One More Boiler-Burner Question

[houseslave]

Hi,

I have an older cast iron boiler. I just recently had a Reillo burner installed (it replace a 30 year old Beckett head). Today it's 31 degrees out and the boiler is working hard to keep temp in the house. I did so with the old head too. When I called Reillo they looked up my boiler and suggested a 1.34gph nozzle. The installer suggested a 1gph nozzle which is what was installed. The boiler is set at 180 degrees on the high side with a 20 degree diff. Should I have a larger nozzle installed in the burner or set the temp to 190 on the boiler? My boiler is 30 years old so is there a chance that a larger nozzle could damage the asbestos type fire chamber? Would I use less energy with a larger nozzle?

Thanks in advance.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

What do you mean by:working hard:? The burner is either off or on. There is no "hard" or "easy" setting. Do you mean that it is running a lot of the time? How often does the burner cycle off and on?

If the burner cannot get the water to 180, there is no reason to set it to

190 as it won't get to that temperature either. As stated before, the burner is either "on" and producing a certain amount of heat, or it is "off" and not making any heat. Drives me nuts that people set a thermostat higher and expect the house to heat up faster. Just can't happen. You don't push the light switch harder to make the light brighter. Same difference.

A larger nozzle will put more oil into the fire box and it will burn hotter. I have no idea if that is a good idea for your boiler though.

[L. M. Rappaport]

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 11:30:19 GMT, "houseslave" wrote (with possible editing):

What Ed said. Plus, there is a second setting on the Riello - pressure. You might inform your burner tech that the boiler can't keep the heat up. Besides changing the nozzle, he can also adjust the pressure which also has an effect on the heat produced. Gph on the nozzle is a little misleading to us amateurs as it only indicates the gph at some standard pressure. The amount of heat produced is gph x pressure. (Note - I am not burner tech; just someone who went through a bunch of problems with a Riello-fired Buderus)

[mark Ransley]

How many hours is it running a day, there are thermostats that record hours run. Are your radiators bled, all open, and correct water pressure

- altitude in your system

[houseslave]

[mark Ransley]

That sounds normal. Until you know hours run a day you are basing worries on nothing, but fear.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Sounds about right. Of course it depends on the outdoor temperature also. Is it trying to overcome the heat loss with a 30 degree differential or a 60 degree differential?

[Stormin Mormon]

Are you aware how insulting you are being? The Riello guys go through a lot of work t figure out what works well for thier burners, and to make their burners work well with other companies boilers.

How dare you think that you know more about burners than they do!

You got an installer out, and then you think you're smarter than he is, and you called the Riello company to see if your installer was wrong. And now you want to do something totally differently than the installer or the Riello reccomendations?

I'm glad I'm not your installer. I've had customers like you before, and I've had to fire a customer a couple times.

[Stormin Mormon]

Why don't you rip it out and put in a forced air system? They work a lot faster.

Half hour? Four degrees? Sounds right to me.

[houseslave]

Stormin,

You must have had a bad day. The installer that came out suggested that we try a 1gph nozzle and then we could change it out later if we see that it isn't doing the job of keeping the house cozy when it gets really cold out. I called him to say that it took 30 minutes to raise my house by 4 degrees when it was 30 degrees out. Still no call back. I called Reillo because I didn't know the level of competence of my installer. I got his name out of the yellow book. I don't know if he attended any Reillo training or not. He did say that he had the burner in his house, he has been around for a while and checked out with BBB. Anyway, I wanted to see what Reillo recommended for nozzle size, for my boiler, which was different then the tech. He seems to have done a good job but he didn't use any testing equipment and did everything by eye. He was also going to leave the old stack switch in until I said I would pay him extra to remove it and tie off the wires in a box I had ready to go. I'm not sure if he has my burner set for maximum efficiency since he set the air once and made no other adjustments or took any readings. So cut me some slack.

[mark Ransley]

Well Stormin isnt smat enough to Screw you , He tries... it because he is an idiot. . IM no HVAC person but id get an efficency test on the flue,.... Fuck Stormin Mormin, The Moron of ALT HOME REPAIR

[houseslave]