When your oil burner runs out of heating fuel which is usually home heating oil there can be a few things that can go wrong and that will prevent you from starting the oil burner again quickly and easily. It doesn’t matter if you have a Beckett Burner, Carlin or even a Riello oil burner, the steps below will be the same. The only difference is that the oil pump bleed screw and a few other things might be in a slightly different place but the principles to get the burner are still the same.
You off course will want to make sure to get an oil delivery before trying to restart your oil burner again. If you do not have enough money to buy oil, you can always use a few gallons of diesel fuel to get your oil burner running again.The first thing to do is to get an adjustable crescent wrench ready because you will need this wrench to bleed the oil lines free from air. The oil pump and oil lines will become “air locked” because the new full you just put in the tank pushed air into the lines.
Looking at the front of the burner you will want to locate the oil pump on you Burner. On most oil burners like Beckett the oil pump bleed screw will be on the left side of the burner. If you have a Carlin burner it will be more towards the front of the unit. Once you find your oil bleed screw on the burner oil pump you will want to crack the bleed screw loose and then just hand tighten it back up for a moment.
Now is the time that you will want to bleed the air out of the oil lines and to do so you will do the following. Place your wrench on the bleeder screw and hit the oil burner safety reset. Once the burner motor kicks on you will want to open the bleeder screw for a few seconds until all of the air is free from the line. You will first see a rush of air and then a stream of oil. The thing to remember is that in the old days oil burner motors would have a 45 second “lock out” and the new models these days will have a15 second lock out because of the new safety reasons. So when you are bleeding your oil you may need to reset the oil burner more then once to get all of the air free from the lines.
Once you open the oil lines the first time and most of the air comes out the burner may possibly start, it will all depend on how much air is in your oil lines, how far away your oil tank is will also determine how much air or how many times you will have to bleed the burner oil pump. Once all or enough of the air is out your oil burner will ignite and you will have a running burner.
At times you can also run into a problem here and there so here is a couple of common scenarios just in case you do get stuck and can not get the burner re started.
Problem: “I don’t have a oil bleeder screw on my burner, or I just can’t find it”
Solution: Every oil burner including Beckett, and many others all have a bleeder screw on the oil pump, look around the pump more and you should see it.
Problem: “I have bleed the oil burner several times but it still won’t start”
Solution: There could be something else wrong with your unit, You may need to keep troubleshooting.
Problem: “I have not enough money for oil, can I use diesel fuel?”
Solution: Yes, you can use a few gallons of diesel fuel to get your oil burner running, and in fact this is common among most people when they run out of home heating oil.
It is always best to not run out of home heating oil, so that your oil burner does not have to be bleed at all and all of this can be avoided.
Thank you for help. I have been trying to get my beckett oil heater running after my wife frogot to order oil. Your article was great and helped me.
Thanks again.
matt
Thanks for your help! Finding this site was a lifesaver.
i too ran out of oil..i replace it with some deisel and bleed the lines and started the furnace…it fires and after 5-10 sec it stop and no more fire.
i changed the oil filters and the nozzel ..with the same results..not sure why it will light but will not maintain the fire.
i have the same problem any suggestions
Randy, you may have sludge blocking the flow of oil, if it won’t maintain the fire. Turn off the petcock on the oil tank and loosen the line coming out of the filter on the tank. Make sure to have a catch basin to catch the oil. Open the petcock to see if any oil comes out. If it doesn’t you make have sludge in the opening of the bottom of the tank. I had that problem. I had to replace my petcock because I used a wrench on it and ruined it. When I unscrewed the petcock, oil was only trickling out of the hole in the bottom of the tank. I pushed a stick in the hole and whoosh! Here comes the oil!! Best done when tank is empty!!! I screwed in the new petcock and was able to hook everything back up and start the furnace. This is best left to a proffesional. Can you imagine if I couldn’t get the petcock back in? There would be 150 gallons of oil on the floor!!!!!!!!! I did this with only a few gallons of oil in the tank, btw.
We have a Beckett burner with an oil tank approximately 50 feet away. After a cold snap of below freezing temps, I changed the oil filter near the oil tank. The line can be bleed, the furnance fires but when the house cools and it is time to have the heat turn back on, the fuelline is once again full of air. I have bleed the lines several times with the exact same results. Changed the oil filter mechanism with new fittings, gaskets, and filter thinking it might be a leak. Same result. The only thing I can think of is I cannot get the mechanism where the oil filter is attached to bleed at the top by loosening the screw. The tank is almost half full. Any suggestions???
Glad we have wood heat as a backup.
It sounds like you may have not gotten a good enough bleed, but you may also be correct in thinking there is a leak.
Sometimes if you are getting aeration in the oil a Tiger Loop can help.
I would want to be there troubleshooting to say for sure.
my carlin ez-pro module is in latch up mode. How do I get it out of that mode so I can continue to bleed my system? My systems is a weil Mclain. It only allowed me to bleed it twice then it locked up. any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Tim
I have a leaking tank so I ran it down so I could swap it out. The reset button is flash every 1/2 sec but will not do anything. I have a secondary line with clean fuel but can’t get the burner working to bleed the line.