I keep bees at a farm some distance away and was planning to visit check the hives this morning. Many years ago prior to retiring in a different life I had installed a Firebird boiler for the farm owner. Last night I received a distress call to say the boiler had locked out and resetting it simply led to a second lockout. Question 1 have you got fuel in the tank - answer yes it was getting down so I ordered some and its been delivered this morning. I combined my bee husbandry visit with a boiler breakdown. First thought was filters. Nope - slight partial coating on tank primary but nothing to cause fuel starvation. Headed indoors and pulled the burner to check ignition electrodes, nozzle and photocell. All clean and in good order. Cracked oil joint to burner but nothing came out. Headed outside to firestop valve and checked it was open then cracked joint to valve in fuel line - nothing came out. The pipe from tank to firestop valve dips under the drive then runs horizontal(ish) for some distance so likely either sediment clog or an air lock. I had nothing with me to purge the pipe so resorted to borrowing a bicycle pump which had a tapered adapter the would jam into the end of the oil pipe. I held it in while the farm owner pumped like mad. This blew the oil back into the tank followed by bubbles. On releasing the adapter a few seconds later oil appeared and flowed freely. Restored all connections, refitted the burner and vented the oil pump. Reset the lockout and the boiler fired up sweet as a bird. Only thing I could suggest was the tank had run empty just before the refill arrived so the burner pulled the oil in the pipe through followed by air then locking out. Farm owner said he'd never had a boiler repair by bicycle pump before. Oh and the bees were flying in and out of the hives.
- posted
3 years ago