I found this site because of this thread.
About three years ago I completed my lifetime goal of designing and building my own vacation house. It’s in the mountains of North Carolina and in a “resort areaâ€, about 20 minutes from Boone. I hired a friend of mine as a general contractor since he went to school in the Boone and had some contacts in the area. We managed to get some great subcontractors but also ended up with “subs from hellâ€, most notably the plumber. He “bad mouthed†me all over town, so that may have something to do with the service problems that I have experienced, but that’s another story.
For the heating I chose a Beckett oil fired boiler, model AFII 150. I spec’d a forced air system with an indirect domestic hot water. I placed the system in the basement garage so the waste heat from the boiler itself would keep the garage warm. I also planned for a long horizontal run on the direct vent boiler, running over a false ceiling in the “bunk house†portion of the basement, so I collect more waste heat that way, and I totally eliminated a chimney in the house. I got two bids, one “reaching for the sky†out of Boone, and he was the only local guy that could find. I ended up with a more reasonable bid out of Hickory, about 90 minutes away, and he ended up doing a great job. However, he’s too far away to be my service guy. The other guy that lost the bid isn’t interested.
We are there nearly every weekend during the winter and the tank is in the basement next to the boiler, so I’m able to keep tabs on the fuel level easily. I had a “guaranteed delivery†contract with my first oil supplier but I called him periodically anyway to tell him what the fuel level was. One weekend in February the float indicator was down at the bottom so I sticked the tank and there were 7 gallons left. The house is located at nearly 5000’ elevation so it gets pretty cold up there. Fortunately I have a large propane tank and a gas stove so I shut the burner off and kept everything from freezing during the next two weeks while I was waiting for the supplier to grace me with his presence. It cost me about $200 or so in propane (no thermostat on that heater).
My new supplier seems to be more dependable, but just to let y’all know what type of people we are dealing with, the driver wrote the combination to the entrance keypad in ball point on my garage door, adjacent to the keypad. He doesn’t service burners, and I’ve service my own (circa 1970’s) boiler in the past, so I figured I’d DIY.
I bought the tube brushes and cleaned out the boiler last time I was up there but I couldn’t re-start the boiler because the primary controller locked me out. I the figured that I was in over my head with electronic doo-dads and such so after many, many phone calls I found a guy 30 minutes away in Spruce Pine. It’s been a month now and the guy never showed up and no longer returns my phone calls.
So I’m back to DIY mode and as such found this site. So far I’ve learned that the Honeywell R7184 primary controller locks out after three tries. I then I found my manual for it, which tells me to hold the button down for 30 seconds to reset it. I’m going back up there this weekend and will go for round two and hopefully come back with a medal this time. While I’m at it I’ll replace the electrodes and nozzle.
After I get the system running again I have some issues that maybe y’all can help me with:
1. I am currently looking to purchase a Combustion gas analyzer, and the cheapest one I can find that measures O2 and CO is $540 at Cole-Palmer. Is there a cheaper unit available? I can justify the cost with increased efficiency because of the price of fuel but that still seems high.
2. The burner instruction manual says to adjust the air “until a trace smoke level is achieved†then increase to reduce CO2 by 1 or 2 percentage points. I couldn’t find a smoke or soot tester, so can I measure CO instead of smoke?
3. Bekett publishes on its web site “The effect of Elevation on Oil Burner Firingâ€. This states that an increase in the burner air setting may be required. Is this in addition to the setting in issue 2?
4. I am also interested in installing Beckett’s “HetManagerâ€, which promises 10% reduction in fuel consumption. Any advice on this or other types of add-ons would be appreciated.