Joseph Peach
New Member
Hi folks, I would really love any help if you all can identify what's happening in my boiler.
This video shows it all, with sound to help debug:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=fY7rAYZu05g
The boiler is on natural gas, I recently cleaned out the chamber, replaced the rear refractory insulation panel which was starting to crumble a bit, and calibrated it to about 8.4% CO2 on both the high and low fire settings.
It is apparently fine on high fire, when hot water demand is on. But when heat is called for on low fire it does this rumbling/vibrating. In the video, it does this for a few minutes, then suddenly "relaxes" into normal operation, the way it has been. I installed the boiler in 2005 and have been, not entirely, but mostly trouble free and a yearly cleanout of the chamber (which has generally not been as clean as I'd like it to be after only a year of usage, but from what others have said, I might be in the normal range of accumulation in the chamber although I don't have the experience to tell for sure.)
Perhaps I am still mis-calibrated, if that would cause this flickering? I am wondering if my combustion analyzer itself might need calibration, and if it's wrong then I am actually calibrating it incorrectly if the gauge is wrong... but the flame looks nice and blue, and in the past as I adjust the gas set pressure screws, if things are too rich or lean the flame color usually doesn't look so nice. Other possibilities I thought about is a dirty burner, but why it only happens initially I am at a loss to explain if it's really the burner. So I've tried reading forums and researching, I'm still working to identify the issue, and any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Joe
This video shows it all, with sound to help debug:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=fY7rAYZu05g
The boiler is on natural gas, I recently cleaned out the chamber, replaced the rear refractory insulation panel which was starting to crumble a bit, and calibrated it to about 8.4% CO2 on both the high and low fire settings.
It is apparently fine on high fire, when hot water demand is on. But when heat is called for on low fire it does this rumbling/vibrating. In the video, it does this for a few minutes, then suddenly "relaxes" into normal operation, the way it has been. I installed the boiler in 2005 and have been, not entirely, but mostly trouble free and a yearly cleanout of the chamber (which has generally not been as clean as I'd like it to be after only a year of usage, but from what others have said, I might be in the normal range of accumulation in the chamber although I don't have the experience to tell for sure.)
Perhaps I am still mis-calibrated, if that would cause this flickering? I am wondering if my combustion analyzer itself might need calibration, and if it's wrong then I am actually calibrating it incorrectly if the gauge is wrong... but the flame looks nice and blue, and in the past as I adjust the gas set pressure screws, if things are too rich or lean the flame color usually doesn't look so nice. Other possibilities I thought about is a dirty burner, but why it only happens initially I am at a loss to explain if it's really the burner. So I've tried reading forums and researching, I'm still working to identify the issue, and any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Joe
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