Oil furnace Service question:

[bill3rail]

sooooooooooooooooooooo, if you only use your Oil furnace for Hot water year round,
seems it's ok to have it serviced every other season I assume.

Depends on your level of comfort! My wife insists on having yearly service, although I have "missed" a year!

Do nozzles really wear out so that it has to be replaced every year? Comparing to a TDI Beetle I once had that got 50 mpg, and let's say burning 1000 gallons of heating fuel, that would equate to 50,000 miles. My injectors were going strong when I sold the car at 225,000 miles. Granted, they're probably made better.

Totally different fuels! Apples and Oranges!

Bill

 

[velvetfoot]

Yes. The diesel injectors had moving parts!

 

[Pellet-King]

I don't service my oil burner. I did adjust the igniter once and the firebox looked perfectly clean, the nozzle spray tip was clean as well. It is a 25 year old forced air oil furnace.

I have a forced air oil furnace, never really used it much until last winter, have hybrid electric water heater I installed 3 yr's ago for hot water, screw oil hot water, bought my house 8 yrs ago, runs good so I'm not having it cleaned

 

[Longstreet]

Do nozzles really wear out so that it has to be replaced every year? Comparing to a TDI Beetle I once had that got 50 mpg, and let's say burning 1000 gallons of heating fuel, that would equate to 50,000 miles. My injectors were going strong when I sold the car at 225,000 miles. Granted, they're probably made better.

Don't most furnaces only have one nozzel? Your TDI had four to share the load, so 1m gallons of heating fuel is really 200,000 miles in the VW. Not that crazy when you think about it.

 

[velvetfoot]

True.

 

[Brian26]

These are very easy to tune DIY. I am grateful that my cousin is an HVAC tech and I have access to a combustion analyzer to make the final settings.

I have a 4 year old forced air Carrier unit with a Beckett burner. There is really not much to servicing these yourself. Every other year I change the fuel filter, check the pump screen and set the pump pressure, put a new nozzle in and set the air setting/pump pressure to Beckett's recommended starting point. The Beckett suggested settings for pump pressure and air settings on the nozzle is usually spot on with little adjustment needed.

 

[velvetfoot]

Brian, I have a question. What is the difference with the air band and air shutter adjustments? I adjusted to the boiler mfr's specifications and the CO2 is still a little low. Im not sure if I should mess with the air band or shutter.

 

[rowerwet]

I do the every other year cleaning since the furnace is only used in the spring and fall and that rare morning when we don't fill the stove in time.
I also run my furnace on jet A fuel (highly refined kerosene) so it has very low solids, and much less ash. (it is free from my employers landlord, costs me nothing but a few minutes a day to drain it drom the sumps barrel)

 

[velvetfoot]

I should note that I figured out that the air band is for big adjustments and the air shutter for small .