Top Five Oil Burner Troubleshooting Tips

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.

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.

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.