Quantcast
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2112

Nightmare service call/Old Repco boiler burner failure

I was disturbed from my sleep extremely early this morning by an emergency service call for no heat. Since it's pretty cold out I hurried over to this house hoping to remedy the situation quickly.

I was told on the phone that the pilot was out and just needed to be lit... maybe just needs a thermocouple...

So I arrive to find a very old, sad and neglected boiler. Covered in cobwebs and dust. I noticed that it had just a single burner coming off of what appears to be a new standing pilot gas valve.

The customer (an old man) explains that one of my coworkers installed the valve about a month ago. So I light the pilot and check the millivolt output of the thermocouple, 17-18 MV, looks good. So I grab my testo 320 and stuck in the breach after hooking up my manometer to the gas valve.

As soon as I switch the boiler on the burner fires and blows flames back out of the chamber. In ten seconds of operation it was producing enough CO to shut my Testo down on sensor protection. I end up finding this steel gas boiler completely plugged with soot. Damnit.

Three hours later I'm covered in soot but the boiler and flue pipe are finally clean. Tried firing the boiler again. Same results. Pulled the burner and found a burnt twisted piece of metal at the end of it and a warped disk shaped piece of metal in the chamber that was once attached to the burner.

I ended up condemning the boiler because it was unsafe to operate. I wish I had more pictures, but this picture of the burner is all I have. I doubt this wasn't any different when the new gas valve was installed. .

Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2112

Trending Articles