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Top Five Oil Burner Troubleshooting Tips

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The home heating system can be the most expensive time for homeowner, especially since the price of oil is completely unstable. Sometimes even if you have been taking proper care of your oil burner you still may run into problems and might have to troubleshoot the unit. Some problems that you will experience can be an easy fix, but on the downside there are somethings that will need to be fixed by a licensed or certified professional. Oil burner mechanics have years of experience and can have you back up and running in no time.Top Five Oil Burner Troubleshooting Tips

Many boiler companies like Weil Mclain, Utica , Crown Boilers, Smith boilers and many others use common burner heads on the boilers. The brand names that you are most likely to find on your oil fired boiler are Carlin Burners and Beckett Oil Burners and off course Riello Burners. This means that most supply houses like Sid Harvey’s or your local plumbing supply house will carry the parts you need.  There of course will be times that you will have a different type of brand then we mentioned and if it is less popular it may be harder to find parts, but lets get to the oil burner troubleshooting.
Beckett Oil Burner
The following is bunch of common things that can fail on your oil burner and we will provide some solutions to the problems.

Problem: “I have raised my thermostat but I have no heat”

Solution: This could be any things such as you are out of oil which is the #1 most common mistake people make when they think that there oil burner has failed. Either it being a bad tank gauge or a lack of money, the empty oil tank is most common.

Problem: “It Sounds like my oil burner is turing off and on , the off then on, and its struggling”

Solution: This sounds like you are running out of oil, have a clogged burner nozzle or even possible a clogged oil burner filter. It also could be a few rare other things. The first thing to do is to check your oil tank gauge, if you have oil, then that’s good, but don’t attempt to fix the oil burner unless you are trained or qualified to to do so.

Problem: “When I turn on my heat I heat rolling in the pipes”

Solution: The heating system needs to be bleed free of air. Common parts that prevent air from being in the system like airtrols may have failed and need to be replaced. Try bleeding the heat lines if you are qualified and that may do the trick. If your air returns you may have to troubleshoot into it more.

Problem: “The flame in my blast tube is orange when it used to be blue”

Solution: The burner needs to be adjusted. This will include adjusting the nozzle, air mixture and possibly adjusting or replacing bad electrodes if they are bad. Always use a professional to complete this kind of task.

Problem: ” The manual said to hit the reset, and I did but it tripped again and won’t reset”

Solution: Usually when an oil burner trips there is a problem. If you have rest the burner again and it has tripped again but will not restart then you have been locked out of the boiler. Most boiler burners have safety controls now that will “lock-out” the boiler and there will be a special sequence that the boiler will have to be restarted in by a service professional.

These are the most common things that will cause your oil fired boiler to fail and of course there are many other things that can go wrong, but this was a simple troubling shooting overview.

100 Comments

  1. hi, the red button on the boiler as gone out and the boiler wont start, the power light on the switch is on but red reset button isnt,,,,anything i can do to fix it please,,,,thanks

  2. worcester bosch greenray.4 years old. ok with hot wtaer only. With heating only it starts a rythmic knocking in the boiler. Sometimes it dont do it, and now burning heavy black smoke and sooting up. flue stat trips out.stinks ion that room. Any ideas please.

    • my beckett burner nozzle keeps blocking. changed the nozzle and filter runs good for 4 to 5 weeks and stops. is there a additive that will stop the and water. my oil tank is in the basement.

  3. i have to set the reset button on my becket oil burner inorder for the furnace to run. It will work for several hours or days, then will not fire up unless I set the reset. The oil filter has been changed, as have the air filters. There is power to the circuit board. We installed a new protector relay, that worked for several weeks. Then quit – had no power going to it, so put the original relay back on. Again, my furnace ran overnight then quit; having to set the reset button again. I have plenty of oil in my tank. What is going on?

  4. I get smoke out the draft regulator only when the burner comes on, otherwise it runs good. It does not seem to have late ignition, A service tech replaced the igniter and left. When I checked later, It is doing the same thing. The entire boiler was opened and cleaned this summer including the pipe into the chimney. New filter, new nozzle, electrodes set correctly. The boiler tech checked everything again. I hate to call them again when they did not solve the problem the first time. I am really frustrated. I was thinking about installing a Beckett pump with the delay solenoid and matching control. Help!

  5. I liked that you had mentioned that if the oil burner sounds like it’s struggling it could mean you’re low on oil or have a clogged filter. My wife has been a bit worried about our oil burner since it just isn’t performing as well as it normally does and we’re trying to figure out how to fix that. We might just have to look into having a professional come out and repair our machine, but we’ll also be making sure we have a good amount of oil in there.

  6. I have had my current oil burner for 10 years. it was overhauled a year ago getting many parts replaced. I used to turn on hot water faucet and get plenty of hot water. showers used to get at least 5 minutes of hot water. now I’m lucky to get a 30 second hot shower. is there anything I can do to fix this? thanks.

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