Woke up this morning to no heat in the house....

[truckin88 104]

What a way to wake up, when you can see your own breath as well as the dogs......waiting on the oil company this morning, really wishing I did a service contract now. Will do one next year. Luckily, it is a new year and I have new days to take off, otherwise I'd be up $%^& creek, wife started her new job today, with a cold shower :unsure:

[rexman72 210]

you dont need a over priced service contract.have your oil boiler cleaned once a year.also find a person that will be your go to guy.

What a way to wake up, when you can see your own breath as well as the dogs......waiting on the oil company this morning, really wishing I did a service contract now. Will do one next year. Luckily, it is a new year and I have new days to take off, otherwise I'd be up $%^& creek, wife started her new job today, with a cold shower

[rmaynard 16,289]

The most common problem with an oil burner is something called a safety switch. Most burners have an electric eye that looks for a flame. If it doesn't see one within a preset period of time, the safety switch activates. The two reasons for no flame are; 1. No oil; 2. No spark. If you know that there is oil in the tank, then the most probable problem is your high voltage transformer. If you want to try, you can reset the switch. Only do it one time. If it kicks off again, wait for the repair man.

Do you know what brand of oil burner you have. Most modern systems use Beckett burners now. If you have a Beckett burner, the reset should be a red switch on the control unit on the right side top.

Also, be sure that someone didn't accidentally turn off the switch at the top of the steps.

[meadowfield 2,733]

we had similar last week....only a larger scale - though we thought our boiler had died

the building that holds our gas governer had the roof ripped off and the building blown over in strong winds on tuesday morning!

1500 residents of our village forced to step back 50 years and deal with it.

as it happens I was 250 miles away in London and we had gas

The police and gas company had to break into all the houses that were on vacation or at work to switch off the gas, so that they could turn the mains back on without danger of blowing the village up!

[tunahead72 2,543]

What a way to wake up, when you can see your own breath as well as the dogs......waiting on the oil company this morning, really wishing I did a service contract now. Will do one next year. Luckily, it is a new year and I have new days to take off, otherwise I'd be up $%^& creek, wife started her new job today, with a cold shower

Been there several times over the 30 years we've been in this house -- what turned out to be the problem in your case?

[truckin88 104]

It was the ignitor. It was just serviced 2 weeks ago, he came out, knew right away. He put a screw driver over the contact springs it had no spark, he replaced and it is working. I hit the red switch on the primary that senses for flame. The primary was in lockout, which he showed me to reset, but the reason for that is so you don't fill the furnace with #2 fuel oil and make a smoke cloud.

[rexman72 210]

yes the reason is because homeowners used to hit the reset button many times and would fill the chamber with oil and when it finally lite,it would explode.the ignitors they make now way half of what the old ignitors weigh and mad very cheap like everything else.the old ignitors used to be 10000 volts and even if you were losing voltage would still work as now the new 15000 volt ignitors go its all over.

It was the ignitor. It was just serviced 2 weeks ago, he came out, knew right away. He put a screw driver over the contact springs it had no spark, he replaced and it is working. I hit the red switch on the primary that senses for flame. The primary was in lockout, which he showed me to reset, but the reason for that is so you don't fill the furnace with #2 fuel oil and make a smoke cloud.

[AMC RULES 37,195]

Hence the reason for service contracts, because some people have no business messing with them. :confusion-shrug:

[HorseFixer 2,013]

What Bob is referring to is a Primary Safety Control the electric eYe connected to it is called a Cad Cell or Cadium sulfide Flame Detector or photocell. What it does is look through the Burner Gun and into the Pot and picks up the intensity of light and changes resistance depending on the light & resistance it creates keeps the burner running or shuts it off. The other type on old furnaces is a primary stack control and it senses heat from the burner to determine if there is FIRE IN THE HOLE!

The Ignition Transformer with the two springs touches copper electrode feet that connect to electrodes that are insulated by porcelain and have electrode rods that go through them and are gapped just over and in front of the Oil Nozzle. This critical Gap once burner motor starts it turns a small squirrel cage and gets air pumping in the burner, turns an oil pump and pumps fuel at 100psi into the nozzle which atomizes the fuel and sprays a pattern of oil into the pot and is ignited by the ignition transformer. If the fire in the pot does not burn correctly and provide the Cad cell with the proper light within so many seconds the burner shuts down. All the above needs to be checked serviced and cleaned yearly and I would recommend the following.

1. Change Oil filter. 2. Change oil Nozzle. 3. Clean electrodes & Gap Properly remove soot & carbon from burner. 4. Clean burner fan. Clean face of transformer and adjust contact points for no shorts. Adjust air mixture. 5. Clean Vent Stack to chimney and heat exchanger. 6. Adjust barometric damper on stack at .03 WC neg pressure. 7. Clean and service blower belts, lube bearings and motor. 8. Then tune burner with CO2 meter (combustion analyzer). Doing this yearly your burner will last many years and run trouble free. I don't believe in service contracts, Over years its a waste of money. If the HVAC companies that sell these weren't making money on them they wouldn't have them. As mentioned, just get unit serviced and find someone dependable, you will save money in the long run. This coming from a 30 year HVAC Mechanical Contractor.

As a side note: Carbon soot and so forth sometimes puffs back in the gun and covers or leaves a film on these parts. Carbon is a conductor and if the gun is not kept clean that 10,000 or 15,000 volts trails to ground and shorts out the ignition transformer. Hope this helps.

Cheers ~Duke

:beer:

[truckin88 104]

Guys it had its yearly service, 2 weeks ago, then this happened, I don't even want to let you know how much they nailed me for the repair. They also replaced 2 air vents as well (they were leaking). This is a Weil Mclain gold series oil furnance with indirect hot water. I have hot water baseboard heat (if that matters). I only go through about 600 gal of fuel oil a year, which is not bad for this part of NY.

[rmaynard 16,289]

Duke, you and I share the same dirty hands. I serviced oil burners for my dad when he was in the business. I am still called by many of my friends to look at their burners when they have problems. I service my own and I would not have anything but a Beckett burner.

Having said that...

Truckin88 - An igniter for a Weil McClain is basically the same as the electrodes on a standard burner. A new igniter sells for about $50.00. A service call in my area runs about $100.00 to $130.00 for the first hour plus parts. I don't know what kind of air vents they replaced, but for the burner repair alone, you should have paid around $150.00 to $180.00. The igniter is a common problem. If the technician touches the carbide portion of the igniter with his fingers, oil or grease can cause it to prematurely fail. A new or improperly trained service tech can cause your kind of problem without even knowing it.

Any Weil McClain service tech should have at least two igniters in the truck at the start of the day.

I hope you didn't get ripped.

[truckin88 104]

Gents I think I got dragged through the coals, airvent (above expansion tank) and yearly was $212.00 2 weeks ago, the air vent was leaking while he was hear had him service it. Then the last visit yesterday was $300, for the other air vent which started leaking, and the ignitor. I was just nervous about no heat, and didn't want to mess around. The house was built in 2007, but our well water was rough for a while, till we had it all sorted with a softener and chlorine injection.

Just curious was indirect hot water heater looks that the outer plastic finish casing split in the back at the seam, is that something to be concened about.

[truckin88 104]

First thank you for all the great advice on here, and for letting me pick your brains. Figured I'd post pics to avoid confusion (first house and really new to dealing with these issues)

System:

System Readings (is this all good?):

Air Vents that were replaced (the one above the expansion tank made it rain while I was working on the horse):

I just found that the back of the indirect has a split, I am sure it is not normal, but no leaks and have hot water, do I need to worry?:

And also just so you can see how bad our water is in this area, this is after going through chlorine injection, a water softener, green sand filter, this is the final carbon whole house filter, about 2 or 3 months build up:

[rexman72 210]

no need to worry about the rip.thats only the jacket as we call it which holds the insulation.those ait vents are taco vents and are about 5 bucks apeice.thats a beckett burner which is a good burner.basicly you have a cold start boiler with a tank that runs off a zone to heat that domestic water.you have a really great heating system.the problems you are having a basic issues.ignitors go and vents leak.its apart of life.

First thank you for all the great advice on here, and for letting me pick your brains. Figured I'd post pics to avoid confusion (first house and really new to dealing with these issues)

System:

System Readings (is this all good?):

Air Vents that were replaced (the one above the expansion tank made it rain while I was working on the horse):

I just found that the back of the indirect has a split, I am sure it is not normal, but no leaks and have hot water, do I need to worry?:

And also just so you can see how bad our water is in this area, this is after going through chlorine injection, a water softener, green sand filter, this is the final carbon whole house filter, about 2 or 3 months build up:

[truckin88 104]

Thanks for the info, was worried about that jacket, jsut was expecting another $$$$. Just had to put tires on the car to, been a rough month. New to this HVAC stuff so thank you to everyone for the help