# OIL USE and Burner setting



## antioil (Nov 2, 2015)

For the first time i had a company  clean out my oil burner who does not deliver my oil. 

He told me that 2 of the settings where way off. One was the pressure of the oil injecting into the burner. It was set at 100 when it should have been 140 PSI. He tells me it is significant and the 140 is on the label on the Beckett Burner. The other setting was at 200 degrees when it should have been at 185. It was a dial like wheel with various degrees found in the little blue box (aquastat?)

I have noticed 2 things already. The furnace is not running as long and as often and that the heat coming from the registers is a lot warmer. I have kept a record of my use and the degree days etc. for 6 years. I have looked it over and noticed that i have used between 25 and 30% more since my oil guy did the annual clean out. I'll have to wait until spring to get an accurate sense of just how much of an improvement the correct settings make.

Would the wrong settings make that much of a difference ?ks than


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## maple1 (Nov 2, 2015)

Keeping your max temp setting at 200 vs. 185 will certainly use more oil. No question there. But lowering from 200 to 185 shouldn't have made your registers warmer, it should have done the opposite. So not sure what happened there.

Not so sure about the oil pressure thing.


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## peakbagger (Nov 2, 2015)

The aquastat setting definitely makes a difference unless you are short on baseboard and need the temperature. If you want to gain more efficiency an outdoor reset controller would vary the aquastat depending on outdoor temp for more efficiency.

The low pump pressure would tend to reduce the atomization of the oil reducing the burner efficiency slightly if it was way off, not sure if you see a benefit


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## saskwoodburner (Nov 2, 2015)

I'm confused here. You're considering more oil usage an improvement? In regards to the pressure being turned up, did they swap out the regular burner nozzle for a smaller one?


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## maple1 (Nov 2, 2015)

*You're considering more oil usage an improvement?*

Don't think that's what he said. I think he said more oil since the oil company started servicing. Now he's seeing less oil since they aren't. I think.


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## antioil (Nov 2, 2015)

maple1 said:


> *You're considering more oil usage an improvement?*
> 
> Don't think that's what he said. I think he said more oil since the oil company started servicing. Now he's seeing less oil since they aren't. I think.


Thanks all:

I am trying to determine if the old settings caused more unnecessary oil use.. I have to determine going forward if the new settings will be more efficient.

I guess what I am asking is If the burner should have been set ay 140 not 100 and the temp at 185 not 200 did this screw things up and caused inefficiency .


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## saskwoodburner (Nov 2, 2015)

I've spent way more time tinkering and pondering with my old oil burner than with a wood stove, so I'll offer a few thoughts. It doesn't mean I'm right, but then others can prove me wrong.

The 185 or 200 setting, if I'm remembering correctly, that's your start up temp, where the blower will engage. You know how you kick the t-stat, the furnace hums along, warming the firebox/refractory up, and 3? minutes later, the blower kicks on, and warm air comes out. If the fan doesn't kick on, your furnace will shut itself off as a safety if this temp keeps rising.

I believe if you had left the nozzle at the original 100 psi and lowered the setting to 185, you should have noticed it not quite as warm when it kicks.

Now, with turning the pressure up, and using the same nozzle, you're going to use more fuel. How much? I'm not sure. Usually when they turn up the pressure, they drop the nozzle size down to approximate the same fuel use per hour. The fuel under higher pressure mists better and burns better.

So even if all you did was drop the nozzle size, bumped the pressure, and did nothing else, the fuel in theory should burn better and probably slightly more efficient.

I'll add a thought about short cycling times with my furnace. We had a thermostat where you could set the on/off cycle so to speak. Moving the needle one way would make the furnace tend to kick in sooner, with less temp drop in the home, and would cycle for shorter times.

 I found it tended to get dirtier (nozzle/burner assembly) than when the temp drop setting was greater, and the furnace ran longer, but fewer times per hour. Sounds crazy, but I think it used more fuel this way. It spent more time running to heat up the firebox without the blower on. One guys opinion anyways.

I'm also wondering if the service guy didn't swap your nozzle size down. If I bumped my pressure 40 psi with the same nozzle, I'm thinking she would be smoking like an old locomotive!


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## antioil (Nov 3, 2015)

Thanks so much.
One thing for sure is that it is not smoking. I will call the company to see if they changed out the nozzle. The burner calls for the 140 pressuer. What seemed to happen the past couple of years was that the system just didn't get real hot, ran for longer periods. It was as if the boiler shut down because of the boiler pressure , again and agin etc.

I keep good tract of my usage and the degrees days so we'll see. I have a woodburnng stove and believe it or not we haven't started burning wood yet.
Been unusually warm...


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## maple1 (Nov 3, 2015)

Is this a boiler, or a hot air furnace?


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## woodgeek (Nov 3, 2015)

I think you're worrying about this too much.  There are a lot of incompetent and unscrupulous oil techs out there, but one thing that most of them do is badmouth whoever worked on the system last time.  You know, if they can convince you the previous guy was a doof, then you'll call them back.  Maybe the previous guy was ok, and the new guy is ok.  How do you know?

In my own case, I noticed this badmouth habit, and started calling them on it.  When one guy was badmouthing the 'previous tech' as incompetent, I pointed out that it was his boss.  On anther occasion, the 'previous idiot' was the same guy doing the badmouthing!  

The oil pump pressure thing sounds pretty fishy to me.  It all comes down to the oil flow rate...gallons per hour, gph.  The nozzle is a service item, every tech should change it out every time they're there, they cost like $2.  Maybe the previous guy put in a low-pressure nozzle (which needs less psi to get the same gph), and correctly adjusted the pump to match.  This is not rocket science....you put in a nozzle, set the pump to match, fire it up and adjust the air until in burns right (hopefully with an instrument, not just eyeballing it).  That and scrubbing all the soot off the heat exchanger.  If the previous guy had grossly messed up the pressure for the nozzle, it is hard to see how it would have burned right (with the right spray/flame shape).

As for the aquastat, I played with mine for years, finally turned out mine was malfunctioning, and I replaced it myself.  They are designed to 'fail safe' and can still cycle and deliver heat even if half the circuits are dead.  I don't doubt that it is cycling differently now, but it is very hard to speculate.  Generally, burning at a lower gph (your theory) gives better efficiency (and a lot more sooting).  But running the boiler at 200°F reduces efficiency.  So, if your theory is that it never reached 200°F, or even 185 (based on the hotter radiation now), then your oil consumption should go up, not down.  Probably just a few %, BTW, not a lot.  

Techs like to adjust for higher boiler temps....it makes for happier customers with faster warmup, better DHW service, less sooting, you name it.  Sounds like what your guy did...the problem is all that usually reduces efficiency.


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## antioil (Nov 3, 2015)

Good point. However, the Beckett burner has a sticker on it that says 140 and I just read his work summary he attached to the boiler and he did replace the nozzle (.85.) Which I think was the size that was there.

This was a company that had a special going through Angie's list and they do not deliver oil. Highly rated on AL.

My system is a boiler with hot water with 1950's registers.

I think you may be right that I am over thinking this. And with the cheap oil now... may not be a big deal.

Thanks


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## woodgeek (Nov 3, 2015)

Yeah, I get the burner has a sticker on it.  But you are not hiring a tech to dial in what it says on all the stickers, you are hiring a tech to get it to burn and cycle right.  Maybe with the nozzle the previous guy was using, the way he set it might have been correct for getting proper operation. There is no way to tell with the nozzle in the trash now. Even if the new tech says it was burning wrong when he showed up, the nozzle might have clogged after the previous tech left, absolving him of incompetence.  Nozzle corrode and or clog...its why you have annual service.

If the new nozzle works properly with the 'sticker value', great.  If you get a good vibe from the new tech, even better.  I learned about this back in the day because all the techs I had were creeps.


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## maple1 (Nov 3, 2015)

200 is too hot to keep a boiler - big waste of heat up the chimney. Shouldn't have to go more than 180.

Do you heat your DHW with this boiler too? Year round?


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## woodgeek (Nov 3, 2015)

I agree that I walked my boiler temps down below 185 to get higher efficiency, but in the end the unit started sooting up a lot more, and my DHW got crappy.

Its set to 185 now.  And it sounds like it wasn't reaching 200 before.


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## antioil (Nov 3, 2015)

Yes I do heat my DHW with this boiler. Amtrol hot water Maker.
Thanks again


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## maple1 (Nov 3, 2015)

That is likely costing you large $ in the off-heating season.

When I was heating our DHW with our old oil burner, I turned it down to the 150 range for the non-heating seasons.


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## begreen (Nov 3, 2015)

Our electric HWH is set to 125F. That's warm enough for DHW. All our hot water pipes are insulated to reduce heat loss.


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## woodgeek (Nov 3, 2015)

Indeed BG, my HPWH is set to 120. But many oil boilers set that low will condense and then soot up.  No bueno.


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## CaptSpiff (Nov 3, 2015)

All burner nozzles I've seen are stamped for "flow rate" referenced at 100 psi.

Unless the tech puts a gauge on the pump while running, he's just guessing. Most will simply adjust the pump pressure screw a set number of turns from bottom and then play with the air control to get a pretty flame. Installing a small 0-200 psi gauge on a 2 inch riser nipple ends the mystery for good. I always set pressure close to 100 psi, although there are a few burners which call for higher (as yours may). Be careful to make sure your 0.85 nozzle running at 140 psi isn't over-firing your boiler's firebox.

Your 0.85 nozzle running at 140 psi is delivering about 1.05 gal/hour, or about 147,000 btu/hr input.

As for the Aquastat, 175-195 deg cutoff settings are quite normal. I don't like 200+ deg settings, it's too close to boiling, but I've used that when there just isn't enough baseboard for the heat losses.


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## Brian26 (Nov 14, 2015)

CaptSpiff said:


> All burner nozzles I've seen are stamped for "flow rate" referenced at 100 psi.
> 
> Unless the tech puts a gauge on the pump while running, he's just guessing. Most will simply adjust the pump pressure screw a set number of turns from bottom and then play with the air control to get a pretty flame. Installing a small 0-200 psi gauge on a 2 inch riser nipple ends the mystery for good. I always set pressure close to 100 psi, although there are a few burners which call for higher (as yours may). Be careful to make sure your 0.85 nozzle running at 140 psi isn't over-firing your boiler's firebox.
> 
> ...



I have been tuning my 3 year old Carrier forced air oil furnace myself for the past 3 years. When I bought the house 3 years ago it was brand new and was tuned like crap. Wrong nozzle, pump pressure way off, air setting, etc.. With a lot of stuff these days if you want it done right do it yourself. Not saying all techs are bad but the majority probably just slap a nozzle and filter in and leave. 

All I did was read the installation manual and the Beckett Oil burner guide and tuned it myself. 

It takes all of about an hour and I am lucky that my cousin is an HVAC tech and lets me use his Testo combustion analyzer. 

I just tuned mine last week and at the factory recommended settings I just had to increase the air just a slight bit after checking it with the analyzer and doing a smoke test.

The big player here is having a combustion analyzer. If I didn't have access to one I would probably just buy one. After a few tune ups it would pay for itself for the peace of mind knowing it was done right. I think the going rate around here is $150+

Here is the printout from when I tuned it last week. 89 percent efficiency according to the printout.


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## Brian26 (Dec 6, 2015)

Brian26 said:


> I have been tuning my 3 year old Carrier forced air oil furnace myself for the past 3 years. When I bought the house 3 years ago it was brand new and was tuned like crap. Wrong nozzle, pump pressure way off, air setting, etc.. With a lot of stuff these days if you want it done right do it yourself. Not saying all techs are bad but the majority probably just slap a nozzle and filter in and leave.
> 
> All I did was read the installation manual and the Beckett Oil burner guide and tuned it myself.
> 
> ...



I just checked some friends/family furnaces this weekend with my cousins combustion analyzer. I am sure there are some good techs out there but it seems most of them just slap a nozzle in and change a filter. My mothers furnace had a way over sized nozzle and was running really inefficient and was burning heating oil like no tomorrow. She had an overpriced service contract for service/oil delivery and no longer does after what I found...


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## CaptSpiff (Dec 6, 2015)

I've been out of the business for a long time, but I agree that Oil Burner Techs swap "same for same" when they have it on hand. If that nozzle size was not in my stock, I was told to put in one size larger. The argument was "better heat recovery", but I always suspected he meant "we sell more oil".

With all the home efficiency over the past 30 years (insulation, low flow products, etc) I cannot think of a reason not to down size the boiler nozzles in those older units by about 10%. A little longer run time, but most people would likely not notice any real heat reduction. Just make sure you do the complete "tune up" which will adjust the air to match the new fuel flow.


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## antioil (Sep 5, 2016)

maple1 said:


> *You're considering more oil usage an improvement?*
> 
> Don't think that's what he said. I think he said more oil since the oil company started servicing. Now he's seeing less oil since they aren't. I think.


Yes Less now that I have an independent company clean out.


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## antioil (Sep 5, 2016)

antioil said:


> Yes Less now that I have an independent company clean out.


I need to ask again about the pressure setting on the beckett burner. Although this past winter was very warm I am experiencing less oil use . My Amtrol calls for heat all summer and it has not been using much at all. My last oil delivery was in April ( 165 gallons) The past 3 years, when I was with the other company I would be filling up my tank   now. But it appears I may go another month before another delivery which means about 30% less. This is significant, don't you all agree. So did I have a less than honest oil guy who made sure my oil use would be that much more inefficient with lowering the pressure by 40 PSI? Thanks


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## woodgeek (Sep 5, 2016)

I agree that it is plausible that the previous tech set your unit to be less efficient.  That is common practice in the name of 'fewer callbacks' from irate users.  Whether that inefficiency was caused by a reduced pressure is impossible to say.  As in our prior discussion, the techs do a number of different adjustments, to the oil flow rate (which depends on the oil pressure AND the nozzle used), the air flow rate, the aquastat temps, etc, all of which can impact the efficiency.


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## Seasoned Oak (Sep 11, 2016)

100 PSI is the old standard. Newer modern oil burners operate at 140. That said nozzle specs are still calculated at 100 PSI. I would turn my aquastat settings way down in summer if your heating hot water with yur oil boiler. PS (not a very efficient use of oil) since the whole time in between water draws the boiler loses heat quickly up the flue. During the heating season water temps will depend on if your running finned baseboard or cast iron radiators and how many relative to Sq footage.


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## antioil (Sep 20, 2016)

woodgeek said:


> I agree that it is plausible that the previous tech set your unit to be less efficient.  That is common practice in the name of 'fewer callbacks' from irate users.  Whether that inefficiency was caused by a reduced pressure is impossible to say.  As in our prior discussion, the techs do a number of different adjustments, to the oil flow rate (which depends on the oil pressure AND the nozzle used), the air flow rate, the aquastat temps, etc, all of which can impact the efficiency.


I just had an oil delivery and am now able to compare my "summer oil use" this year and last. Almost identical at one gallon per day from the last spring to September 19th. I was very surprised as the setting from 2015 was so much different, as I mentioned above. So now I'll look at the difference in the circulating pumps as all 3 are now new Grandfos pumps. I got a great deal on 2 of them as there is a rebate back to the distributor through Mass Save, the states energy saving program. Last winter I paid $80 dollars for one and just recently I paid $50 for 2. 

Thanks all for your comments and be look out as the winter approaches for more comparisons. My hypothesis is now that the past increase in oil oil use was due to defective circulating pumps. We'll let the numbers do the talking.


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## woodgeek (Sep 20, 2016)

antioil said:


> I just had an oil delivery and am now able to compare my "summer oil use" this year and last. Almost identical at one gallon per day from the last spring to September 19th. I was very surprised as the setting from 2015 was so much different, as I mentioned above. So now I'll look at the difference in the circulating pumps as all 3 are now new Grandfos pumps. I got a great deal on 2 of them as there is a rebate back to the distributor through Mass Save, the states energy saving program. Last winter I paid $80 dollars for one and just recently I paid $50 for 2.



I would bet that its simply parasitic loss.  Most boilers run 0.5-0.8 gallons/day in parasitic loss....why the boiler room is always so warm.  
Maybe you used another 0.2 gallons/day to heat water from a tap.

One easy thing to check is for thermosiphons....go feel your radiators in the summer and see which are stone cold and which are slightly warm.  If you have any of the latter, it is gravity driven flow (through/around the pump impeller) increasing your parasitic loss.  I was losing another 0.5 gal/day from one loop during the summer (and heating that space).  The solution....close a cutoff valve at the beginning of the summer, open it in the fall.


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## maple1 (Sep 20, 2016)

I'm not really seeing how 'bad' circs could cause more oil use?


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## velvetfoot (Sep 20, 2016)

Me neither.  Less electric use, yes.


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## antioil (Sep 22, 2016)

There must be something about these water pumps to get the Commonwealth of Mass to subsidize them. They do have Low, medium, high and automatic settings. I assume it means just how fast the water flows.

I was told they will save on oil.

Is it possible that it speeds up the delivery of the hot water to the registers and therefore heats a space faster?


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## maple1 (Sep 22, 2016)

You didn't say exactly what kind of pump (circulator). And I don't know anything about Mass programs. But if they are Alpha pumps, they use significantly less electricity than conventional ones.

I would ask whoever told you they save on oil, exactly how they save on oil.


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## antioil (Sep 24, 2016)

Grundfos Alpha variable speed. 

Cannot ask that person as I got them at a plumbing supply house but I will do an internet search. 
Just a home owner not a pro. Yes there is an improved electricity use but they also said oil use.

Just a guess but if a zone called for heat and these pumps increase the speed to get the hot water flowing wouldn't a zone get warmer faster?


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## antioil (Sep 24, 2016)

I found this at a site:

"These variable-speed, ECM circulators make a lot of sense for several reasons. One, they allow you to save pumping energy by varying the flow rate. Two, by reducing the flow they can increase the temperature difference between water leaving the boiler and water returning--which improves efficiency, so you use less heating fuel. (With a condensing boiler, this higher delta-T allows the boiler to truly operate in a condensing mode during swing seasons when less heat is being extracted out of the hydronic loop; often during those seasons, boilers stop operating in the condensing mode and their efficiency drops about 8%.) And three, these pumps compensate for the fact that circulator pumps are almost always significantly oversized."

It also mentions savings on electricity also. They are expensive but it cost me just $25 because of the Mass Save program and I didn't need to do anything like paperwork associated with a mail in rebate.

What do you think?


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## woodgeek (Sep 25, 2016)

I think "Do you have a condensing boiler?"


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## antioil (Sep 25, 2016)

I have a "typical" oil burner and a Turnham Boiler. I couldn't tell you what a condensing boiler is. I thought the reference to the savings in the snippet I copied would apply. Hey don't get me wrong I'm not working for any company here. 

A broken pump has to affect oil use !  as the area needing the heat isn't getting it and the thermostat isn't rising and therefore the burner runs longer...right?


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## maple1 (Sep 25, 2016)

The burner only keeps the boiler hot. So if the house isn't heating and drawing heat from the boiler, the burner will shut down when the boiler gets hot. The burner can't see where or if heat is going where it's supposed to. The burner would actually run shorter with no water moving due to a broken pump.


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## woodgeek (Sep 25, 2016)

Indeed.  If no heat is being delivered, then the boiler shuts off and no oil is being burned.

A condensing boiler runs the water at a lower temp to be more efficient.  The problem is that the oil combustion exhaust contains enough water that below some exhaust temp the water condenses on the heat exchanger.  So, in a condensing boiler the exchanged is corrosion proof (like stainless) and there is a pump to deal with the condensate.  If such a boiler is not set up right (like the wrong circulator pump or controller settings) then these savings are not realized.

It sounds like you have a standard (dumb) boiler where this is not an issue.  On the bright side, the ECM circulators do use less electricity.


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## velvetfoot (Sep 25, 2016)

I wish my insert had an ECM blower!


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