Helped out my boss yesterday. He's younger than me, likes to work on things, handy, learning, likes doing car work. I helped him with some boiler checking and ideas a while back. He texted me as I was headed to work II work overnights) saying his boiler stopped working and he thinks his line is clogged. He just got an oil delivery like 2 days before. He had a full service tune up with chamber pins brushed, chimney cleaned etc. about 45 days ago as he was having some issues with it misfiring but not totally shutting. More like "stumbles". It's going to 19 degrees here at night for the next couple days. It also does his hot water and his wife is pregnant. Not good for no heat or hot water.
I coached him through a couple things at work for him to check and clear lines if needed. He said he would try that after work. I got home from, my son was here, asked if he wanted to help me, sure. I grabbed a bunch of my boiler stuff, compressor, tools etc. Called my boss and said I'll be at your house at 11:30am because if we can't get it going you will need to get a service tech in again and better to have time before it gets cold.
There are couple easy to break connections in basement from tank. There are 2 lines, supply and return with a pretty long basement run to filter and boiler. We opened them, no fuel flowing free. We used the compressor and checked at tank, both lines created nice bubbles into tank so not clogged there. Used vacuum on supply and got fuel flow easy at that point. Went to filter and pulled vacuum, got good flow there. The fuel in middle of filter was clean and red so re-installed it and bled it until full. Had to use a bit of vacuum to get that filling, bleed started. We tried the boiler, it fired right up ran about a minute, stumbled and shut down. We did that 3-4 times, ran, stumbled, died. Bleeder on pump had some air when opened but clean. We checked return line at the easy break by tank, fuel flowing nice when pump ran so not worried about something like backflow pressure at pump causing restriction.
Tried boiler again with same thing, run, stumble, shut down. The bleeder screw for the filter is a 3/16" allen key with maybe a 5/8" or bigger screw. Easy to see into filter if removed. Checked filter/bleeder and it had oil. Tried boiler again, stumble, shut down, checked the bleeder right away. Center of filter was basically dry so not getting fuel fast enough through media. Of course I only brought one of the regular General 1A-30 filters because when I was there originally that was what he had. The tech at tune up changed and did the Westwood Spin on setup to give more filter capacity. Sent the boss to plumbing supply 5 minutes away (NICE!) and said get 2.
Put the new filter on, bled it which it did quickly this time, tried boiler. 1-2 quick stumbles from air in line and stayed running. Went for about 20 minutes to full temperature. Cleaned up and he was going toss the filter. I said wait do you have a Ziploc, I want to see what it looks like when I cut it open and share with my online "friends" if I find anything. I figured I would, so here it is.
I coached him through a couple things at work for him to check and clear lines if needed. He said he would try that after work. I got home from, my son was here, asked if he wanted to help me, sure. I grabbed a bunch of my boiler stuff, compressor, tools etc. Called my boss and said I'll be at your house at 11:30am because if we can't get it going you will need to get a service tech in again and better to have time before it gets cold.
There are couple easy to break connections in basement from tank. There are 2 lines, supply and return with a pretty long basement run to filter and boiler. We opened them, no fuel flowing free. We used the compressor and checked at tank, both lines created nice bubbles into tank so not clogged there. Used vacuum on supply and got fuel flow easy at that point. Went to filter and pulled vacuum, got good flow there. The fuel in middle of filter was clean and red so re-installed it and bled it until full. Had to use a bit of vacuum to get that filling, bleed started. We tried the boiler, it fired right up ran about a minute, stumbled and shut down. We did that 3-4 times, ran, stumbled, died. Bleeder on pump had some air when opened but clean. We checked return line at the easy break by tank, fuel flowing nice when pump ran so not worried about something like backflow pressure at pump causing restriction.
Tried boiler again with same thing, run, stumble, shut down. The bleeder screw for the filter is a 3/16" allen key with maybe a 5/8" or bigger screw. Easy to see into filter if removed. Checked filter/bleeder and it had oil. Tried boiler again, stumble, shut down, checked the bleeder right away. Center of filter was basically dry so not getting fuel fast enough through media. Of course I only brought one of the regular General 1A-30 filters because when I was there originally that was what he had. The tech at tune up changed and did the Westwood Spin on setup to give more filter capacity. Sent the boss to plumbing supply 5 minutes away (NICE!) and said get 2.
Put the new filter on, bled it which it did quickly this time, tried boiler. 1-2 quick stumbles from air in line and stayed running. Went for about 20 minutes to full temperature. Cleaned up and he was going toss the filter. I said wait do you have a Ziploc, I want to see what it looks like when I cut it open and share with my online "friends" if I find anything. I figured I would, so here it is.
