connect. Apparently this computer “learns” your water usage pattern, and talks to the boiler about when to fire and not fire. If the computer knows that you don’t really need to heat up water at 3A.M., it’ will stop the boiler. Any thoughts???
Thanks, guys.
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martagon, we've talked before. I'm no heat guy, just a dumb carpenter with a 15 yo similar set up. All my zones are on their own pump. The domestic water storage tank (sep. zone) has a thermostat which tells the boiler when to heat the water. If the water is hot enough, boiler water doesn't go through it. If in the middle of the nite the domestic cools, then the boiler heats it. There's no compution (sic) going on, just simple zones and thermostats. All the diff zones operate the same way.
I would have thought that by now, any residual oil on the heat exchanger would have burned off. You are confident there's no combustion air leaking at fire up? Perhaps some sealant used in the joining of boiler piping that off gasses at start up?
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"Another problem I have with it is that it continually sends HW to the DWH. Is this more or less efficient than sending HW on demand."
The thing your plumber is talking about is probably essentially a programmable thermostat that will turn the setpoint temp of the DHW down at night, or perhaps during the workday. If you have an indirect tank, and it is modern, the insulation on it is probably very good. The actual return on using that timer may be very low, and may take a very long time to pay for itself.
If you have DHW recirc, a timer on that would pay better, since the heatloss in the pipes is far worse than the heatloss through the tank.
Oil smell doesn't sound right. I have 2 oil fired steam boilers in the house (large, old house)and the last time we had a bad oil smell after fire up, there was an adjustment the oil burner tech did to clear things up. http://www.heatinghelp.com might have some answers also.
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That happened to our boiler last year couldn't figure it out for the longest time. Turns out when the guy cleaned it he had bent and hairline cracked the supply line so when the furnace fired and called for oil it ever slightly weeped in the jacked line. Take a look
Your furnace guy may be right about the house being too tight to allow things to run properly, but there's any number of other possible causes for the odor.
A few of possible would be ………wrong nozzle, dirty nozzle causing a pattern that's off-center or squirting fuel instead of atomizing it properly, low pump pressure, high pump pressure, too little combustion air, too little over-fire draft, improper set of the electrodes, improper location of the electrodes to the business end of the nozzle, improper set of the barometric damper……..or ####combination of any of the above.
Or it may be that the boiler burner has been running rich because of one of the above and now the heat exchanger is partially slugged which would also impede proper draft.
Another possibility would be that you have one of those bimetal dampers installed in the flue pipe and it takes it a minute to warm sufficiently before it curls up and allows for proper draft to be established. I have a similar device on our furnace here, but it's a motor driven device and must be fully opened before the contacts can touch which then pass current on thru to fire the furnace. Consequently, there's no chance of a delayed draft establishment.
I suppose there's also a chance that even though this is a new unit, you have a crack in the firepot or heat exchanger that could leak some combustion products until things warmed up and a bit more draft is created.
Whatever the case....it shouldn't do that….ever. I'd look into it pronto and then make certain you have a reliable digital display CO detector in the living quarters.
Opening a nearby door or window to the great-out-of doors and then firing the boiler should answer the question of whether this is all caused by the house being too tight for the present style of installation. Or if the boiler resides in a utility room, all it may take is cutting off the bottom of the door to allow for more air flow.
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Edited 9/15/2004 8:49 pm ET by GOLDHILLER
I don't do boilers but have a guy who does. We set up oil burners for temp job heat too! The only time there is ever any oil smell is;
A- somehow leaking or spilling oil - is this guy a pro?
B- bad mixture - too rich - easy adjustment - is this guy a pro?
C- maladjusted flue damper or blocked flue - is this guy a pro?
D- there is a crack in the burner - is this guy...?
E- the house might be too tight and he is right. The solution is one that he already knows about if he is a pro. Fan forced vents in and out or a powervent.
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The RFH guy and the furnace boss were up today to look at the furnace. With the changes I asked for, it's difficult for me to say exactly what they changed to help the situation, and what was changed to put the mind reader on .... However, they changed the nozzle from a 70° spray to a 60° spray; changed the vent opening from 3 1/2 to 2 1/2 (closed the opening for the vent fan somewhat), dropped the pressure on the oil pump (because the nozzle changed) changed the flow rate from ?1gal20 to 1 gal (I hope that's an hour, not per minute). They switched the turbulator to '0'. I have no idea what a turbulator is, or what the setting was before.
They were trying to lengthen the run time, slightly cooler, but slightly longer, to get a more efficient use from the oil. Anyway, when it fired this afternoon, I didn't smell the oil. Will have to sniff for a couple of weeks to see.
I'm putting this mind reader thing on. It's supposed to monitor the usage for a while, then tell the boiler whether it's worth firing up (say, I wash my hands at 11.30 p.m. in the summer, it should say, don't bother, but if I start the hot water for a shower at 5:30 am in the winter, it will know enough to tell the boiler to start sending lots of HW)
Boiler guy tells me there's a 2 yr money back gurantee on FRED (not its real name). If I don't think it's making a difference, I can get my money back.
I think that maybe there was a problem with the setting. A couple of times I heard furnace boss say, 'wonder why that was set like that'. They didn't try to brush off my concerns (advantage of living in a small town) but I liked having your opinions to fall back on. thanks for the advice guys.
Any comments on above still appreciated.
The nozzle and vent mixture setting will make a difference.
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