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Posted by HeatPro on May 22, 2006 at 15:22:52:
In Reply to: Weil McLain 368 Hot Water Oil Fired Boiler - Help posted by Jim on May 22, 2006 at 14:49:18:
Unless you have a combustion test kit ($500 and up), training and experience in combustion setup and testing (requires a license in several states) it is best to call someone:
The only way to tell is by using combustion test instruments, no one indicator will tell all of them:
When a tech uses combustion test instruments to give you a complete combustion test list including the data for:
Oil nozzle pressure ____
Pump suction pressure _____
draft over the fire _____
draft in the fire chamber ____
No smoke setting ____
CO2 percentage ____
room temperature _____
Stack temperature _____
Combustion efficiency _____
Then he will have a starting point to know, after all parts are clean and set to factory specs, if a condition like inadequate draft or other problem is a cause.
http://www.suntecpumps.com/PDFs/Installation%20and%20Service%20Manual%20-%20Section%20IV.pdf
http://www.websterfuelpumps.com/trouble.htm
You would like to get the thing dependable. Unfortunately, to know when you have achieved that requires combustion test instruments, suction and pressure gauges, smoke testers and draft gauges. No matter how you turn the thing around and rationalize that it just requires you to put good parts in, it always comes down to knowing the results of what you did and what the combustion characteristics are. There is no green light that comes on, nobody comes in the door and puts a sticky on the jacket and no letter comes to tell you that it is dependable - that comes from using the combustion test instruments and knowing when the unit will run because all the parts are the way the factory designed them to be and runs at the efficiency they designed it at.
You now know that the parts you put in are in good condition; but you don't know how well they are adjusted to give a good fire. You could completely change the entire heater and still not know without doing the factory-recommended tuning procedure with instruments.